Not Conducive To Marrying You
Chapter 1
It was one of those crisp, last-weeks-of-term days where the sky was brilliantly blue and dotted with ridiculously fluffy white clouds, delighted shrieks filling the air as the school bell rang out across the playground. Summer was here and Grace practically hummed with the anticipation of the fast-approaching holidays as she linked her arm through her best friend Izzy’s. She was beaming and bouncing and Izzy couldn’t help but laugh, even as she rolled her eyes despairingly at her, shaking her head slightly. Grace’s good mood had been positively unstoppable for the past week as the summer holidays grew ever-closer, and the prospect of an entire summer spent with her dad and Jason loomed large; her mum had taken an age to relent to the plan but Grace had been adamant and, as Izzy knew all too well – having known Grace since the two of them were in nursery – there was little that could be done to stop her when she made up her mind.
“You do realise it’s not natural for anyone to be this happy after maths with Mrs. Griffiths, right?” Izzy sighed as Grace all but skipped towards the school gates, her wild curls bouncing out behind her. She flashed her friend an unashamed grin, shrugging idly.
“Like I care about maths – it’s over now and I’m off to spend a whole weekend with my dad and Jay: no Tim, bonus guitar lessons from Jay, cookies and shopping on Saturday morning and only a tiny bit of nagging to do my homework tonight.” Her eyes danced with delight as she spoke and Izzy pulled a face at her.
“Lucky,” she muttered, though she still shared a smile with Grace as they walked. “I need to get your dad and Jason to adopt me,” she added with a pout and Grace elbowed her lightly.
“No chance. I love you, Iz, but not enough to share,” she grinned impishly. But Izzy’s eyes were no longer on Grace; she nodded across the playground towards where parents were waiting to collect their children and Grace frowned slightly, confused.
“Why don’t we ask Jay what he thinks?” Izzy said softly and Grace turned, following her friend’s eyeline before suddenly letting out an excited gasp as she spotted what Izzy was looking at: Jason Orange stood out a mile in the late June sunshine – relaxing coolly against his car, leaning back on his hands with idle grace, a casual smile on his lips as he turned his face into the warmth of the sun, his eyes shielded by a pair of aviator sunglasses. His shirt ruffled in the light breeze and he glanced up at the sky briefly, the sunlight catching his profile; several of the waiting mums were watching him, though he didn’t seem to notice, instead busying himself by glancing down at his watch and playing absently with his car keys.
“Seriously, Grace, you have to tell me what planet your stepdad came from,” Izzy sighed. “And then find out if they do stepmums too,” she added. Grace simply laughed.
“Sorry, Iz: Jay is one of a kind. I know because my dad told me,” she said with an almost-proud smile, before suddenly grabbing a hold of Izzy’s hand.
“Jay!” she called out. Jason looked up immediately at the sound of his name being hollered into the peaceful summer air, and his smile widened as he spotted Grace, who instantly broke into a sprint, pulling Izzy with her as she hurtled in Jason’s direction.
A few of their classmates had turned to look at the sound of Grace’s shriek, but the sight was hardly rare these days; Jason was one of Grace’s registered guardians as far as the school were concerned and as time had gone on he had become an increasingly common sight at the school gates. Grace had plenty of friends at school and got along with almost everyone in her class, but Izzy had been the only one to really know anything about her family until recently – the arrival of Jason in her life had somehow managed to draw more attention to her, as events conspired to make him into something of a playground celebrity. It had all started one Monday morning when Grace had forgotten her PE kit: unable to reach her mum or her dad, it was Jason who had finally picked up the phone and made the save-the-day dash to the school at break-time, sneaking the PE kit to her across the playground fence with mere seconds to go before the bell, all without any suggestion of irritation and no threats to tell her off later. The event had drawn attention and questions, her entire class’ envy and admiration fuelling their collective curiosity. Grace had been cagey, oddly protective – or was that possessive? – of Jason, but Izzy, on the other hand, had been quick to start telling every Jason story she knew, coaxing Grace to join in eventually, when her pride had finally gotten the better of her. Of course, it helped that Jason was reasonably stylish and that he drove a car deemed to be cool, but it was the way he so often seemed to be Grace’s rescuer that her classmates most envied; the fact he doted on her was common knowledge, and, these days, so was the fact that he’d help her evade trouble whenever he could – there was just something about the way he withheld harsh judgment and listened to her problems without jumping to conclusions, no matter what the rights and wrongs may.
“I can’t believe you’re going to be riding home in style with Jason when I’m catching the world’s grottiest bus back to my stupid stepmum’s,” Izzy huffed lightly as Grace continued to drag her across the playground, but Grace wasn’t listening, all of her attention focused instead on Jason as they made it through the school gates and out onto the pavement.
Jason pushed himself up off his car as the girls flew towards him, laughing softly when he noticed the gleeful look on Grace’s face.
“It’s you!” Grace exclaimed as she finally let go of Izzy’s hand and closed the gap between herself and Jason, launching herself at him ecstatically.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he chuckled, catching her just in time and pulling her into an easy hug, lifting her off the ground briefly and giving her a squeeze. “Hi, kiddo,” he murmured into her hair, kissing the top of her head before setting her back down. He took off his shades, tucking them into the neck of his shirt and glancing at Izzy with a warm smile. “Hey, Izzy – you and Grace survived Mrs. Griffiths’ maths lesson I see,” he remarked and Izzy grinned.
“Barely,” she replied, rolling her eyes and making Jason laugh softly.
“From what I remember of my maths lessons at school, I don’t think putting maths as the last lesson on a Friday afternoon is a good plan – but don’t tell your teachers I said that,” he smiled and Izzy smirked. At Jason’s side, Grace wound her arms around his waist, beaming up at him as he wrapped his own arm affectionately around her shoulders, leaning back enough to meet her eyes. “Ready to go, sweetheart?” he asked and Grace nodded enthusiastically.
“More than,” she told him sincerely before her face suddenly creased into a frown. “Ok, so…not that I’m not really happy to see you, but I thought dad was picking me up today.”
“Your dad got a last minute call; there’s a bloke with a chain of clubs in Manchester who’s interested in some sort of regular gig. It’s well-paid and it’d mean he could be home more, so he thought he should keep the guy onside by dropping everything for him. We do have rent to pay, you know – assuming you want to keep that room of yours,” Jason shrugged, honest as ever, and Grace smiled, giving him a quick nod.
“It’s fine. He sent you, that makes up for it.” She paused and tilted her head to one side. “But if he asks, could you tell him he owes me ice cream?” she added impishly and Jason laughed.
“Whatever you say, kiddo.”
“Thank you,” Grace grinned and Jason rolled his eyes fondly.
“Don’t think I don’t know that you’re playing me,” he muttered with a slight shake of his head.
“Ok, I’m going to go before I get anymore jealous,” Izzy put in then, pulling a face at Grace and rolling her eyes. “Not all of us have dads with good taste in second marriages, and that means I have a bus to catch.”
“Sorry, Iz,” Grace laughed fondly, stepping over to wrap her best friend in a quick hug. When the two of them broke apart, Izzy gave a small wave in Jason’s direction before turning sharply and rushing off in the direction of the bus stop.
“You do realise you’re spoilt, don’t you, Gracie?” Jason remarked, not a hint of unkindness in his tone. Grace looked up at him with a bright smile, seeing the amusement in his eyes, and she gave him a mischievous shrug.
“You know you love me, Jay,” she told him gleefully and Jason chuckled.
“Come on, trouble, get in the car before that pretty head of yours gets any bigger,” he replied, turning artfully on his heel and opening the passenger door in one quick move.
“On one condition: you have to drive me past Posh Sophie – she’s been sending everyone crazy today and I think she could really use the reminder that I get to go home in your amazing convertible whilst her mum makes her walk.” Grace looked up hopefully at Jason, who simply rolled his eyes.
“In the car, kiddo,” he said, his smile fondly despairing, and without another word he moved around to the driver’s side, climbing in and starting the engine, sliding his sunglasses back over his eyes.
“But just to be clear: you are driving me past Posh Sophie, right?” Grace asked as she too climbed into the car. Jason’s lips curved up at the corners and he didn’t bother to hide his amusement.
“Seatbelt on and point me in the right direction,” he told her and Grace squealed.
“Jay, you’re the best.” Grace could see the way his eyes danced, even from behind his shades. It was nice to see Jason like this again, Grace thought; he was himself, his eyes cobalt blue and alive and his smile unreserved and genuine.
“And don’t you forget it, kiddo,” he laughed softly as they pulled out.
***
Mark was sitting in his favourite spot in the shop: cross-legged atop the baby grand, putting more strain on the old thing than Gary was entirely comfortable with. Mark was pouting slightly, bored and frustrated at being inside on such a sunny day, and he rested his chin on his hand, regarding Gary – who was attempting to dust around him – with round, twinkly eyes that were somehow both reproving and sad at the same time.
“Are you going to stop sulking and help me clean up at some point, Marko? Or are you just going to continue to look at me like a kicked puppy?” Gary sighed after the silence had dragged on too long. He put his hands on his hips and raised one eyebrow enquiringly, and Mark continued to regard him steadily, his pink little mouth turned down at the corners even as the vaguest hint of stubborn mischief stirred in his blue-grey eyes. If you looked hard enough there were flecks of green to be found in those eyes – when you looked at them in sunlight anyway; the thought made Gary feel a pang of guilt for cooping him up in the darkness of the shop’s back room for so long. “Look, the sooner we tidy up, the sooner we can get out of here. You, me, Cadbury? The park? Ice cream?” Gary waved his fingers jokingly in an attempt at jazz hands, a smile on his lips and his green eyes bright and teasing. He could see Mark trying to suppress a smile of his own. “Any of this bribery working for you, or do I need to up the stakes?” A slight sweat glistened on his brow and he blew out a tired breath – the air in the shop was stuffy and still today and he had to admit he could understand Mark’s objections to it. Mark tilted his head to one side, his lips twisting into a lopsided smile as he narrowed his eyes at Gary mischievously.
“I think you need to up the stakes, Barlow,” he declared at last and Gary laughed softly, flopping down onto the piano stool with a fondly despairing shake of his head.
“You’re a nightmare, you know that?” he questioned, but Mark simply beamed at him, eyes wide and delighted as he feigned innocence. Gary gave a defeated nod. “Of course you know that – you’ve traded on that whole ‘cute as a button’ thing too long to not know,” he remarked, trying and failing to conceal the affection in his voice. “Look, I know it’s no fun being cooped up in here when the sun’s shining – believe me, I know. But I’m a man short with Jay on the school run…he’d got most of the job done, actually. But Howard’s got a knack for distracting him that I can’t rival…and I couldn’t really tell him to leave Grace standing at the school gates on her own, could I?”
“Well then Jay and Grace owe me some sunshine; they’ll be driving along, top-down in Jay’s car right now whilst I’m inside of Barlow’s Music Shop, drowning in dust,” Mark huffed, pulling a face at Gary that made him smile. “I’m not made for being inside in summer, you know – and since you’ve had us rehearsing in almost all our free time lately, I’m more than ready for a weekend off.”
“I offered you the park, what more do you want?” Gary chuckled and Mark let out a dreamy sigh, leaning back slightly and fixing Gary with a bright smile that shone in his eyes.
“I’m talking wining and dining, Barlow; Howard shows you up, you know? He’s always sweeping Jay off his feet – and Jay doesn’t even thrive on the romance like me, Jay’s just happy in Howard’s company.”
“If only everyone in the world could be so easily pleased,” Gary shot back wryly, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he fixed his gaze on Mark, who shrugged idly and tried to smother his mischievous grin.
“Oh I don’t know, can’t have the whole world lowering its standards now, can we? No one would care about love-songs anymore then – all that music going to waste would be a terrible shame.” Mark’s grin was impish and Gary shook his head at him, smiling despite himself and letting out a soft chuckle.
“You do realise Howard and Jay’s idea of romance is when Jay joins him in the DJ booth and they dance like nobody’s watching, right? That’s not wining and dining, that’s exhibitionism. And I don’t do dancing. Besides, the two of them have good reason to stick close – after everything they’ve been through. Me and you on the other hand? We’re better just being cosy and quiet; you’ll get a walk in the park and like it, Marko.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you fully appreciate what a catch I am, Barlow,” Mark pouted playfully and Gary laughed, shaking his head and turning his eyes skywards, assuming his most put-upon expression and coaxing a grin out of Mark as he did so.
“You’re a high maintenance catch, I’ll give you that.”
“I’m adorable,” Mark countered, attempting to keep his face serious as he adjusted his position on the piano so that he was lying on his stomach. Gary fixed him with a steady stare, quirking his eyebrows sceptically, and Mark shrugged. “Beauty has its price, you know,” he informed Gary as solemnly as he could manage, and Gary smiled back at him quietly, leaning forwards so that their faces were suddenly very close.
“And what price might that be today?” Mark smiled at him silently for a moment, eyes twinkly and dazzling, before edging forwards just enough to capture Gary’s lips in a lingering kiss. It was a kiss which should have been sticky and uncomfortable in the stuffy heat of the shop’s back room, but Mark’s lips tasted of summer berries and sugar and the sensation was oddly cooling, even as Mark’s hair tickled against Gary’s skin.
As the two of them drew apart, Gary opened his eyes into Mark’s with a rueful smile, sitting back slowly and letting out a long, heavy sigh. “What do you want from me, Mark Owen?” he asked, looking up into Mark’s sparkling gaze with resigned affection.
“Romance, Barlow,” Mark told him simply, shrugging. “Romance.” He waggled his eyebrows and Gary let out a half-laugh-half-groan, letting his head drop back as he looked up at the ceiling.
“You know I can’t this weekend, Marko,” he protested weakly. Mark’s eyebrows knitted together in mild confusion and he scrunched up his face slightly.
“I don’t remember you telling me that.” He pushed himself up a little, still frowning, his eyes now scrutinizing Gary more intently. “What are you doing that I don’t know about?”
Gary had stiffened slightly, his eyes now downturned as he fiddled awkwardly with his hands; it didn’t take a genius to know he was hiding something, and Mark knew that Gary tended to tie himself in knots whenever he tried to keep a secret. He narrowed his eyes at him, but Gary refused to look up. “You’re up to something, Barlow.”
“It’s just an old friend, Marko. Someone I used to know a long time ago who finally got back in touch.” Gary looked up finally, shrugging one shoulder and trying to look casual. “It’s not a big deal. But I will be interested to see him again…see what he’s doing now. You know the stuff.”
“I know the stuff but I don’t know the friend – who is he?”
“No one important.”
“He’s important enough for you to be giving over a part of your weekend for him,” Mark pointed out, head on one side and a thoughtful expression gracing the soft, rounded features of his face. Gary sighed.
“It was a complicated end to the friendship, that’s all. Cross words were exchanged, no one ever really apologized to anyone else…he showed up at the shop the other day and offered an olive branch.”
“How old of a friend? Does Jay know him?”
“What’s with all the questions?” Gary laughed, hoping Mark didn’t notice the nervous edge to his voice.
“It’s just funny, that’s all; I know your friends from back in the day, you know? Dawn and Jay, Kim, your brother and his mate…what’s his name? Ash or Andrew or something?”
“Andy,” Gary put in, but Mark wasn’t really listening, pushing himself fully upright instead, his frown deepening.
“So: does Jay know this bloke?” he asked again, somehow sensing the question was important but not really knowing why. Gary squirmed, still avoiding his gaze.
“Marko, it’s not important – I’m just going out of curiosity more than anything, ok? I promise that as soon as I’ve got caught up on his life and cleared the air with him, I’ll be out of there and right back to you.” Gary looked up at Mark hopefully, and was relieved to see him wavering slightly, a smile dancing lightly across his lips as he jumped down from the piano and came to sit beside Gary on the stool.
“On one condition.” Gary raised one eyebrow.
“Go on,” he smirked, amused, and Mark bit back a grin, leaning in close and pressing a small, chaste kiss to Gary’s lips.
“You knock off work early and we have an afternoon of sunshine and romance and no more piano-dusting.” Mark widened his eyes mischievously, eyebrows raised, and Gary couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sound like a deal?”
“You’re a cheeky mare, Mark Owen.” He sighed, shaking his head. “But that being said: I do love you, you know that? I’m just really crap at showing it.” Mark grinned and Gary winked at him, leaning in to give him a quick peck on his cheek. “So teach me in the ways of sunshine and romance; come on – I’m listening.”
***
Grace couldn’t help but smile at the feeling of the sunshine on her face and she closed her eyes, leaning back and letting out a happy sigh. As Jason negotiated his way through the Manchester traffic, the breeze occasionally whipped Grace’s wild curls against her cheeks – it was one of those perfect summer afternoons with just the right ratio of sunshine and shade and it felt strangely exhilarating to be drifting through it. Grace couldn’t remember the last time everything had felt this peaceful. She briefly lifted her head and cast a sidelong glance across at Jason, whose fingers tapped out an absent beat on the steering wheel. Shadows flittered across his face as they drove along, but it was still possible to detect the almost-smile on his lips. Grace smiled too as she watched him, her mind wandering back across the past few months. A thrill of gratitude ran through her to see Jason like this; you wouldn’t know it to look at him now, but Grace knew first hand that it had been a struggle for Jason to be this person again, to re-find that calmness and reclaim some sort of control and peace of mind.
She was young but she was sharp, and her dad had never been able to hide much from her – Jason and her dad didn’t let the strain show too easily in front of her, but she still knew enough. It had never frightened her – she had an unshakeable faith that her dad and Jason belonged together – but she had allowed herself some small moments of worry, the odd doubt over whether anything could ever be the same again after all that had happened and its messy aftermath. She didn’t know exactly what Jason had gone through, but she knew it had shaken him, subdued him in a way which was different to his usual thoughtful, quiet nature. Emily Chappell had unsettled him, dislodged some of his surety and patience, making him edgier and less open – at first, anyway. All the legal saga which had followed had done nothing to calm him, and her dad – usually so relaxed and easy, so good at reading Jason – had been tense and terse for days at a time, seeming to look too closely at Jason’s re-opened wounds, bristling at what he saw. They had been just as in love as ever – more, if anything – but there was some strange, unspoken tension for a while, some lingering fear and doubt that had been stirred up and that they mistakenly took out on each other. But these past few weeks it seemed to have dissipated, the swirl of dust which had been thrown up suddenly beginning to resettle on the ground, leaving the air clear and brighter than ever. And today – well, today Jason reminded Grace of the day she’d first met him. He hummed and glowed like no one else and it made her smile. This was the man who’d let her talk to him endlessly about penguins, coloured with her on rainy Saturdays, danced with her on her birthday and picked her up from school the day she was sick in the playground, looking after her and telling her stories to make her smile until her mum was able to make it out of work to collect her. He was Jason again, and the sight was so beautiful it ached in her chest. She’d always known she adored him, but it hadn’t really occurred to her just how important he was to her until she’d had him taken away and barely returned intact. But now here he was again. Her Jason.
“Jay?” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask until the question was already on her lips, and it took her by surprise slightly. If Jason sensed the tentative curiosity in her tone, he didn’t seem to mind, flicking a brief glance across at her, his smile kind.
“Yes, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice genuine and tender, that tone of his the one he always tended to draw out her secrets with. His fingers had stilled on the wheel and, even though his eyes were on the road, Grace knew she had his attention. It was one of those wonderful things about Jason: his ability to sense when he ought to listen more carefully. Grace smiled and looked down at her hands, suddenly shy.
“I’m really glad you’re back,” she said quietly, stealing a look at him out of the very corner of her eye. “Really back, I mean,” she added, hoping he caught the meaningful inflection in her voice. For a moment he was quiet, but when she looked up she caught his eye and he flashed her a small, soft smile that she couldn’t help but return. Of course he caught the inflection: he was Jason, and insight was his thing.
“I’m glad I’m back too, kiddo,” he told her gently, before turning his eyes back to the road. “Really back, that is,” he added in a murmur, his smile lightly playful, though no less sincere. He licked his lips, his concentration seemingly back on the road, and for a moment the two of them were quiet. “You know you can ask, Grace – I don’t mind.” Jason’s voice was even and soft, and Grace looked at him somewhat sceptically; his face creased into a smile. “Me and your dad are under no illusions about how much you pick up on,” he shrugged, honest as ever. His voice was so open and kind that Grace wanted desperately to launch herself at him right there, to hug him fiercely without letting go – she probably would have done if he hadn’t been driving.
“I really missed you, that’s all,” she admitted quietly, glancing down and giving a one-shouldered shrug. “I missed this,” she added. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jason nod in understanding and she felt another overwhelming pang of gratitude for him. “Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings were the worst. And it’s weird because you didn’t used to be there Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings and I didn’t think it would matter so much. But this is nice. Today, I mean. It’s like nothing ever happened.” She looked back over at Jason, whose lips curved up at the corners as he cast her another quick sidelong glance. “I like you like this,” she told him honestly and Jason chuckled slightly, giving her a wink.
“I like me like this too – and so does your dad, I think,” he said brightly, coaxing a laugh out of Grace.
“Dad likes you any way, he’s in love with you,” she pointed out mischievously and Jason laughed, nodding slowly.
“So you’ve noticed that?” he joked. “Clever girl.” Grace rolled her eyes, though she was still smiling, and Jason grinned over at her fondly. “So if I’m ok, and your dad’s ok, that just leaves you, kiddo. You’ve had a lot to cope with for someone your age…between everything with me and your dad and things at your mum’s place…” Grace looked up at him in surprise and he shrugged. “See, I listen – even when I’m not entirely myself, I listen,” he explained and Grace couldn’t help but let out a small, shy laugh, looking back down at her hands. “I know it’s been rough, but if you do want to talk, just remember: messy families are my forte, so I promise not to judge. Or sell you out to your mum.” Grace smiled, a warm, grateful smile, but she kept her eyes down, chewing the inside of her cheek and thinking over his words for a moment.
“So I can ask anything?” She looked up at him from the corner of her eye. “Even things you don’t like answering?” she pressed. There was a smirk on his lips at that.
“Like father, like daughter,” he remarked ruefully. He flicked her another quick glance. “Special dispensations are always made for you and your dad, Gracie, you ought to know that by now,” he reminded her. Grace’s lips twisted in a grin that was part amusement and part pride. She blew out a breath.
“Just…are you sure you’re ok?” She regarded him carefully, trying to assess him more critically just in case she had previously been letting her weekend-sunshine-induced excitement get in the way. “Like, really really?” she pressed, and Jason laughed, the sound warm and rough, an honesty in it that she’d never known in any other person’s laugh but his – it was almost an answer on its own, she couldn’t help but think.
“I’m ok, Gracie. Really really; I promise.” He paused, then looked across at her with one of those secretive smiles of his, candid and knowing, light dancing in his eyes. “And for the record? I missed you too.” He shrugged, his eyes back on the road in a beat. “And not even just on Saturday mornings and Friday afternoons,” he added with a mischievous wink.
***
“God, who knew sunshine and romance was so tiring?” Gary yawned as he all but fell through the door of the flat, getting a light smack to his arm from Mark in return.
“You really know how to make a person feel special, you know that, Barlow?” The reprimand was light and affectionate and offset entirely by the brilliant grin which splintered his face.
“Now, Marko, we both know you are already fully aware of how special you are – you’ve never needed me for that,” Gary countered with a chuckle, catching Mark around the waist before he could duck past him into the room. He pulled him abruptly back towards him so as to place an affectionate kiss to his cheek, and Mark laughed lightly, twisting in the embrace before settling his arms around Gary’s neck, looking up into his eyes.
“I doesn’t hurt to be told,” he twinkled, making Gary laugh. He leant their foreheads together.
“You say that now, but when we have to sell Cadbury to make room in here for your ego, then you might change your tune,” Gary teased. Seeming to react to his name, Cadbury chose that moment to butt at Mark’s leg, making his knees buckle slightly. Gary caught his weight and the two of them exchanged a brief glance before dissolving into laughter. “I don’t think Cadbury likes the idea of being turfed out into the cold,” Gary chuckled, letting go of Mark in order to bend and scratch the dog behind his ears.
“Well maybe Cadbury thinks you’re the one who should sleep on the pavement,” Mark suggested with an impish grin, also bending to fuss over the dog, who wagged his tail in delight at suddenly finding himself as the centre of attention.
“Oh would he now?” Gary raised an eyebrow. “And does Cadbury know what that would do to my back?” he questioned, his eyes meeting Mark’s, which sparkled with childlike glee.
“I’m the master of the massage me, Gaz – I’d see you right in no time,” he replied, and Gary simply laughed, shaking his head in a show of despair.
“You’re a terror, Mark Owen. Now go stick the kettle on whilst I check the answer phone.”
Mark was still chuckling to himself as he headed towards the kitchen – Cadbury trotting loyally after him – and Gary shook his head, rolling his eyes as he turned his attention to the flashing ‘New Messages’ light on their flat’s phone.
“Mark Owen, you skiver – where are you? As if I don’t know; it wouldn’t be the first time you saw a sunny day and got me to cover your shift for you. Just don’t forget John and Stella are back from their holiday on Monday so you’d better be there, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to convince them you actually deserve a wage this month. You’re gonna need the money too – unless you’ve forgotten that we all agreed to put in a fiver towards Laura’s birthday present? Anyway, see you on Monday – money in hand – ok? Oh; it’s Gareth, by the way – I should probably remind you since there’s a 50% chance you’ve completely forgotten what I sound like, since you’re never at work anymore! My love to Gaz and Cadbury – don’t have too much fun this weekend!”
The answering machine beeped to indicate the end of Gareth’s messages, and Gary smirked, shaking his head slightly.
“Did you hear that, Marko?” he called. Mark appeared in the kitchen doorway, smiling only a little sheepishly, and Gary looked back at him over his shoulder, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Anything to say for yourself?” he pressed, trying to stifle the amusement in his voice, and Mark shrugged slightly.
“Just that John and Stella love me?” he suggested and Gary chuckled.
“They must do, because I’m pretty sure no one at that caff buys your ‘sick days’ for one moment,” he pointed out. Mark pulled a face.
“I’m good with the customers…when I’m in, anyway,” he countered, bringing a smile to Gary’s face.
“Oh, that you are, my dear. You’re a delight with the customers; I seem to remember spending a good two months having my lunch breaks in that cafe after Jay first helped get you the job – I was always hoping you’d stop and join me on your break but you never did. Not until Jay finally came with me; I was ready to slap him that day! I thought you’d just fall for him like everyone else he meets.”
“You never told me that!” Mark laughed fondly. “You should’ve said something – coz I could’ve told you it was all pure chance, you know. I only got sent over to stop the girls all fighting over Jay – which we all know is the only reason I got that job in the first place.”
“Ah yes, those girls can and will do anything for Jay – including convincing their bosses that you were the only person who applied who they could actually work with.”
“It wasn’t a total lie; they adore me, Barlow.”
“Well how could they not?” Gary smiled back winningly and Mark grinned, his face lighting up at the genuine note in Gary’s voice.
As Mark disappeared back into the kitchen, Gary turned back to the phone, moving onto the next message.
“Gary Barlow, have you cut out early to enjoy the sunshine?” Jason Orange’s voice crackled warmly from the phone’s small speaker and Gary couldn’t help but be amused by the teasing reprimand in that tone – he must have tried the shop before he called the flat, Gary supposed, and drawn an unnervingly accurate conclusion from the lack of an answer. “I’m assuming Mark’s to blame for you not answering on any of your phones? Always been a bad influence on you. And speaking of bad influences…” There was a laugh in Jason’s tone. “Sorry about leaving you high and dry earlier – for once it’s not all Howard’s fault though; Vicky’s out of town and Grace is very clear on the whole ‘not being abandoned at After School Club’ rule so I had to go or not hear the last of it for the next few months. Anyway, I wanted to get a hold of you to let you know that that bloke’s coming to pick up the saxophone you ordered in for him? One of our regulars, you’ll know the bloke I mean: Mike something. He’s stopping round tomorrow at three and I’ve got the day off so it’s up to you to make sure someone’s got the situation under control. Sorry to dump it on you but I owe Grace and Howard a weekend not spent mostly at the shop, you know? It’s been a rough few months for them and they need a break, honestly – all three of us probably do.” Mark reappeared with the teas then and Gary looked across at him, both of them mustering soft, sad little smiles. They knew what Jason meant about it having been tough and neither one of them begrudged him his want to find a way to counterbalance all the stress which had gone before. “Still, I’ll talk to you soon, ok? Both of you. And Markie, if you’re there: don’t get him in too much trouble – you know how he moans when he has too much fun.” Gary looked mildly affronted at Jason’s tease and Mark couldn’t help but laugh, lifting up on tiptoe to press a kiss to Gary’s cheek by way of compensation.
“You know he’s right, Barlow,” he pointed out with a cheeky grin. “I think your exact words were: who knew sunshine and romance could be so tiring,” he added and Gary pouted slightly.
“Shush you – you’ll notice he had you down as the one causing trouble,” he shot back, his eyes twinkling playfully as he looked down into Mark’s soft, rounded face.
The moment was broken as the next message suddenly erupted into the space, a sharp, all-business voice cutting through the quiet.
“Gary Barlow, you were supposed to call me!” Gary physically flinched at the sound, his hand shooting out instinctively to silence the message before it could continue. Mark looked at him in confusion, a frown suddenly coming over his face, and Gary held very still, as though somehow by not moving he could avoid any questions from Mark about his odd behaviour.
“I can listen to that later,” he said awkwardly and Mark raised an eyebrow, sceptical and not entirely impressed that Gary was so obviously keeping something from him.
“Gaz, come on. It’s me you’re talking to.” He looked up at Gary steadily for a moment before lightly bumping a shoulder against his, tipping his head to try and meet his eyes. Gary let out a heavy sigh and reluctantly looked over at him, sadness and guilt both clear on his face.
“Mark, it’s nothing. It’s just that mate I told you about.”
“You know, from the tone of that message, I’d say he doesn’t sound like the kind of mate you want to be reconnecting with,” Mark pointed out archly, the corners of his lips suddenly downturned. Gary swallowed, glancing down into his tea, a frown creasing his forehead.
“He’s just got a one-track mind, you know? When he’s at work he gets focused on stuff and he forgets who he’s talking to. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.” Mark studied his face thoughtfully before sighing and giving a sad little shrug.
“If you say so, Gaz. But you don’t need to hide stuff from me, you know. And…if this bloke is someone important to you-”
“He’s not, Marko. And it’s nothing, really. He’ll probably be long gone by this time next week.”
***
Howard looked up at the sound of a key in the apartment door’s lock, a smile already on his lips before the door had even opened. It was glorious to see Jason stroll in, all easy elegance and smiling eyes, tossing his keys up in the air and catching them gracefully. Like nothing had ever happened, like there had never been a question about whether or not he would ever come home. Jason flashed Howard a casual smile, arching one eyebrow as though he could hear his thoughts, and Howard let out a soft laugh, shaking his head slightly, his expression almost bashful. Grace appeared behind Jason then, rummaging in her schoolbag for something, a small frown of concentration on her face. Jason dodged skilfully out of her way before she could crash into him, pulling a face and making Howard laugh softly.
“Afternoon, love,” Howard said at last, and Jason smiled back at him winningly, crossing over to the breakfast bar and dipping his head to press a brief kiss to his lips.
“Hello, you.” Jason’s voice was low and coarse and his eyes shone as he pulled back from the kiss. “One daughter safely delivered by the way,” he remarked, gesturing in Grace’s direction, and Howard nodded absently, sliding down from his place at the breakfast bar and placing his hands on Jason’s hips, holding him close.
“So I see,” he replied, stealing another brief kiss. “Thank you,” Howard murmured against Jason’s lips, the tickle of his breath against his skin making him laugh softly.
“Ok, ew. One daughter going to her room now,” Grace called over her shoulder as she disappeared down the corridor, and briefly Howard and Jason twisted round to watch her go, amusement in their faces.
“Oops,” Howard commented simply, turning back to look at Jason, his smile betraying no hint of shame. Jason chuckled at him, shaking his head slightly even as he let Howard slip his fingers beneath the hem of his shirt.
“I think that’s a new record, love – even for us,” he said with an amused little smile that Howard wanted desperately to kiss. Jason seemed to sense the impulse and leaned back mischievously in the embrace, tilting his head to one side. “So it looks like the father-daughter bonding will have to wait,” he commented, arching an eyebrow, and Howard smiled down at him, leaning in a little closer as he gave a casual shrug.
“I’ll just have to bond with you instead then,” Howard whispered, dipping his head and stealing a lingering kiss. Jason laughed against him, pushing him away half-heartedly and giving him a gentle smack on the arm.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” he said with a groan, his head tipping back in a mix of amusement and despair that made Howard smile. His blue eyes were piecing – intent and mischievous all at once as he touched a hand to Jason’s chin, leaning their foreheads together.
“It’s like you don’t know me at all, Jay,” he said, his voice earnest even as a smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and Jason smirked fondly.
“Howard Donald, you are so lucky I love you,” he murmured, looking up into Howard’s wolf-like eyes with placid trust, his own eyes sparkling as they caught the sunlight.
“I know I’m lucky,” Howard said gently, slowly, brushing his knuckles tenderly down the side of Jason’s face. The very corner of Jason’s lips twitched up and Howard pressed a quick kiss there. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he whispered, drawing back just enough to look into Jason’s eyes, which he narrowed at him as though in protest. Howard could sense some counter-point was about to be made, but he didn’t want Jason to deny it, so he leant in once again and silenced him with another, longer kiss. “Don’t argue. Just this once, accept that you are gorgeous to me and nothing will ever change that,” he murmured against Jason’s lips, and he felt the curve of one of Jason’s rare, shy smiles; it made his heart grow bigger inside his chest.
“Ok,” Jason answered simply, looping his arms around Howard’s neck, and Howard smiled, holding him flush against him.
“Thank you,” he said softly, because for some reason it had felt important to him to make that point, and Jason leant back just enough to meet his gaze.
“And thank you too,” he told him, giving him a quick wink. Howard laughed self-consciously, reluctantly stepping back in order to sit back down on his stool, one hand still resting loosely on Jason’s hip, just beneath his shirt. Jason’s eyes stayed fixed on Howard’s face and he stepped closer almost instinctively. Howard’s thumb continued to trace a semi-circle across Jason’s skin.
For a moment they stayed that way: silent and basking in the June sunlight, which filled every corner of the apartment. Dust motes swirled in the shafts of light that poured in through the windows and the light caught Jason’s eyes, illuminating flecks of grey and silver. There was a peace in the moment that Howard found soothing and he relished it, savouring the feel of Jason’s skin, the steady sound of his breathing. Jason touched a hand to his cheek, kissing his forehead tenderly. “Ok?” Jason asked, love, concern and understanding somehow easily conveyed beautifully in that simple one-word question. Howard smiled back at him, grateful and genuine.
“Ok.” He blew out a breath and drew himself up a little, looking back into Jason’s eyes. “So, how is that daughter of mine anyway? Other than being grossed out by you and me, I mean,” Howard asked after a beat, and Jason laughed at the abrupt change of tone, leaning against the breakfast bar slightly and tilting his head to one side as he considered the question.
“I think she’s doing ok, all things considered,” he said, shrugging. “It’s a lot for a kid, you know? I think she’s taken about as long to get over it all as we have.” Howard smiled slightly, understanding, and a shiver of memories danced briefly across his skin – when he glanced up he could see the same mix of emotions in Jason’s face; his eyes were cast down, a slight crease forming across his forehead as he looked off into the middle-distance, seeming to see something there that, though it didn’t trouble him so much anymore, still couldn’t quite be shaken away.
Howard’s hand stilled on Jason’s hip and he pressed his fingertips lightly against his skin. The slight change of pressure made Jason look up at him immediately, his whole face changing as once more it caught the sunlight fully, the bright blue of his eyes suddenly alive and his lips curving into a small, wry smile. “What?” he asked, almost teasing, and Howard rewarded him with an impish grin.
“Nothin’.” He lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I just wanted to see your face, darlin’ – you know I love your face in the sunshine,” he added in a lower voice, leaning in to press a single, chaste kiss to Jason’s lips. Jason laughed slightly, narrowing his eyes at Howard in a show of reprimand before reaching across to capture his other hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing reassuringly.
“Sharp edges and all?” he asked lightly, raising his eyebrows, and Howard nodded slowly, leaning in for another kiss, which Jason allowed for a moment before laughing again and pushing him away. “Hey, Donald – I was trying to talk to you about your daughter remember? And how she’s coping with all the drama of her short, young life?” he pointed out, smacking Howard lightly on the arm when he caught the unashamed look on his face. He offered him an amused smile even as he rolled his eyes and Howard pulled him a little closer, kissing his forehead.
“Sorry,” Howard said softly after a beat, leaning back just slightly so as to meet Jason’s eyes again. “So…you think she’s there yet? The ‘Ok’ phase I mean? The ‘normal’ bit – whatever ‘normal’ even is around here?” he asked then, his voice gentle and genuine, and Jason’s eyes grew thoughtful as he let out a small sigh. Howard sighed. “You know me: I think she is. But she tells you more things sometimes – you’re neutral ground when me and Vick aren’t.” Jason smiled slightly, looking back at him with a small nod.
“Yeah, she’s there…I think. The same way I am. And you.” He pulled a face then, glancing away. “Although she still won’t talk about things at her mum’s, of course. Which is a whole other problem that is probably getting to her more than she’s willing to admit.”
“Vicky says she’s practically mute these days,” Howard put in, wincing slightly and feeling a pang of vaguely irrational guilt – sometimes he couldn’t help but think it was slightly unfair just how easy a time he’d had getting Grace to accept Jason into her life, and how much it had made Grace start to push to spend as much time as possible with the two of them rather than with her mum. He huffed out a breath. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her we have trouble shutting her up when she’s here,” he added with a rueful smile, and Jason let out a soft, sympathetic chuckle, giving Howard’s hand another comforting squeeze.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” he said gently, and Howard mustered a lopsided smile.
“No. I know it’s not – it’s yours,” he shot back teasingly, and Jason laughed, giving him a harmless shove.
“It’s no one’s fault,” he corrected through his smile, and Howard stuck his tongue out at him. Jason’s smile didn’t falter, even as he rolled his eyes and let out a heavy, thoughtful sigh. “For whatever reason, Tim bugs her. And these past few weeks he’s been bothering her more than usual, though she won’t say why that is.” Jason shrugged and looked over at Howard with another heavy sigh. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders, How. She’ll work through it in her own time, with or without our help.”
“I know. I’m just running out of things I can think of to tell Vicky to make her feel better about it all,” Howard admitted quietly. “Sometimes I think she’s convinced Grace’s only problem with the bloke is that he’s not you. But I know my daughter, Jay; she adores you, but she’s not going to hold that against every other guy she gets introduced to, you know? She probably doesn’t try hard enough to get on with him, but…she’s a kid, of course she’s going to find it tough. I don’t know. I think the thing Vicky doesn’t realise is…she didn’t really try with you either – she just didn’t have to.” Howard looked into Jason’s face, appreciation and love clear in his eyes, and Jason smiled back at him sympathetically.
“Well maybe it’ll just take a bit of work,” he said gently. “But Grace will figure it out eventually. If Tim is worth the hassle, he’ll know that Grace is worth the effort,” he added, and Howard realised it had really always been that simple for Jason; to his mind he had no right to any of the happiness of their relationship if he didn’t accept that Grace would always be a part of it in some way. Jason shrugged like it was nothing but Howard tugged him closer, making him chuckle softly. “It’s just the way it is, How. Always has been. And, when she’s ready to say what it is that’s really bothering her about the whole thing with Tim, then maybe her and him and her mum can come to some sort of compromise. Like I said; if Tim’s a guy worth keeping around, he’ll be as determined to make something work as Vicky is. And Grace is pretty easy to win over really – all you have to do is listen, treat her like she matters and not like she’s just some kid. She’s not trying to make her life into a Disney movie by driving off her mum’s dates; she just doesn’t like to be ignored either. Or talked down to, for that matter.” Jason kissed Howard’s temple and gave his arm a squeeze. “Now come on, talk to me about other problems: like where our rent money is going to come from next month.” Howard laughed and shook his head.
“This is the last time I let you pick conversation topics on a Friday afternoon,” he joked, getting an elbow in the ribs and an exasperated-but-fond smile out of Jason for his troubles. “You’ll be pleased to know I was pretty much hired on the spot – I was just trying to work out my schedule when you got back actually,” Howard said, nodding to his laptop which was still open on the breakfast bar. “I don’t think it’s going to be one of my favourite jobs, though,” he added with a slight grimace, and off Jason’s intrigued look he let out a heavy sigh. “That guy seriously gave me the creeps when I was meeting with him – there was just something not genuine about him, like he had some agenda to everything he said and he didn’t mind me knowing it. He’s obviously good at what he does but I’m not sure he’s got where he is by being a nice guy.” Howard had scrunched up his face in distaste and Jason touched a gentle hand to his cheek, tilting his head and meeting his eyes.
“He really rattled you, didn’t he?” he said tenderly and Howard looked down, his lip curling slightly as he thought back on the meeting.
“I’ve met plenty of sleazy club owners, Jay – but there was something different about him…like he was playing mind-games and power-tripping with everything he said. And when he started asking about you…” Howard trailed off, shuddering, and Jason raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“About me?”
“Yeah…it was strange, actually. He asked if my husband would be coming to any of the gigs – just out the blue, no reason for it at all. When I pointed out I never told him I was married he gave me some bullshit excuse about seeing my wedding ring and having noticed us together at one of my gigs a few weeks back.” Howard looked up, and to Jason just how unsettled he was by the man was clear in his eyes.
He stepped a little closer and brushed his thumb across his cheek – Howard closed his eyes and leant into the touch gratefully. “It was weird, Jay. And he was way too interested in you – and I don’t mean in that ‘He seems charming and beautiful, lucky you, how long have you been married?’ kind of a way. I mean in that ‘I don’t want him anywhere near you ever’ kind of a way.” He opened his eyes again then, looking into Jason’s intently and reaching up to take Jason’s hand in his, holding it there against his cheek. “Jay; I know you’re your own person, I know I don’t have any say in what you can and can’t do, who you can and can’t see…I know you can look after yourself. But-”
“Hey,” Jason interrupted softly, leaning a little closer and offering him a smile that was all love. “I trust you, How. And I know you wouldn’t even be asking if something about the guy wasn’t seriously off – I know you, I know you’re not saying it to try and run my life, you’re saying it because it matters. So…if you want me to stay away, I’ll stay away. But you be careful too, ok? Guys like that need watching; get your pay cheques up front and get out of there as fast as you can – deal?”
“Deal. And…thank you.”
“What for?”
“Just…for always believing in me.”
Chapter 2
From his place on the bed Mark was watching Gary, who was fussing with one of his keyboards – he’d been muttering something about a sticking key earlier but Mark was fairly sure he was just looking for an excuse to be distracted, determined not to discuss the strange phone call from his old friend or the edgy mood it had put him in, no matter how much Mark pressed. So Mark had put his headphones on and feigned disinterest, well aware he probably had no right to complain. He sighed frustratedly to himself, glancing down at his iPod briefly before resting his chin on his hand. He’d stopped the music at least ten minutes ago – he had hardly been taking it in anyway – and now he was stuck in his own circling thoughts, exasperated with himself as much as he was with Gary. After all, Gary wasn’t the only one to guard his past so closely; if anything, Gary was more open than he was. Really, he supposed, he was the one who was a master of finding ways of not talking about his past or the people from it, wasn’t he? And Gary had allowed him to stay that way, never pushing him for too much more of an explanation, not even when Mark’s past had come spilling out into the present. But there was still something that unsettled Mark about the whole situation, about his and Gary’s willingness to bury huge chunks of their lives and keep them from each other. His mind briefly wandered to Jason and Howard; if Jason asked, Howard told and – what was possibly even more impressive – if Howard asked, Jason told. It wasn’t black and white, Mark knew, because sometimes the information was given in slivers and other times it was withheld for a time on the shared understanding that the right moment was needed. But the point was that there were no outright secrets. Mark suspected that Howard knew things about Jason’s past that even his own family didn’t know; after all, wasn’t Howard the one who always picked up his late night phone calls, who sat with him in the dark and knew the difference between every one of his sighs? And if someone as guarded as Jason was prepared to leave himself so exposed for the sake of his relationship, then why was it that he and Gary weren’t able to surrender a few long-ago chapters of their lives to each other, to explain the characters and the influence they had had on the story as it was today.
Mark swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment – his own history momentarily invaded his thoughts and all the pain that came along with it briefly bubbled up inside his chest. He could sympathise with Gary not wanting to let his past and his present collide. But what bothered him was how that past was making Gary behave; some sharper, colder side of him seemed to have been brought to the surface and it unsettled Mark enough to stop him caring about his own hypocrisy so much. He thought he knew Gary, knew what he was capable of; but this person in his bedroom tonight – twitching and cross – was someone he didn’t know at all.
Silently he set his headphones aside and pushed himself along the bed, placing a gentle hand on Gary’s back. Gary jumped at the touch, turning round to look at him with an almost panicked expression on his face. Mark looked back at him sadly and Gary sighed, his shoulders suddenly sagging. He looked so tired in that moment and Mark crept a little closer to him, rubbing his back soothingly.
“You can talk to me, you know,” he murmured as Gary turned away from him, looking down at his hands dejectedly.
“I’m just not feeling myself tonight, Marko, that’s all.” Gary glanced up at him and offered him a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You shouldn’t worry so much – that’s what I keep Jay around for.” Mark frowned slightly.
“I’m not completely blind, Gaz. I know this all started since you talked to this old friend of yours,” he said softly. When Gary looked into Mark’s face he saw the hurt there and he felt terrible, but this was a conversation he was desperate not to have. “Who is he, Gaz? How do you know him?” Mark asked, his voice forlorn and his expression stung. “Can’t you even tell me his name?” Gary winced at Mark’s pleas, looking away once more and biting down on his lip.
“Marko, please don’t make me talk about it. I’m going to meet him, get some answers to some questions, and then it’ll all be over, ok?” He shrugged lamely, risking a glance back at Mark, his eyes sad but hopeful. “Can you not just trust me?”
It was Mark’s turn to wince, looking down at his hands, his eyes desolate and the corners of his lips downturned.
“No,” he whispered, his voice scratchy and nervous. It was clear he didn’t want to admit it, but even seeing the reluctance on Mark’s face Gary still found that the confession wounded him. “Gaz, have you ever noticed how Jay and Howard know everything about each other? Like…have you seen how sometimes Jay will mention some guy or some place, something to do with his brothers or his dancing days…and him and Howard will share this look: no explanation it’s just there. The sentence stops halfway through and they just know and everything makes sense for them. Well, I don’t know how to be that way with you, Gaz. Especially if you’re able to just turn around with one word from this mysterious bloke and become this guy who is so…so closed. It makes it hard to trust you, it makes me question you more, you know?”
“I’m sure there are some secrets of Jay’s even Howard doesn’t know…some things just need to stay in the past for a reason, Marko, that’s all. You of all people should know that.” Mark pretended not to catch the meaning of that statement, instead edging a little closer to Gary and letting out another sigh, looking intently down at the bedspread.
“So then why are you talking to this bloke at all?” he pressed.
“Because I have to, ok?” Gary said, more sharply than he intended. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face, suddenly feeling a great weight of exhaustion coming down on him. He could feel Mark withdraw his hand, could feel him shrinking back from him, and he felt terrible for it. He blew out a breath and slowly dropped his hands back to his lap, opening his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just…I would’ve thought that you, of all people, would be able to understand the need to get some answers out of your past, to try and make sense of the way you are now by getting a real grip on what has gone before, you know?” He risked looking back over his shoulder at Mark and saw the crease of a frown on his forehead, could see the way he was chewing on the inside of his cheek and staring off into the middle-distance as though he could see some ghost from his own past standing there.
“Ok,” Mark managed at last, his voice low and tentative. “Ok. Maybe I do know. And maybe I know what it’s like to have spent time with someone who messed me up and broke my heart…but is that what this bloke did? Break your heart?”
“Not exactly.”
“Didn’t think so.” Mark sighed and looked back up at Gary then, edging ever so slightly closer and resting his head on his shoulder dejectedly. “I’m not saying you have to tell me everything, Gaz. I just don’t understand why this bloke has made you so jumpy – you’ve hardly looked me in the eye all night, you know? Every time he’s mentioned you go cold. I feel like you’re on the defensive and I don’t know why…you didn’t even tell me about him showing up until today.”
Gary closed his eyes, wrapping an arm around Mark’s waist and drawing in a deep breath.
“Honestly?” He squeezed Mark tighter, finding comfort in the feeling of his weight against him. “Jay knew this bloke too. A long time ago. And he’s someone that Jay would be more than happy to never know again.” Mark lifted his head and the movement made Gary open his eyes, looking back at him nervously. He seemed more confused than angry, his head on one side and his brows knitted together.
“So if Jay doesn’t want to know him, what makes you so bothered?” he asked. Gary gave a one-shouldered shrug, looking up at the ceiling and trying hard to unpick the mess of thoughts swirling around in his head.
“Because…because I had a different experience with this guy to what Jay had, and because I was close with Jay, it cost me my friendship with a bloke who always saw people as being either for him or against him, no in-between. If I was with Jay, I was against him; I didn’t get a say in the matter. And Jay had done more than enough to deserve my loyalty then, so I picked a side even though I didn’t want it to come to that. I was Team Jason, I probably still am, if it comes down to having to make a decision again. But it’s not really that simple, you know?” Gary looked back at Mark then, helpless and desperate, and Mark couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He reached up and cupped his cheek with his hand, looking into his eyes silently and offering him a sad smile.
“Call me crazy, but that doesn’t sound like a bloke worth knowing; he was against Jay and wanted you to be too? Real friends don’t make you pick sides that way, Gaz. And who would even be against Jay anyway?!”
“I know, Marko. I know that. But I have to at least find out why he treated Jay the way he did…why it was that important to him that he was willing to turn his back on me over it. I just want to know why things were so bad between those two, why I had to get caught in the fallout – because even Jay is vague about that sometimes, and I just want to know for my own peace of mind. It’s not supposed to be a big deal…but it’s just…I feel like I’m going behind Jay’s back, that’s all. And it’s got me on edge, you know?”
“You are going behind Jay’s back,” Mark pointed out, though his voice was gentle all the same. He gave Gary a lopsided smile. “I won’t lie, Gaz. You’re going behind Jay’s back whether you like it or not. But maybe it’s for the best right now…him and Howard have been through enough this year already, you know? So go. Get your answers and make sure it’s not a big thing so that Jay doesn’t even need to know. But just…please don’t let him down. If this bloke is back for good, then you have to let Jay know. Even if it’s just to warn him that a ghost from his past is going to come back around to haunt him.”
***
Grace rolled onto her back and threw the covers off of herself with a huffy growl of frustration. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been trying to sleep for now without success, but she was getting agitated, no longer able to even find a comfortable position to curl up in. She rubbed tiredly at her eyes, brushing some stray strands of hair out of her face and sighing heavily, letting her mind wander for a moment or two, her eyes scanning her bedroom absently. It was slightly smaller than her bedroom at her mum’s, but it was still her favourite of the two – it was her own little hideaway, every detail in it chosen by her, and she usually had no trouble getting to sleep when she was there. The walls were an unusual shade of purple – somewhere between lilac and amethyst – and strings of warm white fairylights were wrapped around her bedhead and hung above the window, giving the room a peaceful glow at night. The window was covered by a roller blind, semi-see-through and patterned with a dreamy, stylized cityscape picked out in a misty grey. The view behind the blind wasn’t quite as impressive as the one from her dad and Jason’s bedroom window – which looked out towards the Quays – but Grace thought there was still something magical about the collection of glass and metal which lay beyond all the same, something about being so high up over the city that was exciting to her.
The room itself was simply furnished: her bed pushed against one wall, a small desk beneath the window, whilst the wall opposite her bed was taken up by the room’s built-in storage, which consisted of a mixture of shelves and drawers with a wardrobe space at the end – just visible behind one of the larger box-like shelving spaces was a letter G, painted in a dusky grey, whilst the other spaces had the patterns of musical notes behind them in similarly subtle shades. Most of the decoration in the room, however, came in the form of photographs; Grace loved photographs, and despite her young age she was already pretty good with a camera, often sneaking her dad’s away from him whenever she got the chance – her favourites were candid shots, and she had developed something of a knack for sneaking the best ones in moments when people least expected there to be a camera around at all. On her desk were two photograph frames. The small frame was lined with subtle, iridescent sparkles and a twinkling, bejewelled flower at its top corner, housing a picture of her and her best friend Izzy laughing wildly into the camera, glitter-paint decorating their faces as they sat on the grass, bathed in summer sunshine, the remnants of Izzy’s birthday presents’ wrapping paper scattered all around them. The other, slightly larger, frame stood by its side, all-glass with a very fine silver picking out the edges, it contained a picture from when her school’s choir had won first place at a prestigious national competition the previous year; Grace stood in the centre, beaming, holding her participation certificate, her school choir badge on her blazer’s lapel glinting in the sunlight and her first place medal around her neck as her mother stood with her, arms wrapped around her shoulders in a suitably proud pose, though both of them were laughing as her father stood to Grace’s other side, his expression an exaggerated grin, his eyebrows raised as he gave two thumbs up to the camera, and, just visible on either side of the trio were Mark, Gary and, of course, Jason, all smiling, eyes shining, Mark having to get down on one knee and lean at an awkward angle to make it into the shot, his hands splayed into a ridiculous jazz-hand pose that had Gary struggling to bite back a laugh.
These weren’t the only photographs in the room of course; directly above her bedhead were zigzagging photograph strings, lots of pictures printed out to look like Polaroids all clipped to it with tiny wooden pegs, some of the photographs with handwritten captions beneath, others with stickers and drawings adorning their corners. Izzy, her mum, her dad and Jason featured the most, but there were plenty of pictures with Mark and Gary, extended family and her group of friends at school, lots of group shots, landscapes and random scenes interspersed for good measure, the odd singer making the cut and even a few stolen-moment shots she had taken at the apartment rounded out the quirky mix. On the wall by her bed, a growing collection of cards and postcards had been stuck up in neat rows; pretty scenes, patterns and slogans all mixed and matched with pop-stars, penguins and reprints of famous paintings – as well as less famous ones too. Above these there were two posters: one depicted an artistic impression of a flock of birds taking flight into a dappled grey-pink sky, the words ‘Dream On’ written beneath, whilst the other was simply a blush-coloured background, an elegant outline of a face barely picked out, the only details of it being two closed eyes, complete with long lashes and winged eyeliner, and a pair of lush red lips in a cryptic smiling pout. The overall look was eclectic and perhaps ramshackle in places, but Grace always kept it tidy and perfect, unfailingly delighted by it every time she returned to it, and still grateful even now that Jason had let her take over what had been his spare room once upon a time.
She wasn’t sure what time it was; there was a clock on her desk but in the semi-darkness it was difficult to make out much beyond the outline of it, shaped, as it was, like a musical note. It felt like hours since she’d gone to bed, the night rolling on endlessly as she had tossed and turned. It wasn’t like her to not be able to sleep, especially not when she was here; there was nowhere where she felt more at home than in this apartment, with her dad and Jason just across the hallway. For as long as she could remember, she had been closer to her dad than her mum, the two of them always as thick as thieves, some understanding forged between them that couldn’t quite be placed but had been there since the day she was born – even her mum acknowledged that, if a little wistfully. It wasn’t that she didn’t get along with her mum – she was close to both of her parents and the two of them had both always been adept at making her feel she was included and equal, never talking down to her and always asking her opinions on big decisions. Still, she’d always gravitated towards her dad, the problem in the past had simply been that her dad wasn’t really an option; the life he led as a DJ was unpredictable and unstable, he could have her some nights and not others, sometimes he’d even had to change plans at the last minute, and for a while he’d lived relatively far away, that was when he’d been in one place anyway. Grace could just about remember when she was really little and her dad was constantly moving from small, temporary place to small, temporary place, often having to come to her rather than her being able to go to him. She had always been his priority, but there was only so much he could do, and he needed the money that lifestyle brought him, for her sake as much as his own. At the time she hadn’t really understood, though she had always trusted him when he had told her he was sorry and that he had good reasons. It had been tough sometimes and there was no question that – as much as she loved him – she couldn’t have stayed with him as much as she did with her mum. But he’d established his reputation as a DJ since then, begun to get more say in what jobs he did and didn’t take and when those jobs would be. And, of course, he’d met Jason.
His relationship with Jason had been the thing that tipped the balance; an anchor that brought a new sort of peace to her dad’s life. With Jason had come a new surety and stability, a safety net for when plans had to change and a home that had a sense of security and permanence to it, unlike anywhere Grace had known her dad to live before. There was a new constancy to her dad’s existence, something which was backed up by Jason’s kindness and calmness, his easy friendship and his lack of hesitation in offering her his time. Grace might be young but she was quick enough, easily able to see the difference all this made to the arrangements her parents had previously set in place when she was younger, and now she longed more than ever to be able to take advantage of it.
And there it was, she supposed – the reason she couldn’t sleep, why her brain refused to shut down: what-ifs and wishes, all of them getting stronger by the day. It had played on her mind for a while, in passing, but since Tim had become more of a presence in her mum’s life, Grace’s thoughts had been forced to wander over it more and more in recent months. She’d never liked her mum’s boyfriend, but when he’d been at a distance she hadn’t really been able to find much reason to object to him – it was the past year that her active dislike of him had started. He wasn’t like Jason; he preferred to avoid acknowledging her existence, to keep out of any activity she was involved with and to keep quiet during conversations about school or her friends or even her interests. Where Jason knew her favourite colour, helped teach her to play guitar, asked her if she wanted anything when he went to the shops and played mediator when she disagreed with her parents, Tim offered little more than muttered, biting jokes and questions about why her dad couldn’t take her for the day so he could whisk her mum off somewhere where kids weren’t allowed. When he did talk to her, he talked to her like she was a baby, and certainly never seemed to actually listen when she replied – she found it easier to follow his lead and just avoid conversation altogether.
None of it would have mattered so much if he wasn’t slowly becoming more and more a part of life when she was at her mum’s; he’d practically moved in, though he refused to get rid of his own place, and Grace was starting to seriously worry that things at her mum’s would never be the same again. But she didn’t dare speak a word about it to her mum, who she could already tell was starting to take out some of her frustration at the situation on Jason, vaguely jealous of Howard for being able to find someone Grace had such natural ease with and increasingly disappointed in what she saw as Grace’s lack of effort with Tim. Asking to spend an uninterrupted summer with her dad and Jason had been battle enough, she couldn’t imagine how asking to live with them would go down. But it still played on her mind, more and more as time went on; she was usually included in big decisions, but she had never been given the chance to choose where her primary home was, even though she couldn’t think of any decision that affected her more.
Grace rolled onto her side, a frown on her face as she tried once more to relax and close her eyes. But it was no use, she was wide awake and still unsettled by changes longed for and changes dreaded – she needed to either talk it out or find some distraction to pass the time until she was too tired to keep her eyes open any longer. She hugged at her pillow, sad and frustrated in equal measure, and her eyes briefly landed on where her school bag lay abandoned by her desk. For a moment she toyed with the idea of retrieving her phone and calling Izzy, but she knew her best friend wouldn’t thank her for interrupting her sleep at whatever time of night – or morning – it was, and besides, as much as she loved her, she knew the girl could give some downright awful advice sometimes.
At that moment, a dull thud sounded from somewhere in the apartment, and Grace jumped slightly, lifting her head from the pillow. Kitchen cupboard? She strained to try and hear another sound, sitting up in the bed slowly. It was hardly rare to hear sounds in the apartment late at night; her dad’s job meant he could come and go at all times of night, and Jason was a night owl and an insomniac, often up and about in the early hours. Grace climbed out of bed and tiptoed across her room, carefully opening the bedroom door and peering out into the hallway. A dim glow came from the apartment’s kitchen and the faint sound of a kettle boiling was just about audible. Grace felt a small smile come to her lips; there was only one person it could be and he was exactly the person she knew she needed.
She padded down the corridor, her smile widening when she saw Jason, who was standing at one of the kitchen cupboards. He was stretching to set something back on the top shelf, and once he had succeeded he turned swiftly away, his face appearing from behind the cupboard door and his eyes catching on Grace immediately. His hair was a little mussed but his eyes were bright and startlingly blue, even though he was backlit by the fuzzy glow of the kitchen light. He closed the cupboard door and tilted his head to one side, folding his arms as he regarded Grace for a moment.
“Hello, you,” he said softly and Grace smiled up at him, crossing over to the breakfast bar and climbing up onto one of the stools.
“What are you doing up?” she asked him, resting her chin on her hand, and Jason let out a low chuckle, shaking his head slightly.
“I’m pretty sure I should be asking you that question, actually,” he pointed out, though his eyes sparkled kindly, and Grace shrugged.
“You and me are always different, though – we don’t talk to each other the way people expect,” she told him quietly, and Jason laughed, nodding in acknowledgment.
“I suppose so,” he agreed, stepping back towards the kettle and reaching over to where the mugs were kept. He plucked Grace’s mug from the mug tree – a rich, royal purple in colour, dotted with shiny, gold musical notes – and arched an enquiring eyebrow at her. “Hot chocolate?” he asked, and Grace beamed at him, nodding enthusiastically. Jason winked at her, then set about getting together the things he needed, simultaneously seeing to his own drink as he did so.
The two of them lapsed into an easy silence as Jason poured his drink and worked on hers, and Grace watched him with a strange sort of fascination, noticing, not for the first time, that there was something musical about the way Jason twisted and stretched as he moved around the small kitchen space. He caught her staring and flashed her a gentle smile that she returned sleepily before he looked away once more. It was only as he was setting down her hot chocolate in front of her that Jason finally broke the peace.
“So,” he said softly, picking up his own drink and leaning back against the kitchen counter. Grace looked up at him and met his eyes as he regarded her thoughtfully. “Can’t sleep?” he asked her, arching an eyebrow, and Grace pulled a face at him.
“How do you know you’re not dreaming?” she countered a little petulantly, though she couldn’t help but smile when Jason let out a soft laugh.
“You’re definitely a Donald,” he remarked archly, his smile amused but affectionate. “Grumpiness is something your dad has trained me for, kiddo, so if you think being stroppy will stop me asking what the matter is then you’ve got another thing coming.” Grace pouted but Jason’s smile didn’t falter and she let out a sigh, a tiny smile of her own briefly coming to her lips. “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” Jason asked her then, his voice earnest and tender, and Grace slumped across the breakfast bar a little, staring down disconsolately into her hot chocolate. She knew she would end up telling him everything, and a part of her was glad to have him to confide in, but another part of her was afraid of putting Jason in the middle of the mess.
“Do you think I only don’t like Tim because he’s not you?” she asked after a beat, looking up at Jason cautiously and holding her breath as she regarded him out of the corner of her eye. His expression was open and kind, his smile reassuring, and it relaxed her a little.
“No,” he said simply, pausing a moment to take a sip of his drink. “For a start: I’m not that special. And for seconds? You’re not that mean,” he offered then, shrugging slightly. Grace laughed a shy little laugh and Jason smiled back at her quietly. “Is that really all that’s on your mind or is there something else going on?” he pressed, and Grace chewed at her lip thoughtfully, her eyes downturned once more.
“He wishes I didn’t exist,” she said at last, her voice a terse whisper.
“He said that?” Jason asked with genuine concern, coming over to the breakfast bar and leaning on it, dipping his head in such a way that she was forced to meet his gaze. There was a protective sort of worry there that Grace was surprised to see, a fierceness that Jason didn’t often show so unguardedly. Whilst she knew he thought of her as family, it was somehow still a surprise for her to see it so plainly in his face.
“No, he didn’t say it,” Grace admitted slowly. “But that’s only because he hardly ever says anything to me.” She scrunched up her face in distaste. “He makes mum choose between us – like, she can only spend time with me on my own, and with him on his own, and if she makes him eat with us he just sits there in silence, reading or watching TV.” Grace sighed sadly, taking a sip of her drink and slouching a little further across the breakfast bar. “It hasn’t changed the entire time he’s known me – and him and mum have been dating almost as long as you’ve been with dad, so it’s not like he’s not had chance. But now it’s different…”
“How come?” Grace looked up into Jason’s face, encouraged by his sympathetic tone.
“Because I think he’s going to move in properly,” she told him, before quickly looking down again. “And I think mum’s going to marry him,” she added in a mumble.
“And that’s what’s been bothering you these past few weeks? You think you’re going to be stuck in this weird place with him and your mum forever if they get married?” Jason’s voice was sleep-rough in the quiet of the apartment, but it was tender too, full of warmth and patience. When Grace looked up and met his eyes she could how open and kind his expression was and was relieved to not find the dismissiveness she had feared. She should have trusted he wouldn’t judge her, of course; Jason had a way of listening like no one else Grace knew, always intent and concerned. Jason never saw a problem as too trivial for his time, his view usually being that if it mattered to someone he cared about then it was important enough for him to take it seriously. She had never been more grateful for it than in that moment. Slowly, Grace nodded at him, and he reached out a hand, touching her cheek fondly and dipping his head so that their faces were level. “You really think your mum would let that happen, sweetheart?” he asked her, pointed but gentle. “You know she’s worried about things between you and him – she wouldn’t let it get to that before smoothing things out one way or another.” Grace barely took a second to consider his words, her lips forming a pout.
“Well then why is she going away with him this weekend? She’s taken Monday off, you know – that’s why I’m staying an extra night this week.” Jason narrowed his eyes slightly, his brows knitting together in vague confusion.
“I don’t see how that means she’s going to marry him,” he said slowly and Grace rolled her eyes.
“Well we all know what happened when you had a day off and dad sent me off to stay with someone else,” she muttered. Jason chuckled slightly, giving her arm a half-hearted smack as he shook his head with a curious mixture of fondness and despair that somehow brought a smile to Grace’s lips. He looked at her dad like that sometimes, she knew.
“Gracie, I’ve had this afternoon off too but I’ve not got any proposals yet,” Jason told her, his tone light and amused but not unkind, and Grace stuck her tongue out at him.
“You don’t count anymore, you have dad already and you’re not allowed to change your mind.”
“Oh, I’m not planning on it, sweetheart. Besides, I know you’d never forgive me if I did that – and we don’t want that to happen, do we?” Jason smiled, his eyes glittering brightly, and Grace beamed at him, her face suddenly alive as she shook her head emphatically.
“Definitely not.” They shared a smile for a moment before Grace’s mind wandered back to the reason she was awake and she felt her shoulders slump slightly.
She let out a sigh and looked back down, biting her lip. “I wouldn’t have liked you either if you acted like Tim does with me. Even if you were the same in every other way, I swear,” she told Jason softly, tracing the pattern of her mug with her little finger. “Mum doesn’t believe me when I tell her that, but it’s true. You talked to me – and not like I was just some silly little kid either. You actually listened and stuff. It was just…easy. You never minded when I was around – if I was there and you weren’t expecting it, you didn’t care, you always just accepted it, like I was part of the plan all along and you actually wanted me there.” She squirmed slightly, looking at Jason out of the corner of her eye and feeling calmed when she saw the understanding smile he offered her – it was pale and quiet on his lips, just the faintest, watercolour curve, but it was still infinitely comforting somehow. “I don’t want to be stuck with Tim forever, Jay. I couldn’t deal with it; when he’s around mum’s different, and all they do is argue – and not like you and dad, because I know you don’t mean it. They properly argue and no one ever laughs because Tim’s got no sense of humour.”
“And have you told your mum all this?” Jason questioned, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear caringly, his fingers gentle and that look of concern back in his eyes.
“She just says it’s hard for him. Or she says how it’s all because I’m close to dad and because I like you…and I don’t want her to blame you and dad so then I just stop talking.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to protect me and your dad, you know. And your mum knows, deep down, that she didn’t raise the sort of kid who’d let it go this far just because she liked the guy her dad married more than her mum’s boyfriend.” Jason brushed his knuckles across her cheek and she smiled up at him, sad and grateful as his bright blue eyes met her own. “Look, kiddo, I don’t think your mum would go off and marry the bloke with things as they are, you know? You shouldn’t be worrying yourself about being stuck with him all of a sudden – your mum wouldn’t make any big decisions without talking to you about it, and she definitely wouldn’t do anything to make you unhappy, not if you explained it to her.”
“But how can you be sure?” Grace asked plaintively, and Jason smiled, knowing and calm.
“Hey, I seem to remember your dad asking your permission before he married me,” he pointed out, and Grace couldn’t help but let out a soft, fond little laugh, glancing away in an effort to hide her smile but knowing Jason wasn’t fooled. “Your dad didn’t have to tell me, you know: it was just understood, you were the most important person, and if I didn’t feel the same way then, no matter what went on between us, it couldn’t last. For me, it wasn’t a problem – but not everyone in the world is as used to messy families as I am.”
She’d never really questioned Jason’s motives, never asked him how he’d felt about dating a man with a kid who occasionally tagged along unexpectedly on their dates. Jason shrugged, seeming to read her thoughts, and he offered her another easy smile. “Sweetheart, your dad wouldn’t care about however good of a relationship we had, he wouldn’t have cared if I was the love of his life, his best friend, his favourite person: if you weren’t ok with it, if I wasn’t someone you could ever be comfortable with…he would’ve walked away. He never told me in as many words – I don’t think we ever had a conversation about it at all, to be honest. But I didn’t need to be told. He adores you and makes a point of showing it. Everyone knows you mean the world to him – so, you’ll always come first, and rightly so.” Jason tipped his head to one side, meeting her gaze. “If it wasn’t ok with you, Gracie, no matter how bad your reasons might have been, none of it would’ve got beyond a handful of dates. Your dad would’ve walked away and it would’ve been over, and I probably wouldn’t be standing here right now.” He stopped, scrunching up his face slightly. “Well, maybe I would, since this was my apartment…but, I’d be here on my own. No ring on my finger, and definitely no sign of your dad asleep down the hall.” Jason offered her a wry smile that coaxed a small laugh out of her.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a small voice. Jason arched an eyebrow.
“Of course I’m sure – do you know anyone who knows your dad as well as I know your dad?” he shot back at her in a level, even tone, and she couldn’t help but smile at the truth in that. His eyes glittered at her with amusement and affection. “You are a part of who your mum and dad are; you can’t say you love them if you don’t also love you. And maybe Tim is awkward, or shy, or just doesn’t know what to say…but whatever it is? Your mum will make him – and you – figure it out before she lets him become any more a part of your life than he already is. I promise.”
Jason pushed himself up then, taking a final gulp of his drink before placing the empty mug into the sink. When he turned back to look at her there was concern in his eyes once more and he folded his arms, leaning back against the kitchen counter and watching her carefully. “You’re pretty easy to love, Gracie – if Tim is someone your mum is going to keep in her life for good, then he’ll need to realise that; I know it. Your mum and dad adore you, and no matter what you might say, I know you know that’s true.”
“I know,” Grace admitted quietly, looking away. “I still wish sometimes that…that I lived here instead.” She shrugged awkwardly, aware of Jason’s eyes scrutinizing her and suddenly nervous that she had admitted too much, worried he might not understand that it wasn’t simply the situation with Tim that was causing this particular stirring of unrest. “I was too little to choose when they decided I’d live with mum, and dad was always moving anyway.”
“But now it’s different and you want to choose,” Jason surmised quietly, thoughtfully, and Grace nodded, a timid little nod but she knew Jason saw.
“I don’t want mum to be upset.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Jason said kindly, coming back across to the breakfast bar and placing a gentle hand on her arm, giving it a squeeze. “You’ve been thinking about this a long time, right?” he asked and Grace nodded once more.
“It’s not just about Tim, I promise.”
“Ok,” Jason sighed, taking a moment to think before meeting her eyes determinedly. “How about I promise to talk about it with your dad, but only on the condition you talk to your mum about things with Tim and at least try to make things work out there first – does that sound fair?” Grace looked at him for a moment, her gaze steady and thoughtful, her expression giving nothing away as she studied Jason’s face. Then, slowly, a soft smile began to form, her lips twisting up into the faintest of curves.
“I’m really glad dad met you,” she murmured at last and Jason’s expression softened, his smile mirroring hers and his eyes shining.
“Me too, sweetheart,” he replied in an unguardedly soft whisper. Then a smile cracked across his face. “Not least coz he brought you with him,” he added with a wink that made Grace laugh. “So, have we got a deal?” he asked her, and Grace drew in a deep breath before nodding slowly.
“Deal,” she agreed and Jason smiled.
“Good,” he replied, leaning in to kiss her forehead affectionately. “Now come on, drink up and I’ll come play my guitar. We can talk about nothing for a bit – it might help you sleep, ok?” Grace grinned up at him gratefully, nodding.
“Ok.”
It was hardly a new tradition between the two of them; they’d been doing it since before Jason and her dad had got married, Jason always sitting at the end of Grace’s bed whilst Grace curled around her pillows, looking over at him as he played and talked until eventually her eyelids would grow heavy and she’d drift off to sleep. And tonight was no different: Grace was asleep within a half-hour, though Jason lingered for a little while, playing to the end of his song, lost inside his own thoughts. When his fingers finally stilled on the frets, he glanced up, and smiled softly as he spotted a figure standing in the partially open doorway, two glinting blue eyes watching him silently. There was a quiet half-smile on Howard’s lips as Jason met his gaze; he was resting against the doorframe, had been for the past ten minutes, enjoying catching Jason unawares. Now he watched as Jason quietly set his guitar down by the foot of Grace’s bed and climbed to his feet, moving towards him.
“Hey, you,” Howard whispered as Jason approached and Jason shot him a look which was part-reprimand and part-amusement, gently pushing him back out of the doorway and pulling Grace’s bedroom door closed behind him.
“Shh,” he warned him in a soft laugh. Unconcerned, Howard wrapped an arm around Jason’s waist before the door was even fully closed, and he placed a kiss to the crook of his neck. Jason twisted in the embrace, turning just enough to look up into Howard’s face, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“I woke up and you were gone,” Howard pointed out in a murmur, kissing Jason’s nose and pulling a rough, low laugh from him that sent a thrill through his bones. “So I came and found you,” he added, punctuating the sentiment with another chaste kiss, this time placed against Jason’s forehead as he laughed again, giving Howard a half-hearted shove.
“Your powers of observation are clearly second to none, love,” Jason whispered, looking up into Howard’s face with a fondly despairing smile. “I couldn’t sleep, then Grace couldn’t sleep…you know how it is round here, there’s usually at least one light on in this place at three in the morning,” he added then, chuckling, and Howard nodded, his grin knowing.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, love,” he said, bringing a hand up to Jason’s cheek and brushing the pad of his thumb tenderly across his skin. “You ok?” he asked and Jason’s smile softened as he relaxed his weight against Howard’s solid frame.
“Golden – sometimes I just can’t sleep because I can’t sleep, there’s not always trouble on the horizon,” he reassured Howard honestly, giving him a half-shrug. Howard nodded.
“And what about Grace?” He arched an eyebrow, expectant and curious, and Jason tipped his head to one side in thought. His eyes looked almost silver in the shadows of the corridor and Howard briefly found himself counting the flecks of pale blue still visible there as they caught the light.
“Grace will be ok. I think she’s just been worrying about things at her mum’s more than she was letting anyone know.” Jason gave a lopsided smile. “I think she’s scared to tell her mum any of the reasons her and Tim don’t get on in case it makes her feel bad. She doesn’t want her mum taking it out on you and me – especially me, apparently. She’s too smart for her own good sometimes, that kid.”
“Vicky would never blame you, Jay, you know that,” Howard protested softly and Jason smirked up at him, knowing and amused, his eyebrows quirked slightly. Howard let out a half laugh, resting his forehead against Jason’s. “Ok, fine – maybe she would, maybe she has a little bit already. But she doesn’t mean it, Jay, not really.”
“I know. And I wouldn’t blame her even if she did, How: it’s a difficult situation. For everyone.” Jason lifted one shoulder in an idle shrug, looking up into Howard’s eyes. “Grace just needs to find a way to talk to her mum and not worry about you and me, that’s all – and she’ll get there, she just needs a bit of gentle persuasion from her dad, I suspect.” His grin was mischievous and it made Howard chuckle slightly, but there was a genuine note in his voice, a tenderness to it that spoke to just how much Jason cared about Grace and always had done. Howard moved his fingers lightly down Jason’s jawline to his chin, tipping his face up just enough so he could dip his head and steal a slow, lingering kiss from Jason’s lips.
When they broke apart once more, Howard rested their foreheads together again, looking down into Jason’s eyes intently.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” he breathed and Jason smiled at him ruefully, rolling his eyes as if to dismiss the admission. Howard sighed softly and brought both his hands up to cup Jason’s face. “No, don’t do that – don’t pretend that just any bloke would look out for her the way you do, or that just any bloke would know how to talk to her the way you do,” Howard told him firmly.
For a moment Jason looked up at Howard thoughtfully, sensing the rough honesty that edged his voice and giving due consideration to the very raw flash of love the moment had exposed. Slowly he brought his hands up, placing them flat against Howard’s chest; he could feel his heartbeat behind his warm skin and it made him smile faintly.
“Howard, when are you going to work out that it’s just not as big a deal as you think?” he asked gently. Howard frowned and was about to protest when Jason suddenly rose up to press a quick kiss to his lips. “It’s easy for me, ok? That girl is fifty per cent your DNA, Donald – talking to her comes naturally because half the time it’s no different to talking to you. Stubborn, wilful, still strangely sweet underneath it all…funny, when she wants to be. Fiercely protective of people she loves.” Jason shrugged. “There’s only one other person in the whole world I know who’s so quietly bright, Howard Donald. So give yourself some credit every once in a while.” For a moment they stood in silence, each looking back at the other raptly, blue eyes intent upon blue eyes. Howard reached up to brush some of Jason’s hair from his forehead, searching his face for a moment with a smile that seemed to shine in the shadows.
“I still think you’re amazing, Jay,” he said at last, his voice low and firm. “It’s three in the morning, you care about my daughter, you’re looking at me that way and you’re beautiful.” He shrugged. “That will always qualify as amazing to me.”
***
Jason glanced up from his newspaper as Grace shuffled into the room, her eyes barely open and her hair a tangled mass that fell across her face, sticking up at awkward angles here and there. He smothered an amused smile as she pulled herself up onto a stool at the breakfast bar with a sound that was part-yawn, part-groan.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he teased lightly, letting out a fond laugh as she scowled sleepily at him from across the kitchen. He set down his cereal bowl and pushed himself up off the kitchen counter, moving towards the breakfast bar. “You really are your father’s daughter aren’t you,” he sighed, mischief and affection dancing in his eyes, and despite her just-woken-up bad mood, Grace found it hard to muster much annoyance when she saw the kindness in his smile.
“It’s not my fault it’s so stupidly bright in this apartment,” she shot back through a yawn.
“It’s called sunlight, sweetheart – it’s good for you,” Jason replied wryly, resting his elbows against the breakfast bar and stretching out idly. “So – is there anything you’d like for breakfast which might make you a little bit less grumpy?” he asked her, quirking his eyebrows, and Grace couldn’t help but grin back at him.
“Does that mean you’re taking requests?” she asked hopefully, making Jason laugh.
“Yes – but only within reason, princess! I know what you’re like for picking the most difficult thing possible,” he warned her jokingly, pointing one of his long, thin fingers at her and narrowing his eyes. The effect was offset almost entirely by the way the morning sunlight danced across his face, exposing the smile there, and Grace beamed back at him undeterred.
“You only call me ‘princess’ when you know you’re going to say yes,” she told him brightly and Jason stuck his tongue out at her.
“Excellent, another smart-mouth in the Donald family,” he teased. “I’m guessing you’re going to ask for something involving way too much sugar?”
“French toast?” Grace ventured hopefully and Jason laughed.
“Of course.”
It was at that moment that Howard came bumbling into the room, announcing his presence with a loud yawn. He was running a hand through his sleep-mussed curls as he dragged himself groggily up to sit on the stool beside Grace’s.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he mumbled through another yawn, stretching lazily before slumping across the breakfast bar, squinting his eyes against the sunshine and scrunching his face up in distaste. Grace and Jason exchanged amused glances.
“Is he talking to me or you?” Grace asked cheekily, flashing Jason a grin that he returned in kind, standing up straight and folding his arms.
“Well, it’s Saturday morning and he’s made it as far as the kitchen,” he stated, regarding Howard mock-thoughtfully. “Bearing in mind he’s not had his coffee yet, I think we should just be grateful he’s forming words at all,” he added then, laughing when Howard scowled up at him half-heartedly and flashing him a shameless smile in response. “This time on Sunday you’ll be lucky to get a grunt out of him,” he concluded, his eyes still on Howard, who pulled a face at him and attempted to smother a smile.
“You’re very lucky I love you,” he muttered and Jason laughed.
“Duly noted,” he smiled. “Now, if you can keep your eyes open long enough, I’m taking breakfast orders. Any preference?” Howard’s eyes lit up at the mention of food, and he sat up a little straighter, more awake almost immediately, much to Jason’s amusement.
“Any chance of an omelette? I’m starving.” Jason’s smile was knowing, even as he rolled his eyes in a show of despair.
“I bet you are,” he remarked dryly, meeting Howard’s eyes and suppressing a laugh as their minds both drifted back to the previous night. When Howard waggled his eyebrows at him suggestively, Jason narrowed his eyes in response, grabbing up a tea-towel from the counter and throwing it in Howard’s face. “Behave, Donald,” he warned jokingly, before glancing over at Grace with a grin. “That goes for you too, sweetheart – you pair should be a lot nicer to the bloke offering to cook your breakfasts,” he reminded them, winking at Howard, who was plucking the tea-towel from his face, still grinning unashamedly.
Grace let her dad and Jason carry on their good-natured bickering, the two of them interspersing secret, knowing smiles between their teases whilst Jason cooked and Howard got up to make himself a coffee. She slumped sleepily over the breakfast bar and listened to them bantering and laughing, a small smile on her lips as she enjoyed their jokes and nonsense. Mornings with her dad and Jason were always like this: lazy, bright and dancing, her dad and Jason usually starting their affectionate tug of war exactly where it had left off the night before. Even weekdays and grey days and miserable days – Grace had seen her dad and Jason make something positive out of them all. The contrast to life at her mum’s was startling; mornings with her mum were rushed and tense because of how far they lived from her mum’s work and her school. When Tim was added into the mix as well, stress and arguments almost always followed. The problem with Tim and her mum was that they were both highly strung – nothing was easy, there was no such thing as ‘Never mind’ or ‘Oh well’ and mixing their perfectionism with their hectic schedules and demanding jobs meant they had a tendency to get in each other’s way, taking their stress out on anyone in their path as they went. Grace found it best to try and stay under the radar, getting her cereal and scurrying off to the lounge to watch TV whilst her mum and Tim slowly drove each other crazy as they rushed in and out of rooms, trying to find keys and important files and laptop leads. Strangely, the perfectionist streak was one of the biggest things Grace had in common with her mum, but it was balanced out by a mellowness she’d inherited from her dad, and she supposed that was the reason that the early-morning tension always made her feel so uncomfortable; some mornings she wished she could just disappear, get swallowed whole by the sofa so that she felt less like everything was out of control, less like she was in the way all the time.
She glanced up just in time to see Jason snatching up Howard’s mug, holding it just out of his reach, the two of them performing their own intricate choreography as they laughed, each ducking out of the way of the other just in time before Jason finally allowed himself to be caught, Howard’s arms wrapping around his waist from behind and pulling him close. Jason surrendered the empty mug in exchange for a quick, chaste kiss, and the two moved on as if nothing had happened, Jason returning to his cooking and Howard pouring his coffee. Grace rolled her eyes but she couldn’t help but smile all the same; as much as she moaned and complained to them about their open affection, she realised that a part of her relished it. Besides, to see Jason so easy and calm again made a nice change after the past weeks – to see him at all still held a certain magic, in fact. The scene had a safety and a light to it and Grace wanted to be sure she made the most of it before having to return to the manic-edged air of her mum’s during the week.
It wasn’t long before Jason was setting breakfast down in front of Grace; his head was turned slightly to listen to something her dad was telling him, but he flashed her a quick smile before he moved away and Grace watched him thoughtfully, once again finding herself wondering how it was that things with Jason always seemed so simple.
“Why do you always cook breakfast for us?” Grace asked suddenly, surprising herself slightly as she let the question escape her head. Jason and Howard both turned to look at her, eyebrows raised in mild confusion, and she shrugged awkwardly under the scrutiny. She caught them exchanging a glance, Jason biting back a laugh at something he saw dancing in her dad’s eyes before he looked back over at her, his expression softening into something understanding and fond.
“Because I don’t mind?” he suggested at last, shrugging somewhat helplessly before coming over to the breakfast bar and leaning across to tuck a strand of Grace’s hair behind her ear, dipping his head so he could meet her gaze. “Still thinking too much, kiddo?” he asked, his voice gentle, and Grace gave him a small smile in return.
“Why do you have to know everything?” she asked.
“He can’t help himself, sweetheart; it just happens every time he opens his mouth,” Howard remarked as he passed behind Jason, who shot him a playful glare. Howard stuck his tongue out before sliding onto the stool next to Grace and leaning in to join her and Jason’s little huddle. “So, out of interest, since when do you care why Jay does what Jay does?” he asked in a gentler voice. Grace played with a strand of her hair, looking down and avoiding Jason and Howard’s searching gazes.
“I don’t know. I was just asking,” she mumbled. Jason’s lips twitched up at the corners and he touched her chin gently, forcing her to look up and meet his eyes.
“Come on, kiddo, you know how things work around here by now: you ever heard the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’?” Jason arched an eyebrow and Grace smiled slightly. “I care about you and your dad, so I go out of my way to make sure you’re both happy. And at the end of the day, your dad does the same for me too.” He shrugged, leaning in just a little, his smile turning conspiratorial. “Good things don’t always have to start with words, sweetheart, sometimes gestures are enough,” he told her softy. Her smile widened and she gave him a small nod, and with that Jason seemed to see the issue as settled, giving her a quick wink before pushing himself up off the breakfast bar and turning back to his cooking.
Grace glanced over at her dad, who winked at her too, kissing the top of her head.
“He’s telling the truth, you know. It’s just how things go around this place; we do what we can and we give what we can in return – number one house rule, kiddo,” he told her, glancing over at Jason briefly before looking back at her. “It’s a good cure-all – but sometimes you have to be the one to make the first gesture,” he added, and Grace gave him a small, understanding smile. He arched an eyebrow at her. “So…better?” he asked her gently and she smiled up at him.
“Much,” she agreed with a quick nod, an easy calm settling back around her that Howard seemed to sense, and he rewarded her with a smile of his own.
“Good. Now go on, trouble, run off and watch TV like I know you’re dying to,” he said, laughing as she scrambled quickly to grab up her plate and cutlery, manoeuvring awkwardly down from the high stool she was sitting on and making a swift beeline for the sofa.
As soon as Grace was settled in front of the TV, Howard climbed down from his stool and made his way over to Jason, wrapping an arm around him from behind and kissing the crook of his neck. “I love you,” he murmured against Jason’s skin. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeated, making Jason laugh softly as he leant back against him. “I love you and I will always love you, and you need to know that, right now.” Howard briefly closed his eyes as he held Jason close. The scent of coconut was on Jason’s skin and he smiled lazily, reluctantly releasing his hold just enough to allow Jason to twist in his arms, letting him turn his head to look up into his face.
“Howard Donald, you aren’t half a sappy bastard – especially on Saturday mornings,” Jason said quietly, no malice in the words and his eyes dancing a hundred hues of blue. Howard simply leant in to press a kiss to the crook of his neck.
“God, Saturday mornings…you have no idea how much I love you on Saturday mornings,” he mumbled against Jason’s skin, and Jason’s lips curved at the corners, forming the palest of smiles. “Do you have any idea how quiet this place was on Saturday mornings without you? Late at night and first thing in the morning…I did the dishes at 3a.m. one time, just so I could bang some pots around.”
“And did it help?” Jason asked gently.
“No. But then you came home.” Howard leant back and smiled at Jason quietly, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “So, do I have your permission to be a sappy bastard on Saturday mornings?” he asked and Jason chuckled.
“I never said you couldn’t be, actually. It was just an observation,” he told him, his tone quiet and matter-of-face. “I did marry you, after all – so maybe, just maybe, I have a thing for sappy bastards.” Jason rolled his eyes then. “And come on, our first kiss was in the rain – you should know by now I love a good cliché every now and then.” His eyes danced mischievously and Howard grinned, kissing his temple.
“Oh Jay, I am so glad I found you,” Howard said with a small smile, kissing Jason on the lips before turning him around to face him properly. “You know….it’s you and her, Jay; that’s all I really care about in the end.” Jason’s lips twisted into a soft, knowing smile as he looked up into Howard’s eyes, and Howard rested their foreheads together, cupping his face in his hand, the pad of his thumb brushing Jason’s cheek. He could see the answer there, without words, and he smiled back at Jason quietly. “Of course you know that,” he said with a half-chuckle, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Jason was studying his face thoughtfully, and he offered him another small, shy smile. “And that’s the point,” he added more softly, leaning back just enough to fix his bright blue eyes on Jason more clearly. “Thank you for my Saturday mornings, Jason Orange.”
“Please. I live for your Saturday mornings, Howard Donald. And that’s never going to change,” Jason murmured back, allowing Howard to pull him into a slow, lazy kiss, his hands curling into his hair and his smile soft against his lips.
***
Gary cast a wary eye around the cavernous room, taking in the stainless steel and cut-glass surroundings and shifting uncomfortably on the style-before-substance barstool. A few staff were milling around, all young and bored-looking, and over in the DJ booth a moody-eyed man with a complicated array of piercings along the curve of his ear was assessing the equipment, muttering something into his phone. It was one of those places which was trying just that little bit too hard to be cutting-edge, the sort of venue that anyone with any real experience of exclusivity would cringe at, but that your average punter was happy to play pretend in, allowing the façade of class to trick them for an hour or so. Gary supposed that, once the lights went down, it was a lot easier to ignore the desperation that crept in at the edges and to focus instead on the good looks and charm of the bar staff and the up-to-the-minute beats of Manchester’s finest DJs, who regularly graced the place with their presence; it was a popular spot, and Gary wondered idly if Howard had ever played here, given his ever-growing profile in the business.
Gary sighed, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the sparkling bar-top and wincing slightly. He looked every bit as uncomfortable and out of place as he felt, and – not for the first time since he’d arrived – he wondered what on earth he was doing here. He’d been ushered in a good twenty minutes ago and had been told he would have no longer than ten minutes to wait; it didn’t surprise him too much – he remembered these power-games from back in the day, and he felt a fool for still allowing them to make him feel so small. He should’ve outgrown this, should’ve come to be more comfortable and confident in his own skin. He should’ve had the backbone to not even come here in the first place, some snipped, sad voice in the back of his head reminded him. He rubbed a hand over his face, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to take stock and gather himself. He was in no fit state to deal with this – he’d built it up too much in his head and now the past was threatening to swallow him whole, restore him back to the person he used to be. Some part of him recognised that he had changed, grown, since then, yet he still couldn’t snap out of it.
For what seemed like the thousandth time since he’d woken up, his thoughts drifted to the past – more specifically to his and Jason’s shared past, to those days when their friendship was new and they were little more than two strangers thrown together by circumstance. Gary remembered being in awe of Jason back then, could still remember watching him dance for the first time, dazed and a little mesmerized by his power and confidence. There was something captivating about Jason when he danced, as though that quiet intensity of his had suddenly been unleashed and set on fire. There had been a fierceness in his eyes that day that Gary had never known in anyone else, and the memory of that sharp blue stare first meeting his was vivid in his mind to this day. Charming, handsome and intelligent, Jason had fascinated Gary before they had even exchanged hellos – his curious blend of charisma and earnestness had made Gary idolise him somewhat at first, but it had been Jason’s kindness and humour which had fostered a friendship that had seen them quickly become like brothers. They had both grown up a lot since then, had both been changed by life and circumstances and even by each other. But sitting here now in the soulless air of the city-centre club, Gary hardly felt he’d changed at all. That awed, hapless kid was still there – there was still a weakness right in his core, a spinelessness he hated to own up to.
And that was why he was here, Gary supposed. Why he was here without talking it over with Mark or Howard or even Jason himself. He wasn’t brave enough to admit his own doubts and regrets, he didn’t have the courage to face their disappointment. And Jason…he didn’t want to see the haunted look in his eyes he’d seen all those years ago, didn’t want to be the one who brought it back again after all this time. Gary shuddered. A part of him knew that that memory alone should’ve been enough to stop him coming here. But there were still answers he didn’t have and it bothered him, unsettled him. He and Jason had been in each other’s lives for so long now it was almost hard to count up the years – so much had been shared in that time, so many secrets, hopes and fears exchanged, but there were questions Gary never asked and answers Jason never gave. They never really spoke about any of it; there was a silent acknowledgement between the two of them that things had happened which neither one of them was in a rush to relive, an understanding that the truth of their history should forever be repainted in order to avoid certain conversations. They’d been playing pretend so long that Gary sometimes wondered if Howard even knew the truth, or if it was one guard Jason Orange was simply never going to let down for anyone.
Gary was shaken from his thoughts by a hand clapping down on his back, and he jolted up a little, startled. Some voice in the back of his head pointed out that he could’ve snuck away if he’d been a little quicker, but now the chance was lost and the point was moot. Over his shoulder, smiling plastically back at him, was a barely-recognisable face from his past; the skin was unnaturally taught, its pallor unsettlingly orange, but those eyes were every bit as shockingly blue as he remembered, and that too-bright smile every bit as forced and insincere as it had always been.
“Gary!” The friendliness at least was, perhaps, genuine, though Gary couldn’t be sure. “So sorry to keep you waiting – a lot of VIPs in tonight, you know how it is.” It was clearly not a sincere apology – more a subtle boast than anything – and Gary smiled tightly as he remembered all the reasons he’d found it easy to trade this man’s friendship in for Jason’s all those years ago. “Well look at you, Gary Barlow! I can’t believe we’ve let it go so long.” He’d pulled himself up to sit on the barstool next to Gary’s, turning himself to face him better, and when he spoke it was with a flash of alarmingly white teeth and a glint of icy blue eyes that seemed to see a little bit too much for Gary’s liking. “I’m still on the club scene, as you can see. Moved up in the world since then though – you’ve probably heard all about that, of course, I’m sure; I’ve been in all the papers round here, always promoting things. I run a whole chain of these places now, a few gay-bars up and down the North West too. There’s a piano bar I run not far from here that’s probably more your scene, but it’s closed for renovations at the moment; have to stay on the edge of all the trends in this business.” Gary nodded vaguely. “And what about you? Any news I should know about? It’s a quaint little shop you’re running – I didn’t realise when I stopped in that it was yours, I just thought you worked there.” Gary raised his eyebrows sceptically. “Messy break-ups can force you into a rebound business like that, I suppose – but you’re making the best of it, I’m sure.” Gary blinked in surprise at that comment, not sure exactly how he could have come by the information about the circumstances of his buying the shop honestly, but he decided to let it slide.
“The name of the place is the giveaway that it’s mine, for most people anyway,” he remarked archly, before letting out a sigh. “I wouldn’t say it’s something I went into blind, though. Everyone who knows me knows it’s just an excuse to be around music all day. Write a lot of songs that way,” he shrugged, glancing down at the bar-top and tracing an absent pattern along the sleek, black surface.
He knew from past experience that there would probably be some agenda to this meeting, to the sudden return of this man to his life after so many years of silence, and that knowledge made him shy away from saying too much, cautious and unsure of where the landmines might be buried and not willing to give away too much in case he was stumbling into a trap. “It’s all going well though, muddling along, you know,” he added with an awkward shrug, forcing himself to avoid eye-contact.
“Of course, of course.” The tone was dismissive and clipped and it provoked a peculiar mix of annoyance and uneasiness in Gary’s chest. He glanced up and found those piercing blue eyes were fixed upon him, seeming to assess him and judge him and know too much. He made Gary feel like a teenager again, with his mind games and his idle power-plays. So much the man did was designed to make people feel small – he felt foolish for allowing those tricks to work even now he was older. Gary remembered how that calculating way of his had always ensured he’d got his way, though. That was until he’d come up against Jason Orange’s quiet steel and self-belief, of course, Gary mused absently.
“I know all about your little band, you know, Gary. Listened to some stuff a friend of mine recorded.” Gary blinked in surprise at the sudden subject change, looking into the other man’s face with trepidation and confusion. He smiled thinly back at Gary and made a dismissive gesture with his hands. “It’s a small world in my business. The Manchester night scene’s been talking about you and your little songs – they say you don’t put on a bad show, for an amateur club and pub scene group, that is” He arched an eyebrow at Gary, barely bothering to pretend his enquiry was simply casual any more. “Four of you, is there?” he added, looking Gary up and down. Gary shifted in his seat and looked away, uncomfortable with how much he seemed to know about his life and feeling as though he were betraying the band if he allowed himself to say too much about them to this man.
“That’s right,” he said stiffly, giving a small little nod. “Me and the boys from the shop.”
“And that Jason Orange is one of your boys from the shop then?” He sounded as though he were sucking on lemons when he said Jason’s name and Gary winced.
“Jay’s been a good mate to me – it wasn’t his idea to be in the band, but when me and Mark begged he couldn’t bring himself to say no,” he replied, hoping his voice conveyed the determination he felt not to let Jason’s name be dragged through the mud during what was supposed to be an innocent catch-up between old friends. Nothing was ever innocent with this man, though, Gary reminded himself.
“Done alright for himself, I’ve noticed. I’ve met his husband – he’s supposed to be working here for me for a few nights soon. Good DJ. Got cagey when I asked after Jason, though. Trouble in paradise?”
“As if,” Gary scoffed, his smile turning fond as he thought of Jason and Howard, cluttering up his shop near-constantly with their affectionate bickering. “Howard’s protective, that’s all,” he added, looking down.
“Suppose you have to be when you marry a man with that sort of a face.” Gary bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, a defensive anger forming in the pit of his stomach. “I’m just amazed he’s settled down at all. Didn’t think he was capable.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Gary asked sharply, looking up with a frown. His scowl only deepened when he was given a placid, reptilian smile and an idle shrug in reply.
“He was always a piece work. Very full of himself. Cocky. Knew he could have his pick of the boys.”
“Jay’s not like that,” Gary said coolly. Even the old Jason, the one with that youthful fearlessness and boundless energy, hadn’t been like that. Bold, perhaps. But never arrogant. Loyal, quiet and smart – they were the qualities at the heart of Jason Orange and they always had been. And he had been the only person in the group who’d seen past the fact that Gary was ‘uncool’. Jason had listened and given him his time, had treated him like a brother but also like a leader, shown him respect and not asked for much of anything in return besides his attention when he explained choreography and his seriousness when he danced with him, or tried to. “Jay’s never been like that,” Gary added more quietly, another wave of guilt for even being here suddenly hitting him.
“Well you didn’t have to try to manage him. He was in my ear more than you know, Gary. There was always something. You know, if he’d had half as much talent – or half as big a brain – as he thought he did, then maybe things would have worked out a different way. But he thought he was too good for me and you, Gary. Thought he was better than what we were trying to do, and never seemed to realise how hard he would have to work for any of us to get anywhere in that industry.” Another lie, Gary knew; there was no one who grafted harder than Jason – he was a determined, honest soul if ever there was one. “I needed a pretty face, though – I knew the dangers of finding one as handsome as him, but I took the risk, because success in that industry is built on risk, you know. I would’ve made a lot of money for a lot of people if he’d let me.”
“You chose him for his face and underestimated his mind. Underestimated his talent too – though even Jay himself is guilty of that sometimes.” Gary knew he was mumbling like some scolded schoolboy trying to defend himself to the headmaster, but he drew himself up a little, hoping to portray the confidence he was lacking. “You definitely underestimated his heart,” he added warningly, but his glare was dismissed with a huffy laugh.
“You only have one side of the story, you know. I’m sure he’s twisted it to suit his own ends – he was always selfish, Gary. It’s just a shame he had to bring you down with him.”
“Selfish? Jay?! Can you even hear yourself?! He’s just Jay! And he’s one of the most genuine blokes I know. He won’t kick up a fuss unless something really matters. So whatever you want to tell me about what I saw back then and how it’s all a big misunderstanding? Don’t bother.”
Gary looked up, hoping his firm tone was enough to cover the tiny sliver of doubt that he’d always been ashamed to admit lingered in his chest over how exactly things had turned out. What he did know was that there had always been a light in Jason. A light that had dwindled and stuttered because of this man. Jason had rapidly lost that quiet self-belief he’d had when Gary had first met him, lost pieces of himself on a daily basis as something – someone – had chipped away at his smooth edges, uncovering fault lines beneath his surface that he tried his best to hide, but could never quite fully keep out of sight. Insecurity, doubt and something – something Gary couldn’t place – had fractured him. He’d spent the years since putting himself back together, picking up the pieces and attempting to reassemble them into something whole. And the result had become the beautiful, jagged mosaic that Gary knew today; flawed but bright. His edges were sharp and his colours mismatched, but he was glorious again – and perhaps, with Howard’s help, his light had become brighter than ever, his lost strength restored. And after all that, Jason deserved more than for his pain to be dismissed as a misunderstanding, more than for whatever exactly had happened all those years ago to be labelled a lie. “You were always hardest on him,” Gary murmured, shaking his head slightly as if to try and quell the onslaught of memories the conversation was bringing to his mind.
“Because he needed it,” came the sharp, swift reply. “When you have an attention seeker it disrupts the group. He needed reminding why he was there, so I gave him that reminder. I hurt his pride and his ego but no harm was done. Maybe I pushed him harder than I would’ve done anyone else, but I had to, it was the only way to keep him in check.” Gary let out a barked, humourless laugh and shook his head – if anyone had been an attention seeker back then, he wasn’t proud to admit it, but it had probably been him.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this with you – you’ve always been the same when it comes to Jay, and if you’re still singing the same tune even now, then I’ve got a life I’d like to get back to, and some real friends who I could be spending my time with instead.”
Gary shook his head once more, angry with himself, and he pushed himself down off the stool, but stopped abruptly when a bony hand grabbed his bicep.
“Gary, don’t rush off.” Gary was alarmed to find how easily the plea stopped him in his tracks. Why did he find it so hard to shake off the past? “Listen, I’m sorry we don’t see eye to eye on this, but don’t spoil our afternoon by storming off.” Gary risked a glance back then. His whole body had stiffened, instinctively distrustful, but some traitorous, nostalgic part of his brain was curious and wouldn’t allow him to shake off the other man’s vice-grip.
“Look, if you only called me to slag off my best mate then I don’t think-”
“Gary, don’t be like that. We’ve never seen eye-to-eye on Jason, but that’s no excuse for falling out, not anymore.” A cold smile played on the man’s lips. “And don’t forget who it was that first believed in your music, Gary. Remember who it was that was willing to risk it all just to build a band around your talent – your talent no one else would recognise.” Gary felt his resolve weakening further and he let out a sharp, frustrated sigh. “Look around you, Gary. I know how to build success, and I certainly know how to get the press’ attention. I know we both had to leave the industry behind us for a while, after everything that happened…but we made a great team, while it lasted. And maybe now the time could be right again – you’ve thinned out, grown into your looks, and your sound might be just the thing that would strike a chord right now.” Gary turned slowly, looking back at him with a mixture of confusion and disgust. He spluttered out a breath, shaking his head slightly.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that? Is this why you got back in touch with me?” He dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand and drew in a steady breath. “Do you really think I need your help to achieve anything with my life?” He could hardly bear to look at him, angered by the pitying, condescending smile his defiance was being met with. “Look, I’ve got a perfectly good team around me already, and I don’t have any plans to stab any of them in the back by coming in on one of your schemes – so if you want back in the music business? Go right ahead. But don’t use me to do it.” Gary was about to turn away once more when that calm, smug voice cut in again, stopping him in his tracks.
“And yet you came to see me.” So simple. So composed. And he was right, wasn’t he? Gary was claiming contentment with his life, but he’d still felt the need to come to this meeting today. Gary clenched his jaw. He could feel every muscle in his body had tensed – guilt coiled in his stomach but he tried to keep his expression guarded, not wanting to show the thread of doubt those words had sewn.
“I came to see if there was anything left in this friendship worth salvaging. I guess I should’ve known better after all; walking away from you was the best thing I ever did – now I’m in a band with my boyfriend and two of my best mates in the world, we’ve got a manager who’s ready to take us on and we’re all of us involved, equally, no dictators trying to play politics and pissing people off left, right and centre. I’m here for curiosity’s sake. Nothing more.”
“Boyfriend?” Gary stilled, suddenly feeling a chill; he hadn’t meant to reveal quite so much.
He should never have come here, he thought yet again. He should never have let himself walk into what was almost certainly a trap, designed to gather information for who-knew-what purpose. There was always a scheme with him – always. How had he forgotten that? He wished Jason were there now, though at the same time he was powerfully glad that Jason had gotten so far away from this particular ghoul from their past, that he’d found his way to move on without regret or doubt playing on his mind. Gary looked back up into those cool blue eyes and swallowed nervously. He was offered yet another empty smile. “Congratulations, Gary. I’m sure he’s working wonders for your love songs.” Gary bristled slightly at the idea of Mark as some simple tool to be used and discarded as needed – at the idea that Mark himself wasn’t gifted in music in his own right. But most people were simply tools to this man. “Will you at least let me know if there are there any contracts involved in all this?” Gary faltered.
“Contracts?”
“Deals. Things set in stone. Signatures on paper to protect all parties.” He paused and raised his eyebrows leadingly, his expression somehow knowing. “Or maybe even any marriage proposals in the near future?”
“I don’t-”
“Security, Gary. It’s hard enough to come by in the industry, never mind if you don’t have some kind of insurance. These people could walk away from you, they could let you go tomorrow.”
“The way you did, you mean?”
“The way Jason did.”
“Don’t start that again.”
“Just how important can they be to you, Gary? This manager and these friends and that boyfriend of yours – you don’t seem to be rushing to tie them down.”
“And that’s how you think friendship works, is it? How relationships work? I trust them, it’s enough.”
“They’re holding you back, Gary. You know it as well as I do. Where is Jason Orange ever going to get you in life?”
“I said don’t start that again.”
“This boyfriend, then? What about him? What makes you think he would treat you any differently than every other guy in your life, Gary Barlow? How much do you even know about him? His past, his motives. People in this industry use people, Gary. And these people you’ve surrounded yourself with are just using you without giving anything back.”
“Funny, that’s what I thought you were offering.”
“I’m offering you a second chance, Gary. Money, fame, recognition. I’m offering you a shot at living out your dreams, there’s no need make accusations when all I want to do is help. You should at least take my card; that way you can call me when you see sense.” He shrugged and smiled icily, producing his card as if from nowhere and holding it out towards Gary. “I always put everything in writing, Gary, you can’t deny that.” He tilted his head to one side. “So…call me?” One of his eyebrows arched and the expression fell somewhere between malicious and playful as the corner of his lips curled up slightly into a cold smile. “Or you could just marry that boyfriend of yours and live anonymously ever after. See if I care when he doesn’t even bother sticking around.”
Chapter 3
Grace smiled as she felt the early afternoon sunshine hit her face; as the three of them stepped outside onto the pavement she noticed Jason and her dad slipping their sunglasses on in effortless unison, not missing a beat in their conversation. It was one of those early summer days where the air was crisp and cool, but the weekend sunshine had still drawn quite a crowd of shoppers out onto the Manchester streets, and snatches of laughter and conversation danced on the light breeze, which lifted flyaway wisps of Grace’s hair and blew them into her eyes. The street was one of the main shopping streets in the city, the Arndale Shopping Centre dominating much of the area, and the sleek signage and brightly coloured brand names which lined the road were a far cry from Oldham Street’s eclectic mix of small, quirky businesses which were just a ten minute walk away; it was almost strange to see her dad and Jason amidst the bright lights and branding of Blackfriars Road and St. Mary’s Gate, as though somehow they belonged to a different world and were better for it. But then she glanced up at them and the thought was quickly gone from her head: with their shades on and their hair ruffled by the breeze, both Jason and her dad looked the epitome of Mancunian-cool, and Grace knew from listening to them talk that they were more than capable of belonging anywhere in the city, both knowing it by heart, and of course neither man’s accent had been remotely dented by past years of traveling and living away.
The day had been the perfect antidote to Grace’s sleepless night before; French toast, cartoons and a brief session showing her dad what new songs she could play on the guitar had been followed by a walk along the canal and the suggestion from Jason that they drive into town. He wasn’t oblivious to the way Grace’s eyes had lit up at the prospect of shopping, and though he’d mentioned in passing some Orange family birthday he needed to shop for, Grace had still been the one to dictate most of their itinerary, with their most recent stop – the large, Manchester branch of Paperchase which sat, big, bright and pink at St. Mary’s Gate – being the stop she had deliberately saved ‘til last. She grinned slightly as she swung her large Paperchase bag delightedly, the goodies inside rattling as she did so. It was her favourite place to go and her spirits were always lifted by a trip there; notebooks, coloured pens, sparkly and brightly patterned biros, small, quirky photo frames, various scrapbooking goodies, pen pots, pencil cases and eclectic and beautiful postcards for her collection all fought for her attention, and the thrill of picking out her favourites and watching the staff at the tills carefully wrap them in tissue paper was one of her favourite things. Jason and her dad were more than aware of the dangers of letting her loose in the store, but they seemed to have decided she deserved to be spoilt today, and a large array of items filled her bag, though her pocket money had only stretched to the selection of postcards which were carefully tucked in their own separate, smaller bag, pressed flat against a notebook to keep them safe.
Ahead of her, her dad and Jason were still engrossed in their conversation – which seemed to have moved on from the light-hearted bickering she had tuned out earlier – and Grace performed a quick hop-skip step to draw level with them, bouncing up to her dad, who glanced back, flashing a brief smile at her over his shoulder before turning back towards Jason.
“I don’t know – sometimes it feels like mum will never forgive me for turning it down. She understood but…I think she thinks sometimes I should’ve gone for it,” Jason was saying with a shrug, and Howard’s expression turned quizzical.
“So how come you never told me about it before?” he asked, though he didn’t seem to be hurt by whatever the admission had been, simply confused. Jason smiled ruefully.
“I got a lot of offers – you know that.”
“Love, I know you were like the sun: the rest of us just orbited round you,” Howard countered, his tone tender and full of admiration. “And I also know no one looking at the dance crews in Manchester back then ever left without giving you an offer of work,” he added with a smirk. Then he shrugged and raised his eyebrows, regarding Jason carefully. “But a gig like that? We’re talking serious stuff. That would’ve been a regular thing. A big regular thing. You could’ve been a household name overnight if it had taken off. And it would have taken off – I know what you’re like: ‘all in’ is in your DNA, you would’ve put the work in to get it there.”
“The sun? Really?!” Jason asked with a laugh, one eyebrow quirked up, and Howard shrugged unapologetically, his smile soft but his eyes intent upon Jason’s face.
“I mean it, you know. I don’t need to see your mum’s photo collection and old VHS back-catalogue to know that; I was there, remember? I didn’t know your name back then but I remember your crew and I remember the bloke in it who all of us wished we could be, the one who worked at everything and who booked every job going because of it. You lit up when you performed – you always do.”
“I’ve never had the flexibility of some of the guys. You have all that – the flexibility, the jump-height, the backflips. I’m not up there on any of that stuff and never have been.”
“Maybe not, but you’ve got the lines. And the rhythm. Besides, Jay, there’s something about you – when you move, when you perform…put you on a stage and it’s like every cell in your body is on fire and the rest of us just have to watch, or try to keep up with you. Everyone knows it, Jay – you’re the only one who’s never believed it, you know that? That’s why you got all those other TV jobs. And if this producer saw it in you…”
“What, he actually would’ve built a show round me? Now you sound like mum.”
“Well, maybe she’s right.”
“If I’d have taken that job I might not even be in Manchester right now. Is that what you want, love?”
“Don’t you give me that,” Howard shot back with a grin, leaning over to kiss Jason’s temple. Jason smiled up at him in amusement, elbowing him off of him and shaking his head slightly.
“Don’t give you what, Howard Donald? It’s true.”
“No. Even if you weren’t in Manchester any more, you and me? Meant to be. So stop arguing with me.” Howard’s smile was mischievous, but his shy glance down gave away how much he meant the statement, so Jason simply nodded and let it slide.
“Even so, I don’t know if that was me. I don’t know if I could’ve done it then – it was right after everything with-” Jason cut himself off sharply and glanced away.
“So it was bad timing,” Howard murmured, nodding slightly, his smile sympathetic and gentle, as though he understood whatever it was Jason wouldn’t say aloud. “And everything probably happens for a reason, even the drama with You Know Who. Your mum will get over it eventually. And you know I wouldn’t change you – or your history – for the world.” Jason looked over at him, smiling gratefully and reaching over to take his hand, bringing it to his lips and placing a kiss to it, before quickly dropping it again.
He looked over his shoulder and caught Grace’s eye, noticing her curious expression and flashing her a smile. “You ok, Gracie?” he asked. Grace nodded, tossing one of her messy plaits back over her shoulder and skipping around to walk between her dad and Jason, slipping her bag onto her wrist so that she could grab a hold of their hands.
“I’m good,” she said happily, a giddy grin taking over her face as Jason and Howard both caught her hands and instinctively lifted their arms in unison, swinging her effortlessly along between them. She let out a giggling squeal of delight as her feet swung up in front of her before thunking down to the ground again.
“Ok then, princess, in that case I say we top off the indulgence with some cake at Stella’s – sound like a plan?” Jason suggested, looking enquiringly between Howard and Grace.
“As in Stella’s where Mark works?” Grace asked hopefully. Howard smirked.
“Where Mark says he works. I’ve never seen it with my own eyes though,” he remarked, and Jason suppressed a laugh.
“Mark’s not in the caff today anyway – he’s minding the shop for Gaz…don’t know where Gaz was off to mind, he was vague when I asked him.”
“But if we go to Stella’s, then we would be just down the road from the shop. So we could go and see Mark. And maybe check if Gary bought any new guitar picks since last week?” Grace interrupted and Howard and Jason both laughed.
“And the real reason she’s so happy is revealed,” Jason said archly, winking at Grace, who stuck her tongue out at him. “Well, you’re in luck – I know Gaz got a load of random band and album-cover picks in on Wednesday, coz muggins here had to go and find a bigger box to put ‘em all in. We can stop by on the way back to the car.”
“Do you get a staff discount?” Howard asked, and Jason rolled his eyes, which glittered playfully behind his shades.
“And the real reason you married me is revealed,” he said with feigned disappointment, and Howard grinned at him impudently.
“Shush, you – I know you only married me to get into the best clubs,” he countered, and Jason sighed airily, nodding in a slow, thoughtful way, as though he was considering the idea carefully.
“But I had other offers, you know. You just had the prettiest face,” he said casually, giving Howard a sly smile that was returned in kind.
“Awww,” Howard said jokily, leaning across to kiss the side of Jason’s face. “You old romantic,” he mumbled against Jason’s skin. Grace wrinkled her nose, elbowing her dad’s hip in protest.
“You two are seriously weird,” she complained sulkily, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her lips despite herself.
“Fine by me,” her dad smiled, unashamed. “As long as you don’t mind not getting any cake,” he added playfully and Grace gasped.
“That’s not fair!”
“Well me not being allowed to kiss Jay’s not fair either, but you said-”
“I take it back!”
“Ok, ok, come on children; let’s get some sugar down your pair’s necks before it’s all-out war round here,” Jason interjected with a chuckle, shaking his head in a show of despair even as he caught Howard’s eye and flashed him another affectionate smile.
Stella’s Café was surprisingly popular considering its location; the chain coffee shops and cafes which were just around the corner at St. Mary’s Gate no doubt pulled in the weekend shoppers and visitors, even area-newcomers, but hardened locals knew the secret to searching out a good sugary treat in the city, and they had clearly done a good job of spreading the word amongst themselves. It wasn’t a huge space, but even when crowded it never felt cramped, and today almost all its customers had chosen to either sit outside or close to the windows, enjoying the sunshine whilst it lasted as they relished their homemade sweet treats. The place was eclectically decorated, its seating ranging from squashy sofas in unusual fabrics to quirky-looking dining chairs and autumn-coloured booths, whilst the counter stood at the back of the space, picked out in a rich dark wood with a top of black marble that glittered slightly when the sun hit it. The ceiling was painted to look like a stylised, dark blue night’s sky, with stars and constellations picked out in gold, whilst the mural of ships sailing on moonlit ocean waters on the back wall was an addition from last year, which Mark and Grace had both helped to paint. The most beautiful things in Stella’s Café, however, remained the cakes, which were displayed in a glass cabinet just beside the till; there was a vast array of types, flavours and decorations which changed from week to week, though certain house specials remained firm favourites with the cafe’s regular customers.
As the three of them came in through the door, Laura – who was manning the till – spotted them immediately, offering them a bright, wide smile, her green eyes sparkling and her pretty face suddenly all lit up. All the girls who worked at the shop were familiar with the Barlow’s Music Shop family, not least because they so often found themselves having to come and physically drag Mark away from them in order to get him to come in on time for his shifts, and they always looked forward to having a chance to catch up with them.
Howard was despatched to the till to place their order, whilst Grace and Jason picked out a quiet table in the back corner which had four low, striped armchairs clustered around it.
“It feels like summer already,” Grace said with a contented sigh as she threw herself down into one of the chairs. Jason smiled down at her, mild amusement dancing in his eyes as he slid his satchel off his shoulder, before sitting down in the armchair which was pushed up against Grace’s.
“You won’t be so excited for summer when you find out how many times a member of the Orange family thinks a family barbeque would be a great idea and drags us all along to join the madness,” he warned her jokingly and Grace shrugged.
“I don’t mind. As long as your mum is there; she tells me all the stories you never do,” she beamed, giggling as Jason stuck his tongue out at her.
“Oh, mum has plenty of stories – you just have to know which ones are true and which ones she’s telling for the sole purpose of winding me up.”
“Your whole family winds you up though,” Grace reminded him brightly, and Jason pulled a face, narrowing his eyes at her in a show of irritation that didn’t entirely convince.
“Alright, Gracie, no need to remind me – I grew up with ‘em, remember? It was a madhouse.”
“It still is a madhouse,” Grace deadpanned and it was only when she glanced up to meet Jason’s eyes that she broke into a giggle. “I like your family. They treat me like I’m family.”
“You are family,” Jason told her softly, giving her a slight nudge with his elbow, and Grace scrunched her face up, tilting her head to one side.
“Not really though,” she sighed.
“Gracie, you know what my family is like. Trust me, you are every bit as much a part of it as the rest of us, ok? That’s one of the good things about having a big, messy family, you know: all waifs and strays are accepted, no DNA tests required. Half-siblings, step-siblings, children, ex-wives, boyfriends, neighbours, childhood teachers…if someone in the family thinks of you as family, the whole family thinks of you as family. That’s why mum still comes to dad’s birthday party. And why dad’s rabble all show up every time mum has a barbeque.” Jason smiled fondly, shrugging before meeting Grace’s eyes again. “It can be awkward sometimes, other times it goes off smoothly, but whatever happens, no one really tends to hold it against anyone else for long.”
“They hold stuff against dad,” Grace murmured, looking down sadly, and Jason gave her arm a squeeze, smiling at her lopsidedly when she looked back up at him.
“I’m working on that. And honestly, Justin is just being stubborn. He doesn’t like admitting he was wrong…it’ll pass.” Jason’s smile brightened then. “Besides, you know they adore you. Even if your dad left me tomorrow, you’d still always be welcome at ours.” Grace grinned then, eyes sparkling playfully.
“Well that’s good, because if dad left you then I’m never speaking to him again,” she told Jason matter-of-factly, giving a little shrug. “So then I can come and live with you.”
“Cheeky,” Jason chuckled, rolling his eyes, but Grace’s grin only widened.
For a moment they fell into an amicable silence, Grace staring up at the painted constellations on the ceiling, lost inside her own thoughts as Jason fished out his phone and sent Mark a text to let him know they’d be by soon. Over by the counter, Howard was engrossed in a conversation with Laura, and Grace thought she heard Mark’s name briefly rise out of the melee of chatter which filled the air. In the peace of the moment, for the first time since the previous night, Grace’s thoughts turned back towards her mum and Tim.
It was another of Tim’s odd quirks that he never talked about his family in any great detail, and Grace was fairly certain that, despite the length of time he and her mum had been dating, his family knew little to nothing about Grace herself; she was never invited to his family’s gatherings, but then, her mum wasn’t invited all that often either. The only thing she knew about Tim’s life beyond his relationship with her mother was that he had a lot of friends he didn’t like very much and an older brother who he couldn’t stand because he was more successful than him. These weren’t details Tim had shared with her, of course, simply pieces of information she had picked up from eavesdropping when he started talking to her mother as though she wasn’t even in the room. The whole situation was a sharp contrast to her knowledge of Jason’s family; Jason offered up plenty of stories from his childhood for himself, and when Jason’s supply of stories ended, his mother’s began, and she was always all-too-willing for an excuse to share her photograph collection, much to her sons’ despair. Her dad’s family were like that too. Her mum’s family were quieter, more reserved than the Donalds and Oranges but every bit as warm and kind. Her mum always invited Tim to the few gatherings they had, and he was always welcomed like one of their own – if he bothered to show up, anyway.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, sweetheart?” Jason’s voice was low and gentle as it interrupted her thoughts, and Grace blinked slightly, looking over at him in surprise. His expression was kind, his eyes bright and shining in the golden haze that the cafe was bathed in, and Grace knew from past experience that, when Jason Orange looked into your face that way, there was no hiding anything from him. “I know overthinking when I see it,” Jason added then, with a self-deprecating little smile that raised a smile out of Grace in return. She nodded slightly, looking down at her hands for a moment. She took a second to decide whether or not to admit to dwelling on the issue of Tim and her mum once more, but in the end she realised Jason probably knew anyway, so she blew out a breath and shrugged awkwardly.
“I was just thinking about Tim again. I’ve never even met his family…it’s weird,” she admitted stiltedly. Jason nodded, pausing for a moment and studying her face. Grace flicked him a quick, sidelong glance and he caught the look, smiling slightly and offering her a lazy shrug before replying.
“Some people don’t get on with their families, Gracie. Some people just like to keep their different worlds separate. You can’t blame him for everything, you know?” he told her then, firm but sweet at the same time. Grace tried to pout but a smile was visible on her face as she continued to look up at him from the corner of her eye.
“I can try though,” she shot back faux-sulkily, and Jason laughed, the sound rough and soothing, and the sunlight danced in his eyes as he leant across to press a fond kiss to the top of Grace’s head.
“You wouldn’t be a Donald if you didn’t like a challenge, sweetheart,” he said into her hair, before leaning back just enough to meet her eyes. “But make me one promise, ok? Maybe try to set a different challenge. Maybe something along the lines of…actually trying to find a way to get along with Tim, at least a little bit. I’m sure that would make your mum smile, you know.” Grace nodded reluctantly.
“You’ll always be my favourite though,” she told him quietly, an earnestness to her tone that softened Jason’s smile, even as he gave her a playfully sly little wink.
“Obviously,” he intoned, eyes twinkling, and Grace couldn’t help but laugh.
There was so much joy in being able to joke and laugh and talk to Jason like this again, to have him nudge and wink at her and laugh at her pouts. The gratitude for it bubbled up so irrepressibly that for a moment Grace was able to forget the lingering feeling of sadness left from a particularly bad week at her mum’s. But the problem was she was still all-too-aware that she had to return to it on Tuesday, and it somehow made her time in the sunshine with Jason a little bittersweet; there was always a time limit on this life. Even the summer holidays, which would feel so endless and exciting when they started, only lasted for a few weeks, and then it would be back to what had become her reality. Silence, arguments, stillness. Grace let out a sigh and wished, as she had so many times before, that she didn’t have to choose at all.
“So can I ask you something…and maybe you can pretend you don’t know why I’m asking?” Grace said slowly, risking another look up at Jason, whose lips curved into a half-smile-half-grimace as he regarded her warily.
“Go on,” he sighed after a beat, leaning back in his chair but keeping his eyes fixed thoughtfully on her face.
“You and dad…you always bicker and disagree and call each other names, right?” Grace quirked her eyebrows at Jason and he let out a soft chuckle, tipping his head in acknowledgement.
“Right,” he conceded. Grace nodded, crossing her arms and shifting positions slightly to place them on the arm of her chair, resting her chin on them as she looked up at Jason.
“So…do you ever really fight? And mean it? I mean with shouting and all of it where you both just end up sad and quiet and storming off?” she asked, and Jason’s expression crumpled into thoughtful confusion.
“And why do you want to know, Gracie?”
“Because Tim and mum do. And me and mum do sometimes too. But I’ve never seen you and dad do that. And me and dad fight sometimes but we always say sorry really quickly and then it’s over.” Grace shrugged, looking up at Jason sadly. “I promised to try with Tim, but you didn’t say I couldn’t have a back-up plan,” she mumbled. Jason smiled at her tenderly, leaning forwards and matching her pose so that the two of them were eye to eye.
“You’ve really been thinking about living with your dad instead, haven’t you?” he murmured. Grace nodded slowly.
“So in that case, I’ll tell you the truth, and not the version of it that your mum or dad might prefer…just what actually happens, and not what might convince you to pick a side, ok?” He met Grace’s eyes and she nodded yet again. He smiled slightly. “Nobody’s perfect, Gracie. Your dad and me are both stubborn, and we both like to think we’re right, even when we do fall out and it’s obvious at least one of us must be in the wrong. But we do always fix it. And we don’t really shout. And at the end of it we’re usually a lot happier than we were before, because we know the air is clear at least – no one’s storing up any anger to take out on anyone else later. Does that answer your question?”
“I think so,” Grace replied with a timid little smile that Jason returned in kind.
“Good. Now come on, stop thinking and enjoy your weekend; the sun is shining and we’re all here – plenty of reason to be happy if you ask me.”
Just as Grace and Jason sat back, Howard appeared, and he narrowed his eyes at them suspiciously as he approached.
“You’re huddling,” he told the two of them slowly as he slid the tray he was carrying onto the table and sat down heavily in the chair opposite Jason, who smirked at him fondly.
“And if you’ve done nothing wrong then you’ve got nothing to worry about, love,” he pointed out, mischievous and sweet at the same time, and Howard rolled his eyes in mock-despair.
“Oh I’ve always got something to worry about – you pair can moan for England,” he muttered, setting down a raspberry ice drink and a cupcake decorated with little gold stars in front of Grace. He looked up at Jason out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll give you this though, you don’t moan as much as Barlow,” he added, winking. “That’s why I married you and not him.”
“I was wondering,” Jason remarked casually, taking his tea from the tray and letting Howard take his coffee, before sliding the tray off the table and setting it aside. “Mark and me don’t mind, we know all about you pair and your forbidden love,” he added, arching an eyebrow and meeting Howard’s gaze, his eyes glittering with barely-contained laughter. Howard grinned back at him knowingly. “We’re going to run away with Cadbury one day, when we’ve had enough of you both,” Jason assured him, his tone matter-of-fact but his smile playful. Grace looked from him to her dad and back carefully before shaking her head slightly.
“No. Don’t even joke. If you go with Mark and Cadbury, I’m coming too,” she protested with the smallest of pouts, her forehead slightly creased into a half-frown. Howard and Jason both laughed, raising their eyebrows at her sceptically, and after a moment she relented. “But then we’ll bring dad too. And Gary….and mum…and Izzy…”
“We’d better hire a bus,” Jason remarked dryly, taking a sip of his tea and exchanging smiles with Howard over the rim of the cup.
“Doesn’t it defeat the point of running away if you bring everyone from home with you?” Howard pointed out, looking meaningfully at Grace, who pulled a face at him.
“That settles it then I suppose; looks like you and me are stuck with each other, love,” Jason shrugged and Howard grinned at him, his blue eyes fierce and happy.
“Just the way I like it,” he said, his voice low and soft, an honesty to his tone that made Jason smile back at him quietly as he gave him a little nod, as though accepting the offer.
Howard sat back a little in his chair, looking between Grace and Jason, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“So come on, what were you two whispering about before?” he sighed after a moment, waiting patiently for Jason to look over at Grace and get her tiny, timid nod of approval before he gave Howard an answer on her behalf. As soon as permission was granted, Jason sat up a little, resting his elbows on his knees and giving Howard a lopsided smile.
“Gracie’s getting a little tired of living only for the weekend,” he said softly, a kindness and concern in his tone that touched Howard deeply. He looked over at Grace, who was suddenly studying her cake intently, and then looked back at Jason, who shrugged somewhat helplessly in response. “Speaking from personal experience? If something’s on your mind, it tends to stay there.”
“It’s ok though,” Grace interjected softly, and Howard and Jason both looked over at her expectantly. She smiled back at them; a wide, genuine smile that shone in her eyes. “I have summer,” she explained with a shrug, offering Jason a sly grin that made him laugh.
“Of course. You’re after Jenny Orange’s treasure trove of old videos and family secrets,” he remarked, rolling his eyes as though in irritation, though his smile didn’t falter. “Should’ve known any daughter of yours would be able to take all her troubles away by embarrassing me,” he added, narrowing his eyes at Howard, who grinned back unashamedly.
“Sorry, love: it’s in the DNA,” he replied.
***
Gary huffed, tapping agitatedly at his phone and biting on his lip. Why was it that Jason’s phone was never on when he most wanted it to be? Karma, he supposed – he’d hadn’t really been the best friend he could be today, after all. Flinching slightly at his own thoughts, Gary looked off into the distance, watching people milling about in the afternoon sunshine. The park was busier than usual, families and dog-walkers scattered across the open spaces, but in his shaded corner there was hardly anyone at all and he had the luxury of a bench all to himself.
Truth be told, he wasn’t even sure what it was he wanted to say to Jason; was he seeking advice or about to impart some sort of confession? Jason had always had a way of bringing out the whole story – no hiding, no lying, if something was on your mind he’d find it out one way or another, subtly extracting the truth out of Gary before he even realised it was happening. But this was one truth Gary decided he would rather keep to himself. It had been a weak moment, nothing more – and he’d regretted it from the moment he’d set foot in that club, realising his attempts at understanding the past were misguided at best and quickly doing his damndest to put as much distance between himself and that awful man as he possibly could. Yet he couldn’t deny it, he’d managed to get under his skin, to put ideas in his head and unsettle him; he wished he’d remembered that man’s uncanny ability to plant seeds of doubt before he had agreed to meet. Gary sighed and shook his head, as though the action might somehow dislodge the nervous feeling he’d been trying to squash ever since he’d made it out of the club and back to his car. How much do you really know about Mark Owen? It was a surprisingly tricky question to answer, that was the problem. Because in many ways, Gary knew everything about Mark Owen, knew the difference between his laugh when he was laughing at himself and his laugh when he was simply just delighted, knew his favourite songs, knew every different fleck of colour in his eyes and all the stories from his childhood. But in many ways, Mark Owen was a mystery; there was a sadness in him sometimes, a loneliness that Gary never dared encroach on, because, if he was honest, he feared it, feared the darkness and the sharpness that seemed to lurk somewhere deep below the surface, well-concealed by laughter and sugar, but still there, if you listened too closely to the lyrics he wrote or the gaps he left in some of his wilder stories. But if a part of him didn’t trust Mark’s darkness, and a part of him evidently didn’t trust Jason’s version of events in their past…then who did he trust, really? And was it his fault or theirs?
He was startled out of his spiralling melancholy by the sound of his phone, chirping brashly as a call came in. Gary squinted down at the screen and smiled somewhat dejectedly as he saw Jason’s name flashing there; a bubble of guilt popped in his chest and he drew in a deep breath, trying to push the sensation out of his mind before answering the phone. I’m such a bad friend. He blew the breath out and brought his phone to his ear.
“Alright, Jay?” he asked, his voice tight, and he hoped Jason didn’t sense the tension in his tone. But of course, he knew that was probably asking too much. “Not bothering you am I?” he pressed on quickly, not sure what he wanted the answer to be. Jason simply chuckled warmly down the line.
“I wouldn’t have returned the call if it wasn’t a good time, mate, you know that. So, what’s the problem?”
“Who said there was a problem?” Gary ventured, and Jason laughed again, soft exasperation creeping in at the edges of it.
“Come on, Barlow, we’ve known each other too long for messing about. What’s bothering you?” Jason’s voice was absent of annoyance, sounding instead every bit as warm and genuine as it always was. Gary felt a pang of guilt again. What was bothering him was a ghost from their shared past, and the last thing Jason needed after everything he had been through this year was for any reminders of another dark time he had thought long-banished.
Gary knew he was letting the pause drag on, but Jason didn’t press or hurry him, and for that he was grateful. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, trying to clear his head sufficiently to hone in on what exactly it was that was bothering him the most.
“Has someone ever said something to you that…that struck a little bit too close to home? And you just…you know that, no matter what you do, for the rest of that day, maybe the rest of that week, you’re going to keep coming back to what they said and…dreading the possibility that maybe – no matter how much you don’t want them to be – they might be right?” He was aware that his voice had become somehow distant and detached; he could hear himself speaking, but it was as though he was standing very far away. The sensation was peculiar and unsettling, and he sat up a little straighter, as though somehow it might help him pull himself together.
“Ok…so who’ve you been talking to?” Jason asked slowly, and Gary winced.
“No one important,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and squeezing them tightly shut. He hated lying to Jason, but this was one truth he just couldn’t bring himself to share. “It’s just something someone said in passing, you know…and I just…” He sighed and tipped his head back, staring up at the clouds for a moment. “Am I boring?” he asked suddenly, and Jason let out a confused half-laugh.
“What?”
“Do I…do I try so hard to be logical and sensible and rational and…pragmatic about everything that…that I don’t really live? Do I try so hard not to get hurt that I end up just not feeling anything at all? And is that normal?”
“Gaz, what is this about? Because I don’t know what whoever it is has been saying but…being sensible and being boring are worlds apart,” Jason told him gently. A vague smile coloured Gary’s lips and he let out a slow, calming breath.
“Yeah?”
“Gaz, come on. Look, we both know you’re the only real grown-up out of all of us at that shop; that doesn’t make you less though, mate, not in any way. You’ve lived, you’ve just lived in different ways to the rest of us – within the boundaries a bit more, which is no bad thing, you know? And anyway: no one who is as determined as you, or who’s fought so hard to pursue something as you have with your songwriting, could ever be dull or missing out on life. You have to know that.”
“Maybe,” Gary murmured, scuffing at the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “But Mark’s not built that way, is he. Marko is built to feel everything, even when it nearly kills him – and sometimes I think it does. Sometimes it’s like we live in different worlds entirely.”
“And Howard still doesn’t worry about the little things and I still worry about everything – you’re in a relationship, not trying to become the same person,” Jason scoffed, the reprimand kind somehow, and Gary couldn’t help but smile slightly at the sentiment.
“No. I suppose not.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I just think sometimes…what if I’m letting him down?” He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. “There’s no…there’s no guarantee there, you know? No promise, no contract, no…nothing. No security. And seeking that out seems like taking the biggest risk in the world – because it might not work. But not having it there is terrifying too – because it’d just be so easy for either one of us to walk away.”
There was a pause on the other end, and for a moment Gary wondered if Jason was even still there. But then he heard a sympathetic, yet world-weary, sigh come down the line and he quickly braced himself for whatever truth it was he was about to hear, even if it wasn’t going to be easy.
“Gaz – you know me, you know who I am, right? You know how hard I used to find it to even let you and Mark know what was really going on in my head. I used to analyse every little interaction, always waiting for the catch, always waiting for the goodbye or the favour to be called in – I still do, sometimes, you know?”
“I know. When Howard started coming around me and Mark used fall over ourselves in the rush to hide in the back room or upstairs. We were hoping you’d keep talking to him, because he’d come around and for the rest of the day you’d be so calm and happy…when you started trying to take the relationship down before it’d had even begun and were talking yourself out of starting anything more with him, we couldn’t believe it.” Jason laughed, nostalgia clear in his tone, and Gary could almost hear the fond smile he knew was on his friend’s lips.
“Lucky for us all, Howard Donald knows me better than I know myself sometimes,” he replied in a murmur. “Look, the point is, Gaz: I don’t do sure, as a rule. I don’t do immediate, uncertain, risk-it-all, no questions asked.” Jason paused. “But if Howard turns round tomorrow and says ‘Drop everything, take my hand, we’re going’ then…I’m gone. There’s nothing more I need to know; I can ask questions later, but if he says ‘Go now’ then we’re gone – no doubts, just out the door. I trust him, with or without it being in writing.” He sighed again. “And you know…even when I was worrying about starting something with him, I was never thinking it would be so easy as just walking away. When you have someone like that? It’s never going to be easy for either one of you to walk away – that was actually the part I was afraid of back then.”
Gary nodded to himself, thinking over Jason’s words and staring down at the ground, his forehead creased into a frown.
“If Howard hadn’t asked you to marry him, would it have bothered you? Would you feel like he was letting you down? Holding back from you somehow?”
“Gaz,” Jason protested with a good-natured half-grumble that almost made Gary laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I would have felt and I don’t know if it would have mattered, all I know is I have no regrets. It happened the way the way it did and…as soon as he asked I realised I already knew the answer anyway. We’d already made most of those promises though, when it came down to it; maybe it wasn’t legally binding and my mum didn’t have photos to prove it, but the important stuff? It wasn’t changed because we decided to make it official. All I can tell you, Gaz, is I’m happy with the way it did happen and I wouldn’t want to change it…but I probably would’ve coped, even if it had happened differently.” He blew out an almost-frustrated breath, pausing for a moment. “Me and Mark are different people, though, Gaz. I can’t know what goes on inside his head for sure and I can’t answer for him. All you can do is try talking to him yourself.” It was almost a plea, but at the heart of it was genuine advice that Gary knew he should just take with gratitude and have done.
“You do realise talking about it with him has the potential to turn into the most un-romantic proposal ever, don’t you?” Gary remarked dryly after a moment, and Jason chuckled.
“Oh, sing him a song and all would be forgiven I’m sure,” he joked and Gary grinned.
“Probably true.”
“Look, Gaz, I don’t know what you want me to say – I don’t know when How knew he was going to ask me to marry him or why he decided to ask when he did, and if that’s what you’re really asking me here, then maybe you should be talking to the other half of this double-act, you know? But if you’re asking me how to be sure…then I don’t know. All I know is that sure is just there for me every time when I’m with How. I don’t have to work at it, I don’t have to ignore any doubts – I just know, and I’m not scared of that the way I thought I would be back when he first started coming round.”
Silence fell between the two of them again, and Gary smiled slightly sadly as he thought over Jason’s words.
“I’m happy for you, Jay, you know that? I don’t think I tell you that enough,” Gary murmured at last. He heard Jason let out the softest, quietest of laughs.
“I’m not saying it’s not exhausting sometimes, Gaz. I’m just saying that…if you just ignore whatever and whoever else for a moment, and trust your own judgement rather than any outsider’s view? Then deep down, you probably already have your answer. There’s some part of you that will either just…know or…it won’t and never will. And if that’s the case, then you owe it to Mark to be honest. You need to be honest about it either way.” Gary nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Jay. You’re a proper mate.”
“Yeah yeah, and the rest. Now come on, get off the line and go find that boyfriend of yours. He’ll never forgive you if you stand him up for your date tonight – I went by the shop earlier, you know, and honestly, Gaz, he’s that excited for an excuse to dress up, I think there’s great aunts that haven’t seen him since he was five who got the call to say he was off out with you tonight.” Gary laughed.
“Don’t even joke – he’s got to style me before we go out apparently!” He shook his head slightly. “But don’t worry, Jay, I might be having a bad day but I still have a heart you know; I wouldn’t stand that man up for the world.”
“Glad to hear it. Now go. Think stuff over, enjoy your weekend and just…stop listening to strangers’ opinions on your relationship. And definitely stop believing anyone who dares to call you boring for just being who you are.”
***
Jason sighed and dumped his phone down beside him on the kitchen counter. For a moment he stared at it thoughtfully, his brain still turning over his conversation with Gary. He was sure there was something Gary wasn’t telling him, and even what he had told him hadn’t seemed to make sense entirely, but it wasn’t like Gary to keep something from him and he tried to suppress the unease he felt. With a shake of his head, he jumped down from the counter, glancing across to where Howard was watching him from the sofa. He caught his eye and Jason flashed him a lopsided smile, crossing back across the room and collapsing onto the sofa beside him, fitting himself neatly into the crook of his arm.
“Not enjoying playing Agony Aunt today?” Howard asked idly, pressing a kiss to his temple and pulling him a little closer. Jason let out a low groan in response, leaning his weight against Howard gratefully and closing his eyes for a moment as he rested his head on his shoulder.
“You know, sometimes I don’t understand Gary Barlow,” he said after a moment of quiet had passed between them. “He’ll pour his heart out in a love song, but you suggest he has an honest conversation and he tenses up like it’s the end of the world,” he added, his voice a low, exhausted murmur. He felt Howard’s fingers tracing soothingly down his arm and smiled slightly, opening one eye and leaning back a little so as to regard Howard carefully. “If you ever stop being a straight-forward, soppy so-and-so, Howard Donald, then there will be trouble,” he warned, his lips briefly curving up into a thin, pink smile. Howard smiled back at him softly, amusement and delight twinkling in his bright blue eyes.
“Duly noted,” he conceded, tipping his head slightly, and Jason smiled back at him, relaxing against him once more and letting out another sigh. Howard squeezed his shoulders gently. “So come on, what was wrong with him then?”
“Is this the part where you pretend you’ve not been eavesdropping?” Jason enquired casually, flicking his gaze back up to Howard’s face, and Howard stuck his tongue out at him.
“Only after I heard my name,” he admitted sulkily, laughing when he saw the amusement in Jason’s eyes. “Hey, if Barlow wants to eat into my sofa-time with you then he needs to know his conversation won’t be staying private – if he wants privacy he should confess to a priest. Now come on, Orange: start talking.” Jason chuckled, but he let his head drop back against Howard’s shoulder all the same, taking a deep breath, his eyes turning up towards the ceiling.
“It was strange, actually. He told me he’d talked to someone who’d said something about…I don’t know, about him being too boring for Mark? Or letting him down somehow by not being brave enough to actually go one step further and marry Mark? Or at least propose or…something, you know? I didn’t get the exact wording out of him, just the general gist of the argument. He was cagey about it, honestly.”
“Cagey how?”
“It was as if he wanted to tell me something more, about whoever it was that’d said this thing or how it came up – maybe why it was they bothered him enough for him to actually think about it…but then he thought better of it and just left it as a conversation about Mark and nothing else.” Jason shook his head. “Maybe I’m reading too much into it.”
“You? Never,” Howard teased, kissing the side of Jason’s face tenderly, and Jason attempted to glare at him, digging an elbow into his ribs in reprimand.
“Well whoever said it, they’ve not done him any favours. They’ve put ideas in his head. Made him think maybe he’s wrong about everything. He’s got it into his head now that he doesn’t even know what he wants.” Jason rolled his eyes, though there was as much concern in his face as there was despair. “He wanted to know if it would’ve bothered me if you hadn’t proposed.” Howard raised an eyebrow.
“And what did you tell him?” When Jason looked up at him sceptically Howard shrugged. “I didn’t hear that bit.” He grinned sheepishly. “And I’m curious.” Jason laughed, giving him one of those looks which was pure affection, an undisguised surrender of secrets that Howard had long come to recognise and appreciate.
“I told him the truth: I don’t know. How can I know? It’s not what happened.” Jason’s smile softened into something more distant and he glanced away. “You asked because you knew what answer you were going to get. And I gave you my answer because I knew that – even if I hadn’t known it half an hour before – it was right.” His eyes returned to meet Howard’s then and he gave a one-shouldered shrug that was deceptively casual given the intensity of his glinting blue gaze. “I might not do sure that often, and I might overthink everything and let outside ideas cloud my view sometimes; but never with you. If that’s not proof this works then I don’t know what is.” Howard kissed the tip of his nose and leant their foreheads together.
“I thought you told me once you needed therapy and not a relationship,” he whispered and Jason laughed softly, giving him a half-hearted shove.
“Yeah, well it turned out you were my therapy,” he murmured and Howard grinned. “Besides, did you listen to the rest of that speech, Howard Donald? I took time out in the pouring rain to let you know you’re incredible. And if you don’t remember what happened after that…”
“Oh, I think I remember…but maybe you should remind me, just to be on the safe side,” Howard replied, his smile wide and mischievous.
There was genuine joy mixed in with the laugh Jason let out then, and his eyes sparkled bright as he brought his hands up to Howard’s face and pulled him into a lingering kiss. Howard tugged him closer until he was practically on his lap, enjoying the feeling of his warm body against him and the scent of his skin.
“Did that help you remember, Howard Donald?” Jason mumbled against Howard’s lips at last, finally breaking the pleasant silence between them, and Howard smiled lazily, running his hand slowly down Jason’s spine and kissing the crook of his neck.
“Mm, I don’t know – it’s just not the same without the rain,” he sighed after a beat, laughing when Jason gave him a harmless shove in response. “Jason Orange, since the first day I met you I wanted you in my life, one way or another. And maybe we squabble all the time. And maybe we drive each other crazy. And maybe we have made far too many memories in the rain. But I wouldn’t change one moment of it. And I promise you, I remember it all.” The smile Jason gave him in reply was small, but so complete that Howard felt his heart turn over in his chest at the sight of it; it wasn’t just the sunlight which shone in Jason’s eyes now, but something more, something Jason saw in him and heard in his words that lit his whole self from within and seemed to make him glow. Howard’s eyes were transfixed, and he watched, silent and still, as Jason gently placed his hands flat against his chest and pushed him down against the cushions, lying himself down on top of him before dipping his head just enough for their lips to meet. Howard closed his eyes and let himself concentrate only on the feeling of Jason’s smiling lips moving against his own.
When the kiss finally ended, Howard let out the softest moan of disapproval, and Jason laughed against him, the sound low, lazy and pleasing. Jason pushed himself up just enough to meet Howard’s eyes, and the two shared a smile, their expressions matching pictures of amusement and profound understanding. There was a strange significance to the moment, as though a shaft of light had fallen into a place where before there had been nothing but rain and silence. Jason’s eyes sparkled, the same shaft of light seeming to open up within him in that moment, and he leant in to press a chaste kiss against Howard’s lips. “And all was well with the world again,” he murmured as he settled himself back down against Howard’s chest. Howard smiled distantly, taking a moment to close his eyes and draw Jason’s body more closely against his own. The sensation of Jason’s heartbeat resting just above his own filled his soul with a sense of peace he’d never known until they’d met, but that he perhaps had never fully appreciated until he had been forced to entertain the possibility it was lost forever. And when he looked at Jason, he finally saw that same peace had been restored to him too; he almost seemed to glow in the late-afternoon haze.
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s that you have to marry the bloke you have fun just being with. On the couch doing your own thing side by side, down the shops annoying the hell out of each other…it’s just easy.” Howard kissed the top of Jason’s head. “You don’t need some big fanfare to know that, to look around you and realise you fucking live for spending time with that person,” he added, his voice soft and distant and his breath tickling Jason’s skin. “I knew I was going to marry you when you told me you loved me. I didn’t know when or how or what the hell I was going to do about it, but I knew.” Howard chuckled slightly, shaking his head, and Jason closed his eyes, a hushed smile curving his lips. “It was one of those nights when we could’ve gone out but we couldn’t be bothered, so we sat here on this sofa watching crap telly and talking, just talking and talking ‘til we didn’t even notice the TV was still on. Somewhere along the way we just lost track of time, because it wasn’t even important to us anymore.” Howard paused, running his fingers along the curve of Jason’s spine in a familiarly absent-minded gesture that made Jason’s body hum with energy. “It must’ve got to about midnight before you asked me to stay, but I know you said it like it was the most amazing thing in the world I could do, because that’s what you do – it’s one of the first things I learnt about you was that you can make words into a promises.” Howard’s smile was almost shy and he rolled his eyes, glancing away. “I think I cracked some joke, and we both shrugged it off like we were still just messing around at being together but…I couldn’t get over how ok it felt to just be doing nothing with you. To listen to you talk all night about stuff that didn’t matter and stuff that did, stuff I didn’t even know I cared about until you started talking.” Howard drew in a breath, his head on one side as he let his mind wander back to that night. “And then just before dawn you went quiet and just rested your head on my shoulder…” Jason’s smile quirked wryly.
“I remember,” he whispered. “It was the first night I realised just how much time I spend holding my breath before you…the first time I really noticed that I’d never felt so much like myself than when I was around you.” His lips twisted slightly. “Although, actually? I was going to apologise for how late it was…but then you told me to keep talking.” Howard looked down at him, his eyes bright, and Jason lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “So I said the only thing there was left to say.” Howard smiled.
“You told me you loved me,” Howard replied softly, his voice rough and warm. “And on some level, I just knew in that moment: this bloke is never getting out of my system, and I don’t want him to.”
Chapter 4
Mark tilted his head, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hand and regarding Gary with one of those unreservedly happy smiles of his.
“So come on, Barlow; I’ve been doing all the talking tonight – it’s your turn,” he teased, scrunching up his face slightly and making Gary chuckle. The restaurant was one of the smart, glass-fronted Italian places which were dotted up and down the street opposite the Palace Theatre, and the Saturday night pre-show-diners were out in force, their excited chatter sending a thrill of excitement through the air which was somehow contagious. Mark and Gary had come in early and taken up a spot by the window, the evening sunshine streaming in and warming their faces; the light caught in Mark’s wide eyes, illuminating them in a brighter shade of blue than Gary had ever seen them before, and they sparkled every time he laughed, making Gary more than to content to sit and listen rather than attempt to interrupt Mark’s rambling flow. He shrugged and flashed an idle smile.
“Maybe I’m happy just listening to you go, Marko – had it ever occurred to you that I actually enjoy your endless wittering?” he asked and Mark laughed a joyous, almost musical, laugh, blowing a stray swish of hair out of his eyes and leaning back.
“It’s the way that you call it ‘endless wittering’ that makes me think maybe I’m going on too much,” he pointed out, grinning mischievously at Gary and giving a little one-shouldered shrug. “Anyway, I think I’ve run out of things to say now – so come on, Barlow: entertain me.” Gary chuckled at the tease, shaking his head as though in despair and narrowing his eyes at Mark jokingly.
“Don’t think I don’t know you’re mocking me, Mark Owen.” Mark laughed but Gary managed to keep his face serious as he sighed heavily. “You see, this is the cross I have to bear – being as fantastically talented and fascinating as I am. People everywhere just expect me to impart the gift of my wisdom and wonder to them, even on a quiet Saturday night,” he added airily, only breaking down into laughter when Mark grinned impishly up at him and kicked his shin lightly under the table.
“Captain Barlow to the rescue again then,” Mark said with a roll of his eyes and Gary smiled.
“Eh, you, a bit of respect please,” he joked, before flashing Mark a quick, affectionate wink.
A combination of Jason’s words and time spent in Mark’s delighted company had suppressed almost all the gnawing doubt left over from earlier, and Gary felt a certain calmness had been restored to him. Sometimes he forgot just how long he had actually known Mark; Jason had drifted in and out of his life for a while before he came to work in the shop, but Mark had arrived on Oldham Street one day and not left since, his genuine warmth and sweetness always counted upon to make life somehow better and brighter. For years Mark had been his best friend and nothing more – even if there were moments when he had wondered – and that friendship was something he realised he ought to pay more attention to. Because there was faith and trust in that, there was strength in that long-standing friendship that meant he shouldn’t treat their slightly newer relationship as though it were entirely separate. There was no real danger in Mark Owen, no real risk; there were questions unanswered, perhaps. But he and Mark were simply not built the way Jason and Howard seemed to be – pain was feared, buried and moved on from, and maybe that led to secrets here and there, but never lies, as such. Everyone had a past, but Mark’s past wasn’t the point. The point was the future, wasn’t it? Gary sighed to himself, regarding Mark thoughtfully for a moment as he took a sip of his wine.
“Do you ever think about the future much, Marko?” He surprised himself by asking, his own sudden boldness catching him unawares. Mark quirked an eyebrow, folding his arms and twisting his lips into a thoughtful pout of concentration that made Gary smile. A lock of his hair fell across his face, and Gary leant forwards to tuck it back into place, meeting Mark’s shining eyes as he did so. Mark offered him a small, mischievous smile before glancing away and giving him a shrug.
“I don’t know, really. About the future, I mean. Some days it’s all I think about. And then I start to worry and I think I’d rather just leave it alone, you know?” He looked up at Gary from the corner of his eye, his smile turning wonky and sheepish. “I’ve always been bad for that. I tend to live in the moment, me – and then I fall over or say the wrong thing, talk to the wrong person and I get into trouble, so then I go home and start thinking too much…”
“And the cycle starts all over again?” Gary suggested softly, kindness in his voice that reassured Mark he wasn’t judging him. Mark shrugged again.
“Something like that. I don’t know, though, I think I’ve mostly broken the habit. It helps that I’ve got a chronically sensible boyfriend to keep me on track,” he added, eyes suddenly twinkling once more, and Gary couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head.
“Oh, that’s how it is, is it? You’re just using me?”
“I love you for your brain, Barlow,” Mark shot back and Gary pulled a face.
“But how can you focus on my brain when there’s all this beauty to go at?” he asked, gesturing sweepingly to himself and sitting up a little taller in his chair.
Mark laughed brightly, his hair falling in his eyes yet again as his head dropped back.
“I’m glad you’ve cheered up, you know,” Mark told him as his laughter died down, his head on one side as he let out a small, happy little sigh. Gary raised a questioning eyebrow and Mark shrugged. “You’ve been acting like a different bloke all week, and it had me worrying, you know? I thought maybe I’d done something. And when I ruled that out I thought…I thought that maybe somehow, even after all these years, you were faking it all along and this moody bastard personality was who you really were.” He pulled a face. “I only thought it for a second, but I didn’t like it.” Gary glanced away, nodding absently and biting at his lip. “But it was all about this…this bloke, wasn’t it? This old friend? And the whole not telling Jay thing.”
“Yeah. Yeah…I think maybe it was.” Gary blew out a breath and met Mark’s eyes once more, managing a small smile. “I didn’t like lying to Jay, but as it turns out I reckon he was best off not knowing anyway. Some things should just stay in the past, I suppose. And you might never understand them but…at least you don’t have to deal with the fall-out, you know?”
“Oh believe me, I know,” Mark agreed with a half-groan, before his lips quickly twisted back into a smile. “Which is why the future is actually a good thing to think about. For both of us.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely. Coz, you know…I think our future is the future. Everything else might come and go, but as long as we stick together we’ll probably be ok.” Mark’s smile widened and he met Gary’s eyes, making him laugh softly, fondly.
“Oh really?”
“I know it, Barlow. I’ve told you before; some days I just wake up with a good feeling, you know? And I wake up with a good feeling when I wake up with you, so there you go.”
“Well, what more proof do we need…?” Gary murmured then, his voice turning quiet and tender. “You’re something else, you know that, Marko? Because you dig in, and you obsess about the strangest details sometimes – but you’re always hoping. Even when you’re at your lowest, you have this way of hoping for something more that I’ve never known in anyone else. And really, it begs the question…what are you doing wasting your time with a pessimist like me?” Mark leant forwards then so that their faces were close across the table, and he smiled, sweet and soft, his eyes sparkling wildly.
“How can I be wasting my time when I’m with my favourite person in the whole world?” he asked gently and Gary smiled.
“Well, when you put it like that…” he acknowledged somewhat shyly before leaning across just enough to press a quick kiss to Mark’s forehead.
For a moment – under the spell of Mark’s smile – Gary thought he might actually say the words. Because briefly in the air between them there was a certainty, a sureness. Just like that, he knew what Jason meant when he’d said the answer was probably already there somewhere, just hidden by the white-noise of everyone else’s opinions. “Mark-” Gary began, but he cut himself off abruptly when he realised Mark’s focus was no longer on him, but on something on the street outside instead.
“Sorry, Gaz – can I just run outside for a minute?” Gary blinked, startled by the abrupt change of tone, but Mark didn’t seem to notice, already starting to push back his chair. “Sorry, it’s just that I can see Ben crossing the road; you remember my mate Ben, right? He’s the musical director for the tour that’s in the Palace at the moment – I promised I’d pop by and say hello even if I didn’t make it to the show. I’ll just run over and catch him before he goes in – I won’t be a moment and then you say whatever it is you were going to say, ok?”
Gary didn’t have time to agree or disagree – he barely even had time to process the words Mark had said – before Mark had sprung from his chair, throwing down his napkin behind him and making a sharp exit. Gary watched, dazed, as he burst outside, darting across the road to catch up with a retreating figure who Gary could only assume was the illusive Ben From The Tour. Gary recognized the description vaguely: one of Mark’s friends from Back In The Day who occasionally dropped in for a random session of drinking and music, happy and friendly but with a tendency to awkwardly back out of certain stories when he clearly thought he’d said too much. And just like that, Gary felt his doubts beginning to seep back into his system, like an inky black liquid that weighed heavy in the pit of his stomach and made his muscles tense. Poison. Why did Mark have so many friends who knew so much more about his past than Gary had ever been allowed to know? And what was the significance of their abruptly-ended stories and their muttered comments that they never seemed to want Gary to hear?
Gary swallowed down the feeling and it was gone almost as quickly as it had come, a smile suddenly coming to his lips as he saw Mark finally catch up to his friend, barrelling into him and giving one of those patented Mark Owen Hugs that seemed to make everything right with the world in a heartbeat. Ben nearly overbalanced and Mark’s whole face was filled with an ebullient, sunshiny grin as he quickly reached out to steady his friend, already talking at him at a mile a minute.
Mark was a lot of things: sometimes rambling, sometimes lonely, sometimes quiet and secretive – always hopeful, always friendly. But above all he was genuine; Gary knew that about him, and it was enough to reassure him that he hadn’t misplaced his trust. The only mistake he’d made today was going to that meeting and letting that man’s words get inside his head yet again. And yet, if he was honest with himself, he knew that, even now, they wouldn’t truly get out; the damage had been done. What ifs and worst cases flittered about at the back of his mind, refusing to be banished, and a panic he was ashamed of briefly stirred in his chest. Even the genuine could turn around and walk away from you if they chose to. And who better to betray you than your oldest friends? After all, they’re the ones who know all your soft spots, aren’t they? And they’re the ones with the most of your trust abuse.
“But would I be thinking that even if I’d had chance to finish my question just now?” he whispered to himself, still watching Mark thoughtfully.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out the business card he had so reluctantly taken earlier. He stared at the stylish font, the smart letters picked out in a steely grey. He was swamped by memories – good and bad – and he sighed. “I should trust Mark,” he said softly, then squeezed his eyes shut. “I should trust Jay,” he added more quietly. He tucked the card back into his pocket and blew out a breath. “Let the past stay buried, Barlow. Don’t go opening up old wounds – not for anybody, but especially not Mark and Jay.”
***
Grace sighed and dumped the phone down beside her on her bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. It had been an unexpectedly abrupt end to a long phone conversation with her mum, and the way they had left things made her feel restless and frustrated; everything had been going well until she heard Tim trying to rush her mum somewhere in the background and she hadn’t managed to cover the sullen edge in her tone quickly enough, sparking her mum’s irritation and causing a somewhat terse exchange. But an argument Grace probably could’ve lived with – she was smart enough to admit it was at least partly her fault they’d argued at all, and the whole thing was sure to have been forgotten about by the next time they spoke. The fight had dissipated before it had even truly begun, though, and instead she had found herself being reasoned with and pleaded with, a needling sadness mingling with hope in her mum’s tone as she tried to coax her, as though all the responsibility lay with her to fix the rapidly deteriorating truce of grudging tolerance she and Tim had just about managed to form previously. Grace resented that Tim – the actual adult in the situation who gave Grace even less of his patience than her mum even seemed to realise – was always the one who needed to be met halfway. It seemed sometimes like her mum’s definition of compromise was Grace’s total surrender, and, out of retaliation, some stubborn, wilful part of her refused to even acknowledge the smallest bit of responsibility in the whole thing.
Glancing around her room, she tried to find something she could settle on to distract herself; her new stationery was stacked neatly on her desk, her scrapbooking things open and scattered on the bedroom floor, where they had been abandoned when her mum had called – but all her enthusiasm was suddenly gone, and she couldn’t even bring herself to sort through the new postcards she had bought for her bedroom wall. Slowly she pushed herself off the bed and tiptoed over to the door, sticking her head out into the corridor and peering down towards the lounge. The pleasant, fuzzy sounds of television and talking mingled quietly in the air, Jason’s laugh vibrating through the warm evening and her dad’s voice rough and amused as he made some comment in response. Grace felt a small smile form on her lips and she quickly slipped out of her room, padding softly down the corridor towards the sounds.
“Lions?”
“It’s true, I saw a programme about it.”
“But who’s keeping pet lions?”
“Some bloke in America. I don’t know, it didn’t end well though. Serves him right too, if you ask me.”
“When I was travelling, I met this guy in Spain whose life-goal was to have a pet giraffe.”
“Now that can’t be legal.”
“Probably not. I’d pretty much done Europe by then and was trying to find ways of making my budget stretch to Asia – this guy was trying to get to Africa. We both took a cash-in-hand job at this tourist-trap place by the beach…and no word of a lie, How, this bloke was obsessed with the idea of owning a giraffe.”
“He’s probably still out there somewhere now, you know – telling a story to people about this weird bloke he used to work with who didn’t have any giraffe-related dreams in his life.”
“God, don’t even joke – he wouldn’t leave me alone, you know? I think he thought I was the perfect best friend for him. He used to follow me around talking about giraffes, driving me mad. Still every time I’m near a beach now I find myself looking round just in case he pops up and starts on with it all again.”
“Or maybe I’m secretly him in disguise – how do you know I’ve not been hiding a giraffe somewhere all this time? Can’t wait to see the look on your face when you find out I’m actually a zookeeper with a giraffe sanctuary I sneak off to when you think I’m at gigs out of town.”
Jason’s laugh was unreserved and warm, and he flopped back against the sofa, bringing his hands up to his face despairingly as he tried to recover his composure. Beside him, Howard watched on, delighted and unashamed, and when Jason finally dared look back at him he waggled his eyebrows impishly, setting Jason off once more. Grace smirked, rolling her eyes even as she fought off a smile.
“Are you even watching the TV?” she asked as she came up behind the sofa, folding her arms in a show of disapproval. Both Jason and Howard turned their heads, smiling up at her unperturbed.
“Hello sweetheart,” Howard said, shifting slightly to make room on the sofa for her. Grace took the unspoken invitation happily, climbing over the back of the sofa and letting herself sink into the soft, plump cushions as she curled against her dad’s side.
“What are you even watching?” she asked, stretching out one leg in order to prod Jason in his side, grinning innocently up at him when he narrowed his eyes at her in mock-irritation. “Dad’s watching you,” she shrugged. “I want to know what he’s supposed to be watching.” Jason laughed and shook his head, exchanging an amused glance with Howard before gesturing vaguely at the screen.
“Saturday night film on Channel Four – I don’t know what it’s called, but these people here are supposed to be saving the day,” he explained.
“There’s a lion involved,” Howard added unhelpfully and Jason laughed.
“You’re all about the details, How,” he joked and Howard shrugged idly, offering Jason a soft, lazy smile, a sly glint in his eyes.
“I’m just in it for the popcorn and the company, love,” he said. Grace pulled a face at him.
“You two like each other too much,” she muttered a little petulantly. Jason arched an eyebrow.
“You’re just noticing this now?” he asked, his tone gentle despite the tease in his eyes.
Grace wasn’t able to prevent the small smile that curved her lips. She curled a little more into her dad’s side and he smiled at her, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
“I’m guessing all this pouting has something to do with your marathon phone call with your mum?” he asked gently. Grace scrunched up her face and Howard nodded slowly. “I’ll take that as a yes then,” he sighed.
“What happened, Gracie?” Jason asked, giving her shoulder a slight nudge of encouragement.
“It was stupid,” Grace mumbled, not looking at either of them and instead becoming fascinated by the loose thread on the hem of her shirt.
“We don’t have that high of a bar for conversation round here,” Jason told her kindly, his eyes sparkling as he looked over at Howard and arched an eyebrow mischievously. “The tone really got lowered the day your father moved in,” he added. Howard stuck his tongue out at him. “See what I mean?” Jason joked and Howard chuckled, rolling his eyes before quickly looking back down at Grace.
“He has no respect for me,” Howard told her in a stage-whisper, making her smile slightly. “So come on then, spill the beans,” he sighed then. “You know Jay won’t let it lie, and call me crazy but I don’t like my daughter moping. It can’t all have been bad – you were on that phone for forever,” he said, raising his eyebrows expectantly. Grace lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.
“It was fun, mostly,” she said, still not looking at either Jason or Howard.
Jason reached across to give her shoulder another small nudge, tucking her hair behind her ear so that he could see her better. Out of the corner of her eye she could just make out his sceptical, concerned expression and it was comforting somehow. Her dad was squeezing her in a half-hug, and the openness to understanding softened her a little. She swallowed hard, scrunching up her face in concentration as she tried to explain what exactly it was about the conversation which had bothered her so much. “We got into an argument,” she admitted slowly. “Tim kept trying to rush mum off the phone but I wanted to talk more and I told mum he was just rushing her because he thinks I’m annoying and that they didn’t really need to go, and she told me I never give him a chance so I got cross with her. But then she just went all sad and kept asking me how she could make it better, how she could make me like him…”
It had all poured out in a rush, to her own surprise, and so she trailed off, trying to catch herself. She sighed, looking down at her hands. “She acts like I’m the one who has to fix it. Even though Tim is the grown-up and he’s the one who started it.”
“Gracie,” Jason said, his tone serious and firm. Grace looked up at him sheepishly: Jason refused to ever talk down to her, and there was a seriousness to his tone that she recognised immediately. She knew him well enough to understand the kindness that lay behind his tone of reprimand, and as much as she wanted to resent the warning way he’d said her name, she couldn’t quite manage it.
“What?” she asked, trying to jut out her chin to challenge him, though her heart wasn’t in it.
“Well first of all, drop the tone because – whatever Tim might think – we both know you’re not just some little kid having a tantrum over nothing.” Grace tried to sustain her pout, looking to Howard in half-hearted appeal.
“Don’t look at me: you know as well as I do that Jay’s not telling you off, he’s just being honest.” Howard’s look was every bit as serious as Jason’s, and Grace deflated slightly. Howard offered her a lopsided, almost apologetic smile that told her he was going to say something she didn’t want to hear. “Look, sweetheart, you might just be a kid to Tim, but you don’t fool Jay and me, you know that. You’re more grown-up than the ‘he started it’ argument, so don’t even try it.”
“It’s true though,” Grace whined, frowning slightly as she looked away. Howard sighed.
“I know,” he conceded softly. “But it’s not always that simple, Gracie.” He looked to Jason for help, and Jason smiled wryly, edging a little closer along the sofa.
“Ok, Gracie – you want to be treated like a grown-up? Then you have to stop whining a pouting and just listen to your dad and me for minute, ok?” His voice was level and solemn, but there was a gentleness in his eyes which Grace recognised, and reluctantly she nodded up at him, watching him with a guarded, cautious expression. Jason offered her a small smile in return. “Look, kiddo: even though Tim might be the grown-up, you’re a pretty special kid. And some people aren’t used to kids like you, ok? And they might not even be used to kids at all, for all you know. You have to learn that everyone is dealing with something, and that those things tend to affect how people cope in different situations.” Jason shrugged. “So maybe, if Tim’s too shy or doesn’t know how to connect with kids or…whatever his reason may be…maybe you should take the chance to do something positive about the situation. Make things better for both of you – and show your mum that you’re grown-up enough to maybe have more say in how you and Tim spend time with each other in the future.” Grace looked at him earnestly and he cast her a quietly sympathetic smile. “Family isn’t always easy, Gracie, trust me on this one. And big families take work sometimes. But it’s usually worth it – if that helps.” Grace smiled slightly, nodding.
“Maybe,” she mumbled, scrunching her nose slightly and shrugging. “I don’t want to spend time with Tim, though. He’s boring,” she added, her voice a little more forceful in her protest, and Howard chuckled, giving her a tiny dig in the ribs with his elbow.
“Hey, you – I left you and Jay alone for five minutes back when we first started going out, and he’s been one of your favourite people ever since,” he pointed out. Grace rolled her eyes but Howard persisted. “How do you know it won’t happen that way with Tim if you actually spend some time really talking to him – away from your mum and everything? If you both agreed to a clean slate, then you don’t know what might happen.”
“There’s only one Jay,” Gracr intoned, her expression solemn, and Jason smirked.
“Well she’s got us there, How,” he joked, sharing a smile with Howard over the top of Grace’s head. Grace pulled her knees up to her chest and huffed.
“Anyway, Tim’s only free at weekends – I’d have to go somewhere with him instead of staying here with you,” she pointed out, her face the picture of outrage, and Jason laughed affectionately at her stubborn display.
“You’ve got all summer here with us, sweetheart: plenty of time for you to get bored of our company later.” Grace twisted her lips into a firm line, suppressing her smile, and Jason nudged her. “Gracie, I don’t know Tim, and I don’t know if he’s going to be just as bad as you think he is, or if he’s going to turn out to be the best guy you’ve ever known. But I do know nothing is ever going to change if you don’t at least try – and do you really want to be stuck in limbo with your mum and Tim for the rest of your life?”
“Sometimes you have to be the bigger person, sweetheart,” Howard added gently. “Even if he started it, even if he should know better – prove to him and to your mum that this is nothing to do with me, or Jay, or you being a kid. Prove that you’re smarter than that and that you can act like it too. Jay said it: you’re a special kid – now you have to show Tim that. And just think how happy it would make your mum to see you making the effort with him.”
For a moment the three of them fell into silence and Grace tried very hard to focus on nothing but a point in the middle distance. She wasn’t sure where they had come from, but a sudden wave of tears had begun to prickle the backs of her eyes, and she was desperate not to give it away to her dad or Jason. But one tear somehow managed to escape, and even as she sniffed and tried to blink it back, it still rolled free, tracing a tickling path down her cheek.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered then, closing her eyes as Jason tenderly brushed the tear from her face.
“What’s not fair, sweetheart?” he asked softly.
“Mum acts like I’m being mean on purpose, or that I’m making a big deal out of nothing but…she doesn’t understand.” Grace shook her head and swallowed down a lump in her throat. Her dad gave her shoulders a squeeze of encouragement, but she still wouldn’t look up at the risk of meeting his or Jason’s eyes. “I wanted my weekends back for forever,” she murmured, pulling her legs tightly against her and trying to scrunch herself up into as tight a ball as possible. “No one let me miss Jay except you, but they can’t do anything about me spending time with him now it’s all fixed and just really don’t want to risk missing any weekends in case it all goes wrong again.” She squeezed her eyes shut once more then, trying to keep a fresh onslaught of tears from escaping.
Beside her, Grace felt Jason shift a little closer, wrapping a strong, caring arm around her and tugging her slowly across the sofa until she had no choice but to climb gratefully into his lap.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he said as he pulled her firmly against him, his voice a sweet hush. He smelt of peppermint and coconut and Grace turned towards him gratefully as he wrapped her into a hug. “Now, I need you to tell me something: do you think there is one moment of any of your weekends here that you would have wasted?” Grace shook her head slightly and placed a kiss to the top of her head, stroking her hair as she pressed herself into the slight concave of his chest. “Ok then. So tell me how being worried about what happened before – and whether or not it could happen again – is making the most of your weekend?” Grace sniffed, attempting a shrug. Jason smiled. “See, that’s what I thought.” He gave her another squeeze. “So, my vote is: you do what you have to do, without being scared about it, and that way, even if everything goes wrong tomorrow? You know you won’t have wasted any of your time being afraid. Because I know you’re really a pretty fearless kid, Gracie. And you shouldn’t lose that over something that you already did the tough bit of surviving.”
For a moment Grace kept her face hidden, burrowing into his embrace gratefully until she felt she’d regained her composure. Then, slowly, she drew in a deep breath and twisted just enough to look up at him. “Hey, princess,” he said, letting out a small half-laugh when she smiled up at him.
“Hi,” she replied in a small, timid voice. She felt suddenly shy, and she glanced over at her dad, who was watching them both quietly.
“He’s good, right?” he joked in a soft voice that barely disguised his emotions, and Grace laughed slightly, nodding.
“He’s ok,” she agreed, swiping the last traces of tears from her eyes and looking up at Jason out the corner of her eye. He looked back at her, eyes sparkling brilliantly.
“What can I say: you grow up with Jenny Orange, you learn a trick or two,” he remarked. “And I’ll tell you something else I learned from mum: there’s over two million people in Manchester. Around sixty million in the whole country. So really, it’s beautifully strange that somehow we manage to find people in all of that madness who we can connect with, and who we want to let into our lives.” Jason leant in a little. “But we do find them. And we build these circles for ourselves of the people we’ve chosen to care about, and we have to hope they all get along, if not all the time, then at least enough to get by, you know? Because even that little bit of compromise is amazing, when it’s so against the odds.” His eyes briefly met with Howard’s and they shared a smile. Howard edged closer and Grace glanced across at him curiously.
“See, Gracie, you and me are lucky: we beat all the odds going and we found Jay and Mark and Gaz, and everything made sense right away. We’ve been spoilt – and that’s pretty much all you’ve ever known now. But with your mum, things are a little tougher.” He shrugged. “She still managed to find someone, though, who – despite all those people and that craziness – she gets along with and cares about. Do you really want to be the reason she doesn’t get to have a go at beating the odds too and making that person fit into her world with you?” He raised his eyebrows at her enquiringly and she gave him the smallest of smiles, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. “So…take a day or a weekend or whatever else it takes to give luck a chance to work its magic. And if it works out then everyone wins – and if it doesn’t work out? Then Tim is the only one losing.” Howard pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before leaning back to meet her eyes again. “I know you love your mum, sweetheart. And she knows it too. But sometimes with families it’s hard to show it because you’re around each other all the time and your drive each other crazy. So you have to make compromises – and, even if it doesn’t end in you and Tim being best friends? You need to find a way to at least live together and be ok with each other; you know I don’t always see eye-to-eye with Justin, but when it comes down to it, we both care about Jay, so we find a way to make it work, even if it means biting our tongue sometimes. It takes both sides, but sometimes you have to be the one to make the first move.”
“Dad,” Grace whined and Howard chuckled softly, giving her another little dig in her ribs.
“I’m just saying so you keep an open mind, ok?” he smiled and Jason grinned.
“He knows you’ve inherited his stubborn streak, that’s what’s worrying him,” he pointed out, winking at Grace and ducking out of the way when Howard took a playful swipe at him with a cushion. “See, there he goes again, Gracie: trying to start a fight,” Jason joked, leaning over to rest his chin on Grace’s shoulder and waggling his eyebrows at Howard in challenge. Grace giggled and Howard scrunched up his face in a show of irritation which didn’t match the joyful sparkle in his eyes.
“Turning my own daughter against me, Jay? That’s low.” He shook his head. “But using her as a human shield?!” Howard intoned, his voice faux-solemn even as Jason smiled brilliantly back at him.
“The Orange Family don’t play fair, Donald. And besides, Grace is one of us now.”
“Oh yeah, says who?”
“Says me!” Grace put in quietly, her smile starting to shine a little more brightly.
“And also my mum,” Jason added with a shrug. “So if you want to pick a fight with Jenny Orange…”
“Oh no, no way – I value my life thank you very much,” Howard laughed.
“Then it’s settled,” Jason smirked, before giving Grace a slight nudge. “So, you; you want to share our popcorn and pick something for us to watch on TV?” he offered, and Grace’s smile turned into an instant grin.
Howard feigned a despairing sigh and reached for the bowl of popcorn and the remote, which sat side by side on the coffee table. As he handed them to Grace he shot her a playful wink, his smile rough and kind.
“See, Gracie – in the end? I still win: there’s a Donald controlling the telly for the night,” he said, looking over at Jason and pulling a face at him. “And he thinks he’s so smart,” he added in a stage-whisper to Grace as Jason rolled his eyes.
“You’re impossible, you know that?” he challenged Howard with a laugh.
“You were the one who gave me a key to this place, you know – don’t think I didn’t notice you wanting that badly to bask in my unending glory,” Howard shot back.
“Please,” Grace remarked, rolling her eyes as she flicked through the channels.
“Yeah, sorry, Howard, but I’m going to agree with the kid on this one,” Jason nodded, shooting Howard a winning smile. “But I do love you, if it helps,” he added. Howard chuckled, inclining his head slightly.
“Oh, it helps a lot actually,” he replied.
***
Music was playing faintly in the kitchen as Howard emerged from the corridor, and he stretched lazily, enjoying the fuzzy peace the sound created in the night-time glow of the apartment.
“The munchkin is finally down for the night,” he announced as he rounded the corner and slumped haphazardly across the breakfast bar. Jason paused from cleaning the worktop – it had been Howard’s turn to cook the dinner that night, but, whilst their culinary skills were fairly evenly matched, their definitions of what constituted a tidy kitchen differed wildly – and he turned, cloth in hand, to shoot Howard a wry, knowing smile, one eyebrow arched.
“And if she hears you calling her ‘munchkin’ again then we both know she’ll be right back out of bed and giving you an earful in no time,” he pointed out. Howard grinned shamelessly back at Jason, giving him a one-shouldered shrug.
“You just don’t want to play referee in a Donald versus Donald showdown.”
“I’ve refereed worse,” Jason laughed, turning back to the cleaning, his head on one side in casual contemplation. “Have you ever seen Dom and Ollie when they get going? Or Justin and anyone?!”
“Oh, like you were always a saint?” Howard teased. Jason flashed him a quick, impish grin over his shoulder, eyes bright.
“I don’t even know the meaning of sibling rivalry, me,” he said brightly, reaching across to hang up the cloth before executing a graceful spin and leaning back against the kitchen counter opposite Howard, eyes aglitter. “Although, come to think of it, there might have been one or two minor disagreements…” he added mischievously. “I think me and Justin are still involved in some heated debate about a stolen packet of sweets from a family Easter thing back in the late seventies, you know.” He shrugged and Howard laughed softly, shaking his head.
“The frightening thing is: I know you’re not joking,” he pointed out, and Jason smirked, nodding slowly in agreement.
“Never have a twin brother,” he intoned, his expression serious but his eyes glinting.
“Duly noted,” Howard acknowledged with a smile. “But speaking of siblings – the not-so-blood-relative kind anyway: I got a text from Gaz.”
“Please don’t tell me he’s gone and broken up with Mark by accident,” Jason groaned, and Howard chuckled.
“No. But he hasn’t proposed either. Unless they’ve hired Jonathan to make the announcement on Monday morning. But hey – the weekend’s not over yet, and who knows what the pair of them are capable of if you give them a full Sunday to mess around with.”
“Ok, Donald: you’ve lost me with Jonathan making the announcement...”
“Oh, the text I got was just asking if I could come to the shop with you Monday – Jonathan phoned Gaz and apparently he wants to speak to us all about something or other. I said I’d got nothing better to do and Gaz said he didn’t either. I tried to coax him into actual conversation but didn’t get much out of him to be honest. Last I had from him he just said he was knackered and ready for an early bed.”
“In a way that implied his talk with Mark didn’t go well?”
“In a way that implied I shouldn’t ask him too many questions because he wasn’t in the mood.” Howard shrugged. “Maybe I read too much into it though – it was only a few texts back and forth, so who knows.”
“If Gaz and Mark had made any major breakthroughs in their relationship tonight, then one or the other of them would have phoned one or the other of us,” Jason sighed, rolling his eyes. “Which means I get to play piggy-in-the-middle between the two of them some more.”
“It’s getting that bad?”
“With Mark…he just can’t help himself, I don’t think; he’ll start talking and he doesn’t know whether or not he wants to stop, so he just keeps going until he thinks I’m looking bored. And then Gaz is used to unloading on me, I suppose – because he knows I don’t really judge when he does something daft, I just shrug it off even if I don’t agree with it. We’ve known each other too long for holding back, I guess…and you know how Gaz is, he can’t settle if he thinks there’s unfinished business in his head. So basically, from my point of view? The sooner the two of them stop messing about and realise they’re made for each other, the better.”
Jason frowned slightly then, glancing away, his gaze fixing on a point in the middle distance. “It’s funny, you know…Gaz always used to be so sure. Back when I first met him, he was a cocky bastard, honestly.” He laughed, eyes sparkling. “And I’m not saying that as a bad thing, you know?” He flicked a glance up at Howard, who smiled understandingly. “Honestly, we both were, probably. I was never one to try and shout louder than someone else, but I was probably one to try and be seen more…I didn’t like being ignored, I know that much.” The frown returned briefly as Jason tried to unpick whatever memory it was that had drifted into his mind, and Howard allowed him the moment, still watching him intently. “It was different with Gaz, though. I mean, he was so sure he was going to make it; he was good enough and he knew it – but he wasn’t arrogant, exactly. Well, maybe he was, in some ways. But not obnoxiously so, I don’t think. But he just knew: he was amazing at writing songs and he was going to be the next, big singer-songwriter, he just knew, without question, he was going to be a success. He was willing to put the work in to get there – but he knew he would get there. He knew his life was going to fall into place exactly the way he wanted it to and he didn’t question anything about that. But somehow, in all the mess that followed with the band and the bad relationship and all of that…somehow he ended up being probably the most overly cautious bloke I know.”
Jason didn’t often speak about the early days of his and Gary’s friendship, though Howard understood why, of course; the beginning of their friendship was tangled up with bad memories and secrets which neither Jason nor Gary wanted dredging up. Howard had heard it all – the whole sad, complicated tale had been told to him in fragments at first, until eventually it had all poured out of Jason in one go. Memories of late nights and shared confidences drifted into Howard’s mind; Jason’s voice soft and scratchy down a phone line, low and husky across a pillow. And finally, something inside him had broken one day, the demons surfacing for one reason or another, threatening to overwhelm him until Howard finally asked him if he wanted to talk: he went back to the beginning and told it all piece by piece, sitting cross-legged opposite Howard on the sofa, their fingers interlaced. Jason was always nervous of summoning those ghosts, and sometimes it was almost possible to forget that he and Gary had a past before Mark at all. But Howard knew. Jason trusted him to know.
“I don’t know when that changed exactly…when it started to happen. I drifted in and out of his life for a while…it might have started before I even noticed it,” Jason continued suddenly, his voice very quiet. “I don’t know if it’s a bad thing, as such. He’s still got a faith in himself that I think I lost somewhere along the way. And maybe I envy him that much, I suppose. But his faith in other people? No one’s trust in the human race should take a hit like that, I don’t think. Even after it all, I never started to fear everyone’s intentions the way he started to. You get cautious at first, guarded, you know? But you have teach yourself to look past it, to not assume everyone is out for themselves – you start thinking like that and you’ll become that way yourself, if you’re not careful.” He shook his head, laughing dryly. “He used to be so closed off to people messing with his music, but he had no problem letting people into his life, you know? It’s strange how it’s all flipped over.”
“Sometimes I forget just how long you two have known each other,” Howard said gently, flashing Jason a soft smile. In the quiet pause that elapsed between them, Howard knew several ghosts danced about in the shadows, but Jason’s eyes were shining as he looked at him.
“You’ve known me longer, though: I was dancing well before I met Gaz,” he replied, his voice gentle and hushed as he flashed Howard a small, almost mischievous, smile. Howard smiled back at him quietly, inclining his head.
“Oh, you call seeing you dance from the other side of a packed room ‘knowing you’ do you?” he asked and Jason laughed, shrugging.
“I’ll say this much: I wish I’d had the guts to go talk to you back then,” Howard murmured, just loud enough to be heard across the kitchen but still barely more than a breath. Their eyes met and Jason’s lips curved into a whisper of a smile. “I think a part of me was a little bit in love with you,” Howard told him quietly. “I was in love with the idea of you, anyway.”
“Everyone loves the sun,” Jason replied softly, his smile wry and his eyes shining distantly. Howard laughed softly, nodding. They stared at each other for a moment, before Jason let out a heavy breath and glanced away. “Me and Gaz were thrown together by chance, really,” he said after a beat. “That’s the reality.” He shrugged. “We didn’t get on at first; only for about a minute and from a distance, just because of first impressions. I thought he was stand-offish and he thought I was too cool – you know, in that way where he thought I would’ve just told him to piss off anyway so he didn’t bother trying. I can’t even remember how we got talking in the end, but I remember thinking he needed a mate. All the lads there had grown up with houses full of brothers and sisters and God knows who else – but for him it had always been quiet, just him and his brother and his mum and dad, out in Cheshire instead of in the city like the rest of us. He stuck out, I suppose. But he had his music and his songs and he knew as long as he had them he belonged there, no matter what the rest of the lads might have thought or said about the way he dressed or the way he acted, or any of that superficial stuff kids go on about when they’re trying to promote themselves. He couldn’t dance, but he could sing and write and he knew as long as he could do that, he was actually the one with the most right to be there out of any of us – which I think rubbed the other lads up the wrong way sometimes. But me and him, we had this weird situation where I was in awe of him for that self-possession and talent, and he was in awe of me because of the dancing and everything, maybe even just coz I was that bit older…and somehow, in the middle of that, something clicked. He liked that I listened and I liked his humour.” Jason chuckled slightly, shaking his head. “If it hadn’t have been for what happened, maybe we’d have stayed in closer contact – would’ve practically grown up together, in way. But…well, you know the rest.” He sighed. “We weren’t close for a while. We talked now and then but we didn’t see much of each other. We sort of…drifted out of each other’s lives for a time. The shop brought us closer though; we did a lot of talking about a lot of things and in the space of about a week he became one my very best friends, just like that. Then we met Mark and it all seemed to fit, like we’d had the chance to handpick a second family for ourselves and all we needed to make it perfect was you.” Howard smiled and Jason flicked a glance up at him, his eyes briefly dancing with light. “Sometimes when you throw the right people together, by chance, it all works out.” Howard smiled back at him and nodded.
“Sometimes it pays to wait to find out the guy’s name before you fall for him,” he put in. Jason’s smile was soft and sweet as he looked back at Howard thoughtfully.
“It was a long time ago; eighteen and dancing every night. I don’t know about being the sun…but I think thought I was, sometimes. On the nights when I really gave a good performance. It was addictive, almost, that feeling. And I suppose that’s why I always found myself drifting, afterwards. Nothing held my attention enough for the longest time.”
Howard studied Jason’s face; the profile he knew so well, the handsome line of his jaw and the brightness of his eyes. He thought back to the dancer he’d glimpsed from afar all those years ago, the way the very set of his shoulders had commanded respect. There had always been something about Jason – it was still there now; a unique combination of light, rhythm and charisma that couldn’t be suppressed.
“So…can I ask you something – now that prying ears have gone to bed and it’s just you and me?” Howard ventured, his voice soft and husky. The gentleness with which he spoke the question made Jason look up and meet his eyes; there was a peculiar sort of intimacy to the moment, to the way Jason looked at him with a half-smile of implicit trust.
“Sure.” His voice was a whisper and a surrender. “What do you want to know?” Howard felt a smile ghost across his lips, and he took a moment to study Jason’s face carefully before he replied – there was open curiosity in his expression, and though there was a certain amount of caution there, Howard also knew there would never be any secrets between them; even those unspoken had been somehow confessed silently long ago.
“Did you stop dancing because you just didn’t want to do it anymore…or did you stop dancing because of what happened with the band?”
Howard knew it was a loaded question, but he also knew Jason had somehow expected it. Shadows seemed to dance across his face briefly, his brow furrowing in concentration as he let his mind wander back over those memories he tried so hard to keep locked away. Howard was one of the only people in the world who knew these stories, the ones Jason didn’t like to tell, and he hated the ache they still left inside of Jason even now. He was caught between wishing he could fix the brokenness that sat so deep within him and realising that, somehow, in that brokenness lay a part of Jason’s unique magic. Howard loved Jason for so many things, but in the end it all came down to his soul, didn’t it? And that was a soul which had been formed out of broken glass.
“I never stopped enjoying the dancing,” Jason murmured at last. His brow was still creased in concentration, and he didn’t meet Howard’s eyes as he spoke, as though he was watching his past play out in the space between them and was trying to understand what he saw. For a moment he chewed at his lip, lost in thought. “I was exhausted, after what happened. I was drained and I was…I don’t know if I was angry, but I wasn’t happy. I was wounded, I suppose. But at first, I felt I had to go back…because dancing was always where I’d felt strong. And I wanted – needed, maybe – to feel that way again. And, even now, you know…I love that feeling, that rush when you know you’ve put in a good performance.” He shook his head slightly, as if he was trying to dislodge some stray thought, a wonky smile briefly crossing his face. “I never stopped loving dancing…but I did end up in a place where…it wasn’t the same anymore. And the more I tried to force it, the more I tried to pretend it was like it was before…then the more it felt like I was barely holding it together. That total confidence that you need to make something look good in a routine…it wasn’t there like it used to be. Every time I was out there, it just started to become more and more like an act, like a persona I was putting on to try and make things work.” He shrugged. “After a while I started to realise, to notice it more. I felt like a fraud; like a fake, almost.” Jason shook his head, looking back up at Howard sadly. “I just wasn’t comfortable with that idea. It didn’t sit right in my head. So…I decided to walk away.” He shrugged again, though this time the gesture seemed somehow heavier. “I hate admitting how much he affected me…how much everything he told me actually sank in, changed my mind about who I was. I hate that that is now part of who I am, as a person. But…I know it is, deep down. I just know. Because I stopped being able to believe in myself the way I used to before…I started to get this idea in the back of my head that I was going to fail, because I didn’t deserve to do anything else; I wasn’t good enough or special enough…I wasn’t enough for anything or anyone. And I know it sounds stupid…but…but even now, sometimes, I’ll have moments, right in the middle of the night where…where I think I can’t allow myself to be too happy – in case I’m not really capable, or I don’t really deserve it…as if it’ll all be taken away somehow. It’s like there’s this part of me that just won’t let me forget or move on properly. It’s like his voice in the back of my mind, still telling me I’m this bad person for having any self-belief at all.”
Jason’s arms were wrapped protectively around himself, and Howard could see an unusual tension in his body. It was as though he was waiting for the past to reach into the present and grab him – he might choose not to dwell on the memories, but they were still there, likely to never be fully dislodged. Jason was more than the sum of his endurances, though – more than any one moment or impression. Taking Jason at face value was never a mistake Howard had made; not even back in those dancing days when he hadn’t even known his name. Howard had recognised a complex intensity to him even then – and now he knew him better than anyone else. Howard watched him for a moment; handsome face, solemn expression, long, slender fingers drumming absently on his arm. The hazy kitchen light made the shadows flitter across his skin, and beneath the mosaic of broken glass and fragility, Howard could still see him the way he had from a distance all those years ago: fierce, electric and unafraid.
“Dance with me.” Jason looked up at him immediately, eyebrows raised in surprise. Howard didn’t waver; he looked back at Jason without flinching, his expression intent and serious. Jason laughed slightly, narrowing his eyes.
“Dance with you?” he asked, and though his tone was sceptical, Howard knew the flicker of intrigue – of excitement – that shone in his eyes. He shrugged, a roguish smile gracing his lips as he straightened up.
“Why not?”
“You mean besides the fact your daughter is trying to sleep down the hall?”
“We both know that girl could sleep through a hurricane.”
“Like father, like daughter.” Jason’s lips quirked up at the corner and he took a step closer to Howard, whose eyes still glinted back at him unflinchingly. “Dance with you…” Jason said the phrase slowly, seeming to turn the words over in his head for a moment. “Dance with you, or dance against you, Howard Donald?” he asked then, raising an eyebrow, his smile turning sly. Howard chuckled, tipping his head on one side and considering the proposition, looking Jason up and down. He took a slight step back.
“Hit me with your best shot, Jason Orange,” he replied with a wolfish grin. Jason’s lips formed an enigmatic line, but his eyes sparkled at the challenge.
The way Jason’s body moved hadn’t changed at all in the years that had passed since Howard first saw him dance. His sense of timing, his power and his ease – Jason could turn it all on at a moment’s notice. He knew how to stare down his opponent in just the right way; a steely mix of intrigue, fortitude and disdain shining in his piercing blue eyes. But the truth of it was, Howard could match him trick for trick and spin for spin, he knew that – his improv was rustier, perhaps, but there was enough remembered choreography he could string together for their impromptu battle. That was never the point though. Jason’s secret had never been that he was the best dancer in the world; Jason’s secret was that he could make you look at him like he was the best dancer in the world. It was not that he had the best technique or any moves no one had ever seen before – there was simply something about him. An aura. He commanded attention somehow, and his determination commanded respect. His musicality and grace, the finishes to his lines: second to none. But it was something about who he was that drew people in and made them stare. It was as though he were lit from within, and, somewhere between moves as he watched Jason dance reply after reply like he could do it all night, Howard forgot everything else and found himself standing, silent and still, for just a beat or two too long. It was all the opening Jason needed.
Howard had hardly noticed how close their bodies had become until Jason was already at his feet, springing up to a crouch from some intricate move which had closed the final distance between them. He drew himself up to his full height slowly, carefully – his eyes were bright and beady and focused intently upon Howard, meeting his gaze with a fierceness and confidence that made his heart stutter a little. No matter what Jason’s own doubts might tell him, Howard was clear: this was no fraud, this was who Jason was born to be. He watched silently as Jason made his way up his body, unfolding and stretching until the two of them were face to face, and he felt his breath catch in his throat as the full force of Jason’s presence was suddenly radiating out towards him from barely an inch away. There was a half-second pause that felt like forever; just long enough for Howard to catch the barest hint of a smile penetrating the regal mask of Jason’s expression as he rose up onto his tiptoes just enough to steal a kiss.
Howard felt an unstoppable smile spread across his face and he chuckled softly, his muscles finally un-tensing as he reached out to grab Jason’s hips and pull him flush against him. His breathing was still heavy, and Howard could feel his heartbeat race against him; but his smile was full and bright as he looked up into Howard’s face, one eyebrow still raised slightly as he laughed too. Howard reached up to cup his face then, dipping his head and going in for a longer, deeper kiss. He felt Jason winding his arms around him and, though they were both a little breathless, they kept drawing each other closer, their eyes fluttering closed.
When they finally broke apart, Howard leant back, meeting Jason’s eyes once more. He brushed the pad of his thumb along his cheek as they both took a moment to draw some much-needed oxygen into their lungs, each looking at the other in silent contemplation.
“I still think you’re like the sun, Jay,” Howard murmured into the peace. “And you do deserve to be happy. I promise.” Jason’s smile was gentle, and he leant in a little, using Howard’s body to draw himself up so their eyes were exactly level. He kissed Howard’s nose then tipped his head back, eyes shining quietly in the low light.
“You make me happy, How.”
***
Gary stared up at the bedroom ceiling, gazing blankly at the column of moonlight which snuck in through a gap in the curtains, cutting a perfect, white line across the room. Beside him, Mark was sleeping soundly, his face half-buried in his pillow, his hair a dark mass of waves and tangles which stuck up at odd angles. Gary risked a glance at him and he couldn’t help but smile; his usually squarish, joyful face looked softer and quieter when he slept, the rounded lines of his eyes and cheeks somehow more pronounced. There was always a strange mix of darkness and innocence in Mark’s face, and you could never be sure which side you would see during the day, his mood sometimes changing from one moment to the next – but sleeping, he looked almost childlike in his sweetness. Gary smiled slightly, leaning across to press a tentative kiss to his forehead; Mark’s face scrunched up for a moment and he let out a small sigh, curling himself up a little tighter and burying even more of his face into his pillow. Gary stifled a laugh, watching fondly as Mark’s hair began to tickle his face as it fell down across his forehead – he batted it away in his sleep and tugged the covers more tightly around himself with an incoherent mumble, and Gary thought he just detected his name being muttered in complaint somewhere in the otherwise indecipherable string of sounds Mark was making as he burrowed himself deeper and deeper into the pillow with an almost petulant frown.
Somewhere beyond the bedroom window a car rumbled past, disrupting the quiet, and Gary started slightly, his gaze turning to the clock. It was only a little after eleven, but Gary felt as though he had been lying there for an eternity; he and Mark had both been exhausted and had gone to bed earlier than usual, but whilst Mark had seemed to drift off immediately, Gary had found his mind unwilling to switch itself off, no matter how tired his body may have been. Strange how he could find himself feeling so thoroughly upside-down from just one day; but perhaps the questions had really been there all along, just buried, and now they were exposed he wasn’t sure whether it was best to rebury them or go out in search of answers. Jason was just a phone call away, Mark was sleeping right beside him – both men held pieces of the puzzles his brain was struggling to untangle. But there was too high a risk of him saying the wrong thing and causing unintentional hurt. There was Howard, of course. Howard had quickly become one of Gary’s closest friends, something about his easy nature and genuine compassion combining to always make Gary smile. But perhaps filling his head yet another outside opinion wasn’t wise; he’d reached a point where he wasn’t even sure which doubts were his own and which belonged to others any more, couldn’t say for sure which thoughts had been planted, which opinions were given honestly, which stories were true and which secrets he wanted to know. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a bad boyfriend – and an even worse friend – but no matter how hard he tried to push his questions and doubts to the side he couldn’t stop his thoughts from circling back over every little moment which had ever given him cause for questions. It wasn’t that years of loyalty and love meant nothing, it was just that he wasn’t built for grey areas. He’d always been that way: he liked yes or no answers, simple cases of right and wrong, known and unknown, good and bad. He liked the clarity. But clarity was a long, long way away; it wasn’t a new development, and the thought had been at the back of his mind for a long time before today. Still, he knew he had been given that final push over the edge by a master manipulator, and he had to wonder what his motives were in all this too.
He looked over at Mark again, a sad smile forming on his lips. There were moments sometimes when it was hard to believe Mark was even real; he was absurd and sweet and always willing to give, he was ridiculous and funny and creative and wild, always off in his own little world. It was as if he was some magical creature – fragile, gorgeous and unbelievable, liable to be disproved entirely if you looked too closely. And of all the people in his life, of all the fashionable, colourful, wonderful people he knew, Mark had still settled on Gary. Gary Barlow and his preference for the conventional, Gary Barlow and his focus and drive and his life inside the lines.
For the most part, Gary preferred the quiet life. Except in one respect: his music. And maybe there were a hundred reasons why he and Mark could talk for hours, why they made each other laugh, why they understood each other; but really, would any of that matter if it wasn’t for Gary’s single-mindedness when it came to music? Mark had the sort of effervescence no band manager or record label executive could possibly dismiss out of hand, and there was plenty of raw talent there – he didn’t need Gary to succeed, in theory, but perhaps he felt he needed his songs, his Undeniable Catchy Pop to stand alongside his own quirky lyrics and bittersweet melodies. Gary winced. He couldn’t believe he was entertaining the idea; it was awful and unfair. But could he really say for sure it was something Mark would never do when he hardly knew anything of Mark’s life in the years before they met? Everything before his work in the bank and his casual Oldham Street busking was shrouded in mumbled sentences and sad little frowns, quick changes of topic and cryptic whispers. And yet, Gary knew, he’d lied to Mark about his own past – little lies, white lies, but lies all the same. Maybe that was where his doubts really came from; his own deceit making him deflect and throw suspicion onto the one person in the world he ought to trust completely. Mark was a dreamer. Maybe Mark was a liar. But Mark was also full of nothing but love; unselfish and kind to his core.
Gary lifted his head in order to turn his pillow over before letting himself drop back down onto it with a dull thump. Beside him, Mark mumbled in his sleep again and Gary squeezed his eyes more tightly shut. He tried to focus on threads of lyrics he’d jotted down over the week, on running through lists of the shop’s regular customers’ tea-preferences, on anything that wasn’t anything to do with his – or anyone else’s – past. Despite his best efforts at distraction, his brain briefly flitted to his texted conversation with Howard earlier, and he wondered to himself what Howard’s advice on it all might have been. Of course it might have been even easier for him to confess all to him if Howard wasn’t the man married to the very person Gary felt as though he had betrayed the most with his little meeting with the past. He got as far as letting himself picture the worried furrow of Howard’s brow before his unruly thoughts were interrupted by the rumble of his phone, vibrating loudly against his bedside table and making him jump, his eyes snapping open as he all but fell out of the bed, making a quick grab for his phone in order to quiet it.
Gary glanced over his shoulder, sighing a little in relief as he saw Mark simply burrow himself further under the covers without waking. Quietly he got to his feet and slipped out into the hall, answering the phone as he shut the bedroom door softly behind him. He clamped the phone between his ear and his shoulder, adopting a half-whisper as he answered; he didn’t need to look at the screen, there was only one person who ever called him this late and he’d half-expected his call.
“I thought I told your husband already: I’m fine. You pair are nothing but worriers, you know that?” There was an awkward pause on the other end, and Gary frowned. “Jay?” he pressed, lifting the phone away from his ear to glance at the screen.
His heart lurched in his chest when he realised the number wasn’t one his phone had saved in its memory. “Hello?” he ventured tentatively.
“Gary Barlow, you sound about as happy as a wasp trapped under a shot glass – surely I didn’t wake you did I? At this time?” A chill ran down Gary’s spine and he was sure he felt goosebumps rising on his arms.
“Look, I told you I wasn’t interested in-”
“I just wanted to call and find out if you’d had chance to think things over. You stormed out so fast earlier that I didn’t have chance to remind you of all my contacts in the industry. I’m well-connected, Gary – your little bandmates can’t bring you that.”
“Look, like I told you earlier: I’m not interested, so just leave it.”
“And can I just ask: are you married yet? Proposal in the works? Contract drawn up with that manager? Or Jason or his husband? How about a number one single? I can get you these things, Gary, but you have to at least talk to me…give me a chance to give you my version of events in the old days, talk it over. I don’t know what Jason told you, but he’s got a way of twisting words to fit his picture of the world in his head and I would hate for you to throw away your dreams on a man who can’t even bring himself to tell you the truth.”
“I don’t need Jay’s ‘version of events’ – I had eyes and I made a decision based on what I saw happening. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve-”
“I have friends in PR, Gary. Local and national companies, interested in what talent I could send their way, looking for opportunities to market someone who could go far. You’re the perfect candidate: hard-working, talented, handsome, good old-fashioned homely charm.”
“Homely?”
“Backlash, Gary; against all the popstars who end up in the papers for the wrong reasons. People are looking for someone who could get invited to tea with the queen, rather than ending up in the paper for falling out of a club with Prince Harry. Come on, what do you say? You could go solo, or I could find you some new bandmates, ones who won’t make trouble and who can actually sing…and if we could persuade your current lot to sign a few waivers we could even use the material you’ve already worked on, get working right away instead of having to sit around waiting for you to write an album from scratch…”
“W-waivers?” Gary stammered uncomprehendingly.
“Waivers. Release forms. Legal documents. Standard stuff in the industry, Gary, standard procedure. I know a bloke who could have the papers drawn up for us by Friday, in fact.”
“Release forms for what?”
“For the rights to the songs, Gary! What do you think?!” He laughed mirthlessly, the sound brittle and cold down the line. “We can’t have people running around collecting the royalties, taking the credit; it’s better for your image if you’re some master songwriter working alone, the rest of the band we put together can just be puppets then, meaning you and I can collect all the money.”
“Do you even hear yourself?!” Gary asked in disbelief, every fibre of his being suddenly on high alert. “And you call Jay the selfish one?” he muttered. He’d walked into a trap by agreeing to meet; now he was in his sights, free to be worked on a wheedled at, fair game for trickery, persuasion, manipulation and temptation, any hour of the day or night. “They’re my friends, you know – some of those songs, I didn’t work on at all…I don’t even-”
“And what are your little bandmates doing with those songs, Gary? Hiding them away, making you perform them before the DJ shows up at weddings? Putting their crappy vocals in the background of your solid, classic sound? They’re holding you back, Gary Barlow. But if you work with me, you could have all your dreams come true, and you wouldn’t have to waste a penny on a group of lads who don’t even care about you. After all; I know for a fact at least one of them can’t even sing.” Gary spluttered out an incredulous laugh, eyebrows raised.
“Please tell me I’m not hearing this.” He rubbed a hand over his face and sucked in as much air as he could. “And what would you know about how much my friends do or don’t care anyway? God, you’re beyond belief, you know that?”
“Oh, and I suppose that boyfriend of yours would never think of it, would he? I’ve asked around about him, Gary Barlow, and I know he’s bad news. A lot of people in his past. A lot of people in his present to, let me tell you – and you think he’s some sort of saint, do you? No agenda of his own? Don’t be so naïve, Gary. Everybody’s after something in this life; at least I have the decency to be upfront about it.”
“I don’t-” Gary began, but he was cut off with sharp finality.
“My office. Tuesday at ten.” And with that, the line went dead and Gary was left standing in silence in his living room, having never in his life felt more confused or more alone.
Chapter 5
Howard leant back against the shop’s counter, watching as Jason attempted to wave away the dust motes which he had disturbed in the calm of the morning air. He was balanced precariously atop an ancient step-ladder, stretching to inspect the labels – written in Mark’s scrabbly handwriting – on the sides of the boxes stored high up on the top of one of Barlow’s Music Shop’s many bookcases. Jason brought a strangely graceful sort of ease to the task, his movements quick, sure and precise as he dismissed some boxes and leant in to try and better make out the labels on others. Howard’s eyes stayed fixed on him, and he ran his gaze up his body, appreciating the way his lean outline was surrounded in a hazy glow of sunshine and dust; Howard felt his lips curve in an appreciative smile as Jason rose onto his tiptoes, stretching the final distance to lower one of the boxes down, exposing a flash of his flat stomach in the process.
“Stop licking your lips, Donald,” Jason said dryly, not bothering to look away from his task. “And if you can be bothered shifting yourself, some help with these books wouldn’t go amiss either,” he added. He was balancing the box between himself and the shelves, sorting through the contents studiously, but Howard saw the slight twist of his thin lips and heard the crackle of amusement in his voice. After a beat Jason glanced up, looking over at Howard and meeting his impish stare. “What?” he asked through a chuckle, the affection in his voice masking any hint of frustration he might have wanted to convey.
“Nothing,” Howard shrugged, pushing himself up from the counter languidly. “You’re beautiful when you do that, you know?” he said then, his voice soft, and Jason smiled down at him with a fond sort of despair.
“When I do what exactly?” he sighed. Howard’s smile was almost shy as he shrugged again.
“Everything.” Jason’s smile softened and he met Howard’s gaze.
“Is that so?” he asked, eyes sparkling. “Well, in that case, you won’t mind sorting through this book box and telling me if we have any books worth putting out on the shelves,” he added, arching an eyebrow. Howard chuckled.
“There’s always a catch with you, Jason Orange,” he sighed, rolling his eyes for effect before dutifully taking the box from Jason and inspecting the contents.
The air was cool and hushed, and for a moment the two of them fell into silence, Jason still balancing on the step-ladder as he inspected another one of the boxes, and Howard picking through the dusty contents of the box he had been handed, eyeing certain titles with a mixture of distaste and amusement. As well as stocking songbooks, Barlow’s did a fairly decent line in more general books about music, including various biographies, autobiographies and glossy picture-books on a range of artists from every era and genre imaginable. The books were surprisingly good sellers, especially at weekends, though Howard had learnt from Jason that some books did have a tendency to mysteriously disappear whenever Mark was left on his own to mind the shop, only for them to reappear weeks later, usually in completely the wrong place on the shelves. Howard rolled his eyes and wondered what it was Jason was trying to replace this time; a Beatles biography, a little music history, a Smash Hits annual? He shook his head, his smile amused, as he fished out a tatty-looking paperback entitled ‘The Evolution Of The Boyband’ and looked up at Jason sceptically, holding the book by its corner and waving it at him jokingly.
“When has anyone ever come in here looking for ‘The Evolution Of The Boyband’?” he asked, and Jason glanced down at him, eyes glittering brightly as he flashed Howard a quiet-but-brilliant smile.
“I’ve known people come in here not even knowing what they’re looking for, love,” he pointed out. He arched one eyebrow. “They always find it, though,” he added in a softer voice. Howard felt every single one of his nerve endings start to tingle, and he smiled distantly as a hundred or more memories whisped through the air like cobwebs.
“Well, when you put it like that,” he replied after a beat. He and Jason shared a small, amused smile. Howard handed the book to Jason, and without another word he took it, bending slightly to run his finger along the shelves, finding a place for the book and slotting it in.
For a while, Howard and Jason worked quietly, side by side, Howard occasionally passing books up to Jason to be put on the higher shelves and Jason occasionally passing books down to Howard for the lower shelves. The stubborn clouds of the early morning had long cleared, but it was still a surprisingly crisp day, and outside Oldham Street was taking a little longer than usual to come to life. Gary and Mark were also conspicuous by their absence; Jason was used to opening the shop, of course, but Mark was usually on his second brew by this point in the morning. Howard thought back to Gary’s strange phone call to Jason at the weekend, and he wondered to himself, briefly, if their lateness this morning could be significant. Before he had chance to voice the question to Jason, however, the sound of Jason’s mobile vibrating against the shop counter jarred the easy peace. Jason jumped, steadying himself on Howard’s shoulder, and Howard grinned up at him mischievously.
“Need a hand, love?” he asked, batting his eyelashes in faux-innocence. Jason bit back a smile, cuffing Howard lightly round the head.
“You’re a nuisance, you know that?” he muttered with a roll of his eyes, before placing his hands more firmly on Howard’s shoulders. Howard caught hold of him instinctively and, as though it were well-rehearsed choreography, he helped Jason down gently, the two of them working in tandem to allow Jason’s weight to sink down the length of Howard’s body until they were standing eye to eye. “Thanks for the lift,” Jason smiled, giving Howard a quick peck on the cheek, and Howard chuckled, stepping aside with a flourish to let him past.
Jason crossed the room quickly and scooped up his mobile, glancing at the screen briefly before trapping it between his ear and his shoulder with a sigh. From years of studying Jason’s sighs, Howard knew immediately that it was one of Jason’s brothers on the line, and, curious, he moved over to stand by Jason at the counter, placing a gentle hand to the small of his back.
“Justin, I’m at work – can’t this wait?” Jason was asking. As he felt Howard’s touch he leant his weight back against him. On the other end of the line, Justin was complaining about something; Howard couldn’t make out the exact words, but he felt Jason’s shoulders tense. He pressed a kiss to Jason’s temple, and Jason shot him a brief, grateful smile in return before closing his eyes and blowing out a steadying breath as he listened to what Justin had to say. “I’m not saying I won’t help, I’m just saying now isn’t the time; I can’t be on-call for you just because I’m the only brother with a best mate for a boss.” Jason’s words were clipped and tired, his voice taking on that tone it so often did when he and his brothers bickered; they were caught, as siblings so often were, in the same relationship they’d had as children, and they found themselves constantly being required to revert to versions of themselves who they didn’t really know how to be any longer, rehashing arguments which had been started during long-forgotten Christmases, rainy days stuck indoors and walks home from school. Howard sometimes suffered from it with his own family, but the Orange brothers had it down to an art. “If you recall, you’re the one who wanted to have a huge do.” Jason was rubbing at his temple, his expression strained as he spoke. There was some defence offered in return, Howard could just make out Jason’s own clipped tone being parroted back to him down the line. Jason simply sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and nodding in a way which did not actually imply agreement.
This was just the latest in a long series of disagreements between the twins in the lead-up to their birthday party. Jason frequently advised Howard to never make the mistake of sharing his birthday with anyone, especially not a twin; if there were two of you celebrating, somehow, it always seemed that people expected you to celebrate together, and as soon as that happened, everything suddenly became a much bigger deal than Jason ever wanted it to be. “I’m not being difficult, I just don’t understand why you can’t sort it yourself – I fixed your DJ cancelling on you already.” A pause. “Well then maybe you ought to marry a party planner and then we can all live happily ever after.” Howard smothered a smirk and Jason pulled a face at him, elbowing him harmlessly in the ribs before shifting his phone to his other ear. “I don’t know what you want from me, you know? I’ll be at mum’s for Sunday lunch this week, if you come too maybe we can divide up whatever you’ve got left over, but honestly, I said all along we should just have a quiet one for once.” As yet another rebuttal was offered by Justin, Howard caught his name being mentioned and arched an eyebrow. Jason huffed out a terse breath and tried to keep his voice even. “I’ve wanted a quiet one ever since our twenty-first when you nearly set Olly on fire and Simon fell into the birthday cake mum slaved over for a week – had it occurred to you that, if Howard wanted to keep me away from you lot, he might actually have a point on health and safety grounds?” There Jason definitely had a point: Jason and Justin’s birthday had a near-legendary status within the family as being the event which always attracted trouble. “Ok, ok, enough. I’ll help, but only by as much as finding someone else you can moan all your problems to: it might be my birthday too, but my present off of you can officially be leaving me out of it, deal? Yeah, yeah, next time try the flattery before you ask me for a favour. I’ll call you later; try not to get into any messes until then, ok? I’m going off duty as the Responsible Twin for the day. And a word of warning? I’ve put in an application with mum for a whole year’s leave from it too.”
As Jason hung up and discarded his phone on the countertop, he let out a long, weary sigh, his head dropping back as he closed his eyes. “Every year we go through this,” he grumbled. Howard nodded vaguely, playing with the hem of his shirt.
“At least I get blamed this year; that’s a nice new touch,” he muttered. Jason glanced over at him, and Howard simply shrugged. “What, you want me to pretend I don’t know about the dirty looks and the muttered little comments? I’m not an idiot, Jay.”
“How, please don’t start this now,” Jason groaned, but Howard’s expression darkened.
“You don’t want me to ‘start this’ ever, I’m always just expected to suck it up and rise above it and pretend that it’s ok. But it’s not ok; it’s bloody ridiculous, I feel like I’m on trial all day every day and I shouldn’t, because you’re the only one who can judge whether or not I love you the right way – the decision’s yours, every decision’s yours with me, always, anyone who knows you should know that.”
“I know it’s been tough since everything that happened, How, but what do you want me to do about it? They’re my family, they’re not going to break the habits they’ve lived with all these years and they’re not going to stop being stubborn bastards just because I married a stubborn bastard of my own; Justin is always going to have a hard time with you, you know? He’s my twin, and weird as it might seem to you or to any other outsider, you took up a space in my life he wasn’t ready to give away.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It’s the way it is,” Jason shot back darkly, and at the warning look in his blue eyes Howard deflated a little. “Being a twin it’s…it’s different to just being someone’s sibling, you know? It’s part of your identity, almost…it stays with you. I can’t ignore something that’s part of who I am – and you of all people should understand that, How; or would you like me to start ignoring Grace and her opinions just because it might be more convenient?”
“I’m just getting tired of always being the bad guy, Jay, ok? Digs, I could take. Not being Justin’s best friend, I could handle. But I just don’t get why I have to feel like I’m doing something wrong all the time these days – like I did something wrong by coping in a different way to how they coped and I’m never allowed back in their club because of it.”
Howard rubbed at his jawline, looking away from Jason for a moment, his eyes fixed on a point on the floorboards where a scratch ran across the wood-grain at a jaunty angle. The day of Mark’s new boots, that scratch had been made; Howard remembered him sliding across the floor in them and falling straight into a box of books, whilst he and Jason had been laughing so hard they’d had to clutch each other to keep standing, only for Gary to come in and spit tea over all three of them when he walked in on the scene. He loved Jason, loved this life; the gratitude he felt for it every day was a warm, heavy weight in the pit of his stomach. But as grateful as he was, he couldn’t deny the ache of fear, of anxiety that still lingered inside him. “I know who you are. I always have,” he murmured at last. He could feel Jason’s eyes on him and the sensation strengthened him somehow. He drew in a long, shuddering breath and swallowed hard. “That whole time, though, Jay…I just knew: if I stop, I’ll die, I’ll just go down and I’ll never get back up. But your family: they stopped. And they didn’t seem to get why I couldn’t do that,” he told Jason softly. He felt Jason place his hand on his arm, and he looked up to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low, scratchy voice. He wasn’t entirely sure he had much to apologize for, and a part of him felt like there was really more to be said, more to be done to fix the rift between himself and Jason’s family. But none of it was Jason’s fault, and he couldn’t bear the look of pain that flashed across his face.
“Don’t be,” Jason whispered, pressing a chaste kiss to Howard’s cheek. “And I know Justin is the worst of all of them and I know I should try harder to talk him round. But…having a twin…it’s literally in my DNA, How. I can’t switch it off when it gets too much, or make it go away because it’s difficult. And I can’t make that not-weird…because, even if I’m closer to Simon or I argue less with Ollie…I’m always going to know more about what’s happening in Justin’s head.” He shrugged somewhat helplessly. “It’s strange. I don’t think anyone who isn’t a twin could ever really know what that’s like, let alone believe that it’s a real thing. When we were kids we were almost psychic with each other sometimes though, you know? And that’s been different, as we’ve got older and got our own lives but…it’s still there, a lot of the time. And until you came along? No one could really read me like he could.”
“And you’re still the only one who can ever really read him,” Howard supplied with a lopsided smile. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing, ok?” Jason told with a small, sad laugh. “My family is a mess. I’m a mess. I told you you were getting into a disaster by kissing me – you were the one who went and kissed me anyway,” he pointed out, and Howard grinned.
“Oh, but it was worth it though,” he said softly in reply. Jason smiled up at him, his expression lovingly amused in a way that made Howard’s heart perform a complicated acrobatic flip in his chest.
Howard moved to stand in front of Jason, leaning in so their foreheads were touching, and Jason looked up into his eyes, his gaze full of curiosity and expectation. “Hey, at least your mum likes me,” he added then, his lips curling into a sly grin that won him one of Jason’s warm, rough laughs, the sound crisp and pleasing as it vibrated against Howard’s ribs. He cupped Jason’s face in his hands, and bent his head to capture his lips in a kiss. He felt Jason’s arms wind around his neck, his body pressing closer, and he closed his eyes. Jason’s skin was warm and soft beneath Howard’s fingers and he pulled him nearer still; for a moment they were in their own close, quiet world, skin against skin, breathing each other’s oxygen, every space filled up by the two of them.
Eventually, Jason pulled back just enough to look up into Howard’s face.
“Told you people always find what they’re looking for here,” he said gently, eyes glittering, and Howard laughed.
“I hope you’ve not been offering this to all the customers, Jason Orange.”
“Only the handsome ones.”
“Y’ big flirt.”
“I am what I am, Howard Donald.”
“Well thank god for that,” Howard told him, his grin playful but his tone sincere. Jason smiled back at him quietly for a moment, then rose up just enough to pull Howard in for another deep kiss.
The moment was shattered by the unwelcome clatter of the shop’s door being pushed open abruptly; Jason simply laughed against Howard’s lips, pulling himself up onto his tiptoes using Howard’s shirt so that their eyes were completely level.
“If we stand very still, they might not notice us,” he stage-whispered, casting a sidelong glance across to where Gary was rolling his eyes at them and Mark was smirking.
“I trust there’s nothing untoward going on on my shopfloor this early on a Monday morning, lads,” Gary remarked dryly. Jason leant back artfully in Howard’s embrace – always a dance with him – and arched an eyebrow.
“And I suppose there was nothing untoward going on on your favourite piano when I left early Friday afternoon?” he shot back with a delightful grin, before pulling his body back against Howard’s and leaning in conspiratorially. “The piano is their ‘spot’ – they just never notice that I’ve noticed,” he told Howard in a wry, teasing tone, he eyes gleeful and bright. Mark was laughing, but Gary attempted to appear stern despite him, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at Jason.
“Hey, that’s different; you pair are married, you should be over all this flirting by now,” he warned, mirth in his eyes but no smile on his lips. Howard wrinkled his nose slightly.
“Is he putting a PG sticker on us?” he asked Jason with exaggerated outrage, and Jason laughed, looking back over at Gary with a grin.
“Gary Barlow, I’ll remember you said that when you’re married,” he remarked. It didn’t go unnoticed by either Howard or Jason that Gary started a little at the mention of marriage, and they exchanged a knowing glance. “Or, you know, I’ll remember you said that ten minutes from now when I go for a brew and Mark’s lying across the piano whilst you wear his hat,” Jason added then.
“Whatever helps inspire a song, Jay; you know I like to go the extra mile for a good chorus,” Mark put in brightly, lifting his hat from his head with a flourish and performing an absurd little bow. Howard and Jason laughed. For a moment Gary just stared at him, a bemused smile on his face, and then suddenly he dropped his head, spluttering out a laugh and rubbing his hands over his face.
“You three are going to be the death of me,” he said through his laughter, and the others simply grinned back at him, amused by the note of affection in his voice. “You know why you lot ended up at my door, don’t you? It’s because no one else would have you,” he told them all as he looked around at their faces.
“Keep telling yourself that, Barlow,” Howard said, waggling his eyebrows. “I think we all know why I’m here, though,” he added, licking his lips and widening his eyes exaggeratedly as he tipped his head in Jason’s direction. Jason bit back a laugh, thwacking him lightly on the shoulder and pushing him away from him.
“You know your problem? Ego,” he told him, trying not to smile. Howard pulled a face.
“I was going to say I was here for the record collection, actually; now who’s got the ego problem?” he joked.
“God, if the banter gets any cuter round here the customers are going to need a sick bucket,” Gary muttered, shaking his head and moving towards the kitchen. “If you need me I’ll be getting a brew and purifying my retinas,” he called over his shoulder.
As Gary disappeared from the room, Mark looked over and Jason and Howard, offering them a helpless shrug.
“He’s been like this most of the weekend: Grumpy Guts Barlow. I’d watch out for affection masked as sarcasm if I was you,” he warned them.
“He’s been like that for most of his life, Marko,” Jason replied, then a frown crossed his face. “Although never with mum…with my mum, he’s always Butter Wouldn’t Melt Barlow, nice as pie.”
“And now he’s her favourite son,” Howard put in, laughing and jumping out the way when Jason aimed another playful slap towards him.
“You’re not big, and you’re not clever, love.”
“Then why do you let me live in your home and eat all your food?” Howard countered.
“Because it seemed a quicker solution than having you follow me round for the rest of my life,” Jason sighed airily, bumping his hip against Howard’s and flashing him a small, sly smile.
“You know, it’s kind of frightening for two people to be this chirpy this early in the morning; I’m on The Barlow’s side,” Mark interrupted impishly, casting his hat aside and running a hand through his artfully unruly hair.
“Said the most chipper man I know,” Jason pointed out. “You ok, Marko? It’s not like you to moan about mornings.”
“Oh, I’m not moaning. I’m kind of excited, actually; Jonathan’s coming over, the sun’s out – I’ve got a shift at the caff later, but until then is all sunshine and music,” Mark smiled.
“Speaking of Jonathan: any idea what’s so important?” Howard asked then, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms. “I can’t remember the last time he wanted us all present for a meeting.”
“He banned you after you fell asleep with your face buried in my neck, love.”
“One time!” Howard protested and Jason laughed.
“One time he noticed,” he said, sticking out his tongue at him. Mark chuckled.
“Yeah, well I don’t know what this one is about, but hopefully it’s going to get us closer to a contract…if the sun is shining and we’re a band with genuine management, Gaz might actually be happy enough he won’t notice you pair being all loved up on his shopfloor.”
“You made that sound weirder than it is, you know,” Jason deadpanned and Mark beamed back at him innocently.
“I can’t help it if your mind is in the gutter – especially not when I’m busy daydreaming about the stars.” Jason and Howard exchanged a look that was somewhere between amusement and despair.
“This whole shop needs therapy,” Jason shrugged dismissively and Howard smirked, stepping closer to Jason and pressing a quick, fond kiss to his temple.
“Why do I get the feeling Jonathan is probably going to agree with you very soon?”
***
Jonathan Wild peered around the door of Barlow’s Music Shop somewhat cautiously; he was never quite sure what to expect when he arrived at the quirky little shop on Oldham Street, but he couldn’t help but be curious. In the short time he had known the men of Four Men And A Dusty Piano, he had come to expect chaos and laughter to follow them around, never more so than when they were in their shop, both on busy days and on quiet ones. Of the four of them, it was Mark who Jonathan got along with the most, but when he arrived at the shop it was often Jason he chose to seek out, the serene front of the operation of the shop, who could find anything and anyone, solve most problems in a sentence, calm irate customers with a smile and silence a chaotic shop floor with a single gesture: in other words, a useful person to turn to on a bright, busy day in Manchester.
The scene on the shopfloor was one of comical chaos: Mark was engaged in an enthusiastic conversation with an elderly man, his arms waving about exuberantly as he talked, and he seemed oblivious to the man’s dog, who was making a valiant attempt at escaping his leash, causing a nervous-looking Gary to frantically hop about, grabbing up breakables, dodging the hyperactive dog with bobs and weaves in order to make it across to Howard, who stood on the shop’s staircase, taking the valuables Gary handed him and arranging them in a messy stack along the steps. Jonathan watched for a moment in stunned silence, some part of his brain distantly wondering if – should he slip away quietly now – the men would ever even remember he was supposed to meet up with them today. And then Jason appeared, placid and amused as he skirted around the edges of the scene; he made eye-contact with Jonathan almost immediately, artfully dodging Gary and the dog with a quick spin before striding towards the door, ushering Jonathan in with a rueful smile.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at the scene. “Dogs love Mark Owen.” He paused, frowning slightly. “And so do children, birds, the elderly and people with hearts not made of stone,” he added with a grin, making Jonathan chuckle. “Come on, come in the back and grab a brew whilst this lot finish up: Mark’s been talking the poor bloke’s ear off for half-an-hour, so another ten minutes probably won’t hurt anyone.”
Jason’s assessment did, in fact, prove true, not that Jonathan was surprised. Within ten minutes Jonathan found himself, mug in hand, ensconced in the small armchair which sat in the corner of the shop’s piano room. Jason had kept him company for a while, until one by one the other three members of the operation drifted in to come and say their hellos and Jason had obligingly gone to make more tea to go round. Jonathan found himself enjoying Mark’s beguiling enthusiasm for his stories and Howard’s dry asides so much he had almost forgotten the reason for his visit altogether by the time Jason reappeared from inside the shop’s tiny kitchenette. But, slowly, the general chatter began to die down as Jason made his way around the room, handing out steaming hot mugs to each of them in turn. Gary and Mark sat together at the baby-grand’s piano stool, Howard on the tiny step down into the room, and after handing Howard a mug Jason settled himself down beside him, his eyes turning up towards Jonathan, an inquisitive look on his face. There was a definite sense of expectation in the air as all four men looked over to where Jonathan sat, and he felt the weight of it keenly.
“So,” he said slowly, drawing out the sound and sitting forward slightly. Jason met his gaze with twinkly-eyed amusement, arching an eyebrow.
“Would you like a side of hushed wonder to go with that dramatic pause?” he teased and Jonathan cracked immediately, a grin spreading across his face as he laughed.
“Ok, fair point – I’ll stop beating around the bush and tell you what I’ve been up to for the past few weeks, shall I?” he suggested.
“Don’t get to the point on his account; I personally was enjoying watching them pair squirm,” Howard put in with an impish smile, laughing at Mark and Gary’s protests.
“I’m not squirming,” Gary objected. Mark chuckled.
“No. Gaz is more like a swan: all calm and serene on top but paddling like mad down below,” he nodded, bumping Gary’s shoulder with his own. Gary scrunched up his face in playful despair.
“Alright children, do you want to hear my news or not?!” Jonathan smirked, rolling his eyes fondly.
“I’m sat here quiet as a lamb,” Howard pointed out. Jason elbowed him, barely smothering a laugh.
“We are all all ears,” Gary assured Jonathan, shooting Howard a playful glare.
“Ok then,” Jonathan nodded, setting his mug down on the floor and resting his elbows on his knees. “The news you boys actually want to hear about: I’ve been talking to a few people, people I work with and some other friends and colleagues who I thought might also want to get on board with doing something with the four of you and your songs…” He trailed off, looking at the faces of the four men: Mark’s face the picture of open, unguarded hope, Gary’s brow knitted into a frown of intense focus, Howard’s expression quiet and contemplative and Jason’s face a well-practiced, enigmatic mask, those blue eyes of his bright, intense and unreadable. Jonathan smiled at them reassuringly. “Look, I won’t lie to you: these things take time. And there’s definitely more networking, on my part and on yours, in the future, but I think we might be able to get something going.” Gary raised an eyebrow and Jonathan chuckled slightly. “I’m not lying, I promise,” he said, putting his hands up in mock-surrender.
Mark smiled at him brightly, but Gary simply nodded, his expression pure concentration as he clearly did some kind of calculation in his head as to what work would be needed – all business as he was. “There’s definite interest out there,” Jonathan pressed, still watching Gary and hoping his tone somehow conveyed how genuine his investment in all this was. “And that’s the reason why I have to say what I’m going to say next.” He blew out a breath. “Your greatest asset is your songs: which is why we have to protect them at all costs.” Gary looked up at him immediately.
“Meaning?” he asked. His tone wasn’t accusatory: it was business-like but warm, intrigued. Jonathan smiled back at him with easy kindness.
“Meaning, I’m speaking to some legal people about getting contracts together concerning things like rights and royalties – serious, sturdy contracts that will protect the four of you whatever you choose to do in the music industry and however successful you are. Because, believe me: if those songs fell into the wrong hands and weren’t protected properly, one or all of you could lose out. I’m not having your chance at making it in this industry be stolen out from under your noses, even if that means we have to hold off on making everything official for a little longer.”
“That sounded like a warning,” Jason interjected softly. Jonathan started slightly, looking over at him in surprise.
“Am I that transparent?” he asked with a small, nervous laugh. Howard chuckled.
“Only to him,” he offered with a shrug and a wry smile. “So, come on then: what’s the big bad wolf you’ve come to warn us about?”
For a moment, Jonathan considered his words carefully. He wasn’t one for industry gossip, and he wasn’t one for bad-mouthing fellow professionals, even when he didn’t agree with their methods. He chewed at his lip, conscious of the four pairs of eyes still watching him curiously.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard rumours about the music business. You know, the high-drama stuff: it’s so cut-throat, it’s all about who you know, back-stabbers are everywhere, everyone’s screwing over everyone else…or just screwing them…all the tabloid-fodder nonsense that scares the living daylights out of people to the point where they’ll do anything their record labels tell them without ever daring to question it.” He rolled his eyes, a rueful smile briefly crossing his lips. “It’s mostly nonsense these days. The industry has pretty much moved on from that school of thought where there’s enemies on every corner; the joys of the internet and the world offering so many more platforms for music, I suppose. On the whole, we’re a pretty collaborative bunch, really – the people who really love the business take it seriously and are mostly supportive of each other’s work. But there’s no smoke without fire, so they say…and some people are more old-school in their methods than others.”
“I sensing you’re thinking about one person in particular when you say that?” Gary said, raising a knowing eyebrow, and Jonathan sighed, crumpling slightly.
“You know I wouldn’t say anything unless I knew for a fact someone was bad news, don’t you, boys?” he asked them, his tone firm and serious.
“We trust you, you know. I’ve never heard you say a bad word about anyone; we know you don’t deal in idle gossip without a purpose,” Jason assured him, his voice calm, low and soft. Jonathan offered him a grateful smile.
“Ok then,” he said with a slight nod. “I don’t suppose any of you boys have ever come across the name Nigel Martin-Smith?”
The air in the room seemed to change immediately. They all felt it; like opening a door on a late December frost. Jonathan was aware of Jason’s spine straightening and Gary’s expression growing strained, and even the normally placid Howard seemed to tense, his expression darkening and his jaw clenching. Mark also noticed the change, and he looked between the other three with perplexed concern.
“Gaz?” he prompted gently, but Gary simply looked over at Jason, as though in a panic. Jason lifted his gaze to meet Gary’s before turning to Howard, something strained in his face. “Jay?” Mark protested, a note of hurt cracking his voice. Jason held Howard’s gaze for another moment before letting out a long, heavy breath, his head dropping slightly, and he rested forwards on his elbows.
“We’ve heard of Nigel Martin-Smith,” Jason said quietly, closing his eyes for a moment then slowly looking back up at Jonathan. “Actually, Gaz and me have some very up-close and personal experience, truth be told.” Off Jonathan’s surprised look, Jason let out a humourless laugh. “It’s a long story,” he said, his voice tired.
For a moment nobody spoke. Jonathan met Mark’s gaze, the two of them sharing a moment of confusion before casting their eyes around the room. Gary looked pale, and Jason looked ill. Howard simply stared down into his mug, tapping his thumb rhythmically against the rim, his face still tense.
“Ok, will someone please tell me whatever it is I don’t know about Nigel Martin-Smith?” Mark burst out, giving Gary a smack on the arm for good measure before looking back across at Jonathan. “At least you know who he is: and apparently this lot do too – but I don’t,” he complained, frustration evident in his voice. Howard looked up now, but Jason and Gary still had their heads turned away. “Will someone please tell me what is so awful about Nigel Martin-Smith and why I’m supposed to care?” Mark pressed.
Jason was the first to look at him. “Jay? Come on, please,” Mark ventured. Jason was the most honest person he’d ever met, and it seemed to Mark that that would make him the least likely to refuse him an explanation. But there was still a reluctance in Jason’s expression, along a hint of resignation. “Please, Jay: someone’s got to tell me what’s going on,” Mark said more softly.
“If there’s some history here, boys, I could really use the information too,” Jonathan put in. “Quite honestly, it could explain some of the rumours I’ve been hearing if you lads have encountered him in the past – and the chances of me getting the truth out of Nigel are slim to none, so you’re really my best hope.”
“It’s complicated,” Gary cut in firmly, his voice hollow and dull. Jason looked over at him with a small frown.
“Gaz, it’s all history now – what does it matter?” he asked, and Gary looked at him aghast.
“Jay,” he half-laughed, his voice somewhere between alarm and confusion. “Come on – it’s not the sort of history we go sharing with everyone.”
“Come on though, Gaz, this is hardly ‘everyone’ – we’re with our best friends here.” Jason’s expression was still confused and he scrutinised Gary for a moment before flicking a glance across to Jonathan. “The key word is history,” he said with a tight smile. “I haven’t spoken a word to Nigel in a very long time. And I don’t intend to speak another word to him again in my life.”
“I’m sensing there’s more to the story,” Jonathan said, his voice even and gentle.
He could see a certain anguish in Jason’s eyes which he was sympathetic to, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. He pushed himself forwards a little in his seat, taking in the room; Mark still confused, Howard and Jason still tense, Gary still anxious and twitchy. There was something more going on than a chance encounter with Nigel Martin-Smith that had ended badly, but there also seemed to be a disconnect between what each of them actually was willing – or able – to share. Jonathan sighed heavily, clasping his hands together. “Look, I’m not going to go over something which you think isn’t important to what the five of us are trying to achieve here and now. But if there is anything more to this thing which might help explain to me why Nigel Martin-Smith might be asking around about you boys, then I really need to know about it – for all of our sakes.”
Another silence followed. Gary had sat up a little straighter, looking over at Jason desperately, but Jason’s eyes weren’t on him, fixed instead on a point in the middle-distance. He drew in a breath.
“It all started back at the audition where Gaz and me met,” he said slowly, wrapping his arms around himself protectively and briefly closing his eyes, as if to bolster his strength.
“Jay, come on, we’re not going into this, surely?” Gary interrupted suddenly, and Jason opened his eyes, his face creasing into a frown.
“Why not? What does it matter? It’s old ground – and he’s right, you know. If Nigel is sniffing around again after all these years, it’s best for everyone that Jonathan knows what he’s dealing with.”
Jason glanced over at his husband, the two briefly sharing a look which no one else in the room quite knew how to read. Then Jason sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Gaz and me don’t tend to tell people the full story of how we met; more of an edited highlights where we let people fill in the blanks however they want in their heads.”
“The band audition? You two met at an audition for a band but it didn’t work out – is that right?” Jonathan ventured, and Jason looked up, nodding.
“That’s the one. When we phrase it that way, people always assume what we mean is that we didn’t get in the band – the part people don’t expect is-”
“Jay!” Gary interjected with sudden force, his eyes wide and his expression pointed. Again Jason looked over at him in surprise, quirking an eyebrow in confusion. “Jay, you’re not…I mean, this isn’t-” He was cut off by a soft, sad laugh from Jason.
“Gaz, what’s it matter? It’s just a bad memory. And, you and me might not like talking about it, but it’s not like it’s some big secret we need to hush up, it’s just history. Unpleasant history, but that’s all.”
“But what about Mark and Howard?!” Gary spluttered, gesturing between the other two men, who both stared at him in bewilderment.
“What about them?!” Jason replied with laugh, looking at Gary curiously. And as he looked at him, his expression slowly began to change. Gary could see surprised realisation settling in those piercing blue eyes of his, and he felt his heart flutter with nerves.
Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath as Gary and Jason stared silently at each other. Jason searched Gary’s face, and Gary was sure he could detect both sympathy and disappointment in the look he gave him. “Gaz, Howard knows everything,” Jason said in a soft, slow voice, as though the information was as obvious as the alphabet. Gary looked at him incredulously and Jason shrugged. “He’s known since before we got married, Gaz. He’s known since…well, since…” He gestured vaguely with his hand, searching his memory for a time when Howard hadn’t known all his secrets and coming up short. “I don’t know what to tell you, Gaz. Of course Howard knows. There’s no one in the world who knows me better.”
“I just thought…” Gary trailed off, looking between Jason and Howard nervously. If Mark heard this story, he wouldn’t just be hurt that Gary had never told it to him himself, he would also be sure to work out who Gary’s mysterious friend from the past had been at the weekend. Would he tell Jason? Either way he felt ashamed – yet also strangely confused, as though he had been backed into a corner by people he had trusted. He could hear Nigel’s voice in his head, reminding him to trust no one, and he shuddered slightly.
Jason and Howard were still watching him, and he was sure that their expressions were shifting into the realms of pity as they realised there were many things Mark had not been allowed to know about him. Jason offered him a small, sad half-smile and a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s part of our deal, you know? All in, no secrets,” Jason told him gently.
“Everything for everything,” Howard murmured, mostly to himself. There was a soft smile on his lips, and Jason glanced up at him briefly, eyes shining, before looking slowly back to Mark and Gary, quirking an eyebrow.
“You really haven’t told Mark anything about the band?” he asked and Gary shook his head.
“He never asked and…I never really wanted to tell.”
“Tell me what?” Mark demanded with frustration. Jason looked somewhat guiltily at Gary before giving another helpless shrug.
“The real story of how me and Gaz ended up being friends, and the real reason neither one of us ended up in that band…even though we both made it through the audition.”
“Gaz?” Mark looked at Gary with wide, sad eyes and he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t like talking about it for a lot of reasons,” he said quietly, not meeting Mark’s gaze. “But it was always more Jay’s story to tell than mine anyway.” Gary risked a glance in Jason’s direction. “Howard really knows the whole sorry saga?” he asked, still a little disbelieving. Jason let out a humourless chuckle.
“Of course,” he said simply.
“I got it in bits and pieces at first, then one night the whole story came pouring out of him and I finally got to connect the dots,” Howard put in. “Jay always made sense to me, but never as much as he did after that.” Gary simply nodded, his eyes turning down once more.
Jonathan had been watching the exchange with bewildered curiosity, and in the pause that elapsed he edged himself forwards in his seat and cleared his throat in what he hoped was a tactful reminder of his presence.
“I don’t want to dredge up the past if you’d rather not go into it…I could go, talk about this with you all some other time,” he offered kindly, regarding each occupant of the room in turn. In the short space of time that he had known them, Jonathan had come to think of the four men as friends, and no matter what the cost might be on a professional level, he was prepared to let them keep their stories to themselves if that was what was best. Gary still didn’t look up, and Mark had turned away, but Jason offered him a small smile. There was still a haunted look in his blue eyes, but his expression was resolved nonetheless, and Jonathan had known him long enough to realise that Jason’s resolve wasn’t something which often faltered.
“It’s ok,” he said quietly, before looking over at Mark and Gary, glancing between the two of them with a concerned frown. “So…I should start from the beginning, I suppose?” Gary looked up, meeting his eyes. For a moment he held the gaze, then slowly, reluctantly, he gave a small nod, blowing out a breath he felt he’d been holding for days.
“It’s probably overdue,” he admitted, regarding Mark sadly.
Again everyone was silent for a moment. Mark watched Gary with an expression that was part hurt and part confusion, before turning his eyes to Jason, studying his face carefully. Jason was not someone who often gave people the chance to learn him out of stories; most people in his life were made to learn him through passing remarks and looks he didn’t quite manage to hide. He couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed with Jason for not telling him this story – whatever it was – sooner, but he still felt a heavy sort of sadness settle over him as realised his best friends had all been carrying around a secret which they hadn’t bothered to trust him with in all these years.
“I really did think you already knew, Markie,” Jason said kindly, his voice even and soft. Mark looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. Jason was honest by nature: he might not tell his stories freely, but he wouldn’t lie either, especially not to people he cared about. Mark offered him the smallest of smiles.
“So, what is it about how you and Gaz met that I don’t know?” he asked. Jason swallowed, looking down.
“I’ll start at the beginning,” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
When he looked back up, it was Jonathan he addressed. “It all starts with the part you know: Gaz and me met at an audition for a band that never got off the ground. I was there coz of an ad in the paper. But Gaz…didn’t really need to audition, not in the conventional sense, anyway.” He flicked a glance over at Gary, who shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat.
“Nigel Martin-Smith started out as a small-time talent agent around Manchester. He heard me sing in some pub or club…I can’t remember the details. When he found out I wrote my own stuff he told me to get in touch – more or less promised me the world if I let him build a band around me.” Gary said. He let out a humourless laugh. “He was very clear on the fact that I was not cool enough, dynamic enough or co-ordinated enough to make it in the nineties pop industry on my own.” Gary and Jason’s eyes met, briefly, and they shared a smile.
“The rest of us weren’t told until the call-back audition a week later – it was pretty obvious though, since Nigel had devoted the entire afternoon of the first audition to trying different combinations of us dancing crap choreography around Gaz whilst he sang,” Jason offered, his eyes briefly sparkling with light. “Nigel’s a lot of things, but never subtle.” He sighed. “He looked us up and down, got us to dance with our tops off – it was a really classy affair, but most of us were there because we were young and bored enough to not mind. He knew me by reputation, it turned out – represented a few of the guys who were in the crews I danced against.”
“But he couldn’t get near anyone from Street Machine: those guys were all too good to need his help booking jobs when they came,” Howard put in, his voice hard and quiet. Jason smiled softly, inclining his head in reluctant agreement. He wasn’t one to boast about it, but Gary knew it was true: he remembered Nigel reeling off Jason’s extensive CV to him after the first audition. He’d watched some of the shows he was on before the call-back, and the time he saw him again he was in stunned awe. Jason had a presence, and when he danced that presence seemed to swell and glow, taking on an almost magnetic quality that drew people’s eyes to him.
“So, you both got in the band then?” Mark asked. Jason nodded.
“Gaz was as good as in already. I got in at the second audition and we were already rehearsing routines and music by that afternoon. We all got on, had a laugh. But it was tough work – you go in and sing and dance for a minimum of eight hours a day and get drilled in interview technique and ‘this won’t be easy but if we stick together we can make a lot of money for ourselves’ lectures from a bloke like Nigel, and the cracks are going to show. There were some hotheads, a couple of the guys didn’t like that Gaz was safe when Nigel made it clear the rest of us were more than replaceable. It was rough sometimes.”
“No kidding. We were exhausted, running around like nobody’s business, working our arses off for scrappy little gigs and local-paper interviews, anything Nigel could scrabble together for us. And then eight o’clock the next day we’d be expected to be back in the rehearsal space, working on a new song or a new technique or getting lectured to by Nigel about his strategy for making us household names.” Gary closed his eyes for a moment. “The rest of the lads didn’t like me much – I think Jay befriended me out of pity more than anything.”
“That’s not true and you know it,” Jason said gently. “The other lads didn’t like how much Nigel cared about Gaz – Gaz was his favourite and he didn’t really mind the rest of us knowing it.” Jason’s smile turned mischievous for a moment. “Of course, Gaz didn’t help his own case much by being so protective of the music – none of us could so much as fluff a line without him thinking we were trying to muscle in on his songwriting action.” Gary smiled ruefully, flicking a glance up at Jason, who arched one eyebrow knowingly.
“So I was slightly high-strung. I wasn’t more than a kid and back then I thought…the music had to be mine, the credit had to be mine, for it to really mean anything.” Gary bit his lip. “Maybe I should have let my guards down with the lads more, paid attention to their ideas…I was just so focused on the end-goal, and so was Nigel. I probably sacrificed a few friendships for the sake of keeping Nigel’s,” he murmured. Jason shrugged.
“Gaz, you were like…the son he never had. He worshipped you. And not just coz he thought you’d make him rich – although it helped.” He offered Gary a lopsided smile. “I don’t blame you for being close with him: he was a different bloke to you than the rest of us. The important part is that you were a decent enough bloke to be able to step back and realise what it felt like from the other side. Maybe not at the time, but…but definitely since.”
Gary couldn’t meet Jason’s eyes. He knew that, really, it was only seeing what he had seen that had ever persuaded him Nigel wasn’t entirely the person he had presented to him. But talking to Jason since, hearing his honesty, his perspective and his stories – it had given him a different outlook on his memories of Nigel and his brief time with Nigel’s boyband, had taught him that not everything was the way he remembered it and not everyone he had thought to blame had acted without reason. It was still something that made him uneasy though. It had been so easy for Jason to change the way he looked at things – just as easy as it seemed it was for Nigel to make him doubt everything. Who was better than who, really, if they were both just trying to colour his past to their own advantage? It was difficult to be told by one friend that another was not the man he thought he was. It was even more difficult to be told by the second friend that the first friend was only out for himself. These were people he had trusted and cared about almost equally, once upon a time. And Jason was right, Nigel had treated him like a son back then: would he really lie to him about everything now?
“Nigel has two faces, I know that much,” Gary murmured, almost to himself. “He knows what he’s doing when it comes to getting his own way and making something he’s invested in a success – but he also doesn’t care too much who he pisses off along the way.”
“Well, I can tell you that much hasn’t changed: if anything it’s got worse, I’d say,” Jonathan put in. Jason shuddered slightly.
“He did care about all of us, in his own twisted way,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, a haunted look coming over his face. Mark studied his expression with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.
“What happened, Jay?” he asked, gentle and careful, sensing that something unpleasantly character-forming from Jason’s past lay somewhere inside the story about to be told.
It took Jason a while to answer the question. Beside him, Howard sat, still, tense and solemn, his wolf-like eyes intent upon Jason’s face. The two of them were sitting close together, but Howard held himself carefully tall, ensuring that they didn’t touch. Jason was tilted towards him slightly, not looking up or leaning in, but somehow curving perfectly to match Howard’s position: he knew he was there, but he didn’t reach for him, instead pulling himself in more tightly and drawing in a deep, fortifying breath.
“I was the only proper dancer in the group: one of the other lads had enough experience to perform but not enough to choreograph or train up the rest of ‘em. So Nigel put me in charge of choreography and dance rehearsals until he could get enough money together to hire us a professional choreographer.” Jason closed his eyes. “I worked so hard on those routines. I knew it was the only reason I was there – let’s face it, I can barely hold a tune.”
“That’s not true,” Gary interjected forcefully and Jason looked up at him with curiosity. “I know…I know Nigel told you that, but it’s not true. You have an ear for a harmony…maybe not as easy as it comes to Howard but…it’s there. And we needed you in that group – you were the backbone in a lot of ways.”
“Well, whatever my talents, Nigel didn’t rate them. I was thrown out of that band at least three times a week: I’d be ten minutes late in or ask if I could come to an interview in my own car so I could make it back to my mum’s birthday after, and that was it. You name it, I was told I’d been fired for it – it got to be so unpredictable I’d second guess myself, constantly thinking in the back of my head ‘Maybe if I do this, I won’t get kicked out today’ but…the rules were always changing and, I s’pose, looking back now…I know there was nothing I could’ve done. There was never any real reason, it was all just what Nigel felt like doing that day. I got thrown out for asking a question, making a suggestion, for doing anything that Nigel deemed to be answering back. It got to the point where the other lads didn’t even bother pleading my case, coz they knew the next day I’d be back and Nigel would make out how fair he was being, giving me another chance and bringing me back all the time. With hindsight maybe I realise now he needed me: I was the oldest and I was used to playing big brother – my presence kept them in line, in a way, held the whole thing together, gave them a peacemaker and a secret-keeper and a scapegoat.” Jason’s forehead creased into a frown. “The only times he told me he needed me in the band, he told me it was because I had a pretty face and a good body – he never talked about my dancing or my choreography or the fact I was the one staying late every night, working out routines so they were good enough to be taught to the lads the next morning. It was always about my looks.”
Gary remembered it well. Jason hadn’t been the only one Nigel had picked on: there had been a young lad – Jack, if Gary remembered correctly – who bore some of the brunt of Nigel’s sharp tongue, and all of them had gotten their fair share of earfuls. But it had been different with Jason: constant, bitter, personal.
“He doesn’t – didn’t – like that you were more intelligent than him, Jay. He always liked to be the smartest person in the room…and unlike most people, you weren’t willing to play along with the façade,” Gary said quietly, thoughtfully. Jason smiled dimly.
“I’ve never been very good at pretending,” he remarked with a sad shake of his head. “Nigel would play so many of his mind games on me I almost started believing the things he said, even when I knew they weren’t true. Honestly, some of the things he did and said have never really got out of my head: he was the first father figure to come into my life since my dad had left…a part of me wanted to look up to him and trust him more than anything. No matter how much he hurt me, he was still there and…back then, that was something. I was nineteen, going on twenty…not a good age to let yourself listen to a man like Nigel: everything sticks in the back of your mind when you’re told it at that age.” Jason swallowed hard. “He’d turn off my microphone, tell anyone who worked with us not to bother with me coz I couldn’t sing…he told some bloke from the local paper not to ask me questions because I was a trouble maker, told another one not to ask me anything because I had nothing ‘valuable’ to say. He made it quite clear I was ‘just a pretty face’, although he did that to all of us to some extent, always saying we should leave all the talking to him and – if anyone absolutely insisted on talking to the band themselves – Gaz.” Jason shivered almost imperceptibly and Gary closed his eyes. “All of us, no matter what he did or said…we all still wanted to impress him. We wanted his approval and we worked so fucking hard to get it. And me? I did the only thing I still knew I was good for: I worked on dance routines…and I tried really hard to keep my mouth shut. Eventually we went a whole month without me getting chucked out the band and I thought maybe we’d finally gotten somewhere.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t that simple though?” Mark’s voice was gentle and kind. He’d known Jason a long time, had seen that troubled look that sometimes came over him when he thought no one was looking. Finally his contradictory nature made perfect sense, and Mark wondered if Howard too had suddenly looked at Jason a little differently once he had known or if he had somehow instinctively understood all along. The perpetual show-off riddled with self-doubt – the person he was and the person Nigel had tried to make him somehow fusing into the complex, beautiful soul Mark had come to know. He felt a brief pang of anger towards Gary for never telling him any of this: he loved Jason so dearly and he wished he could have understood him this completely before, instead of suddenly feeling so helplessly distant from him – from them all.
“I would have been a basket case either way, Marko – I wasn’t exactly over everything with my dad, maybe I still never would have been, I don’t know. But I think I was always going to end up a mess, one way or another.” Jason’s low, measured voice brought Mark’s eyes up to his. It was as though he knew his thoughts and Mark’s brow knitted together in an expression that was somewhere between outrage and sympathy.
“Jay,” he chided softly.
“Don’t talk yourself down so much,” Howard said, his expression pinched, as though he’d heard the speech before and was pained to hear it again. Mark glanced at Gary, and was surprised to find him looking away, his expression giving away no emotion at all and no words of reassurance to his friend of twenty years seeming to be forthcoming from his lips.
“It’s not important anyway,” Jason sighed, breaking the silence before it could become stifling. “I think we went a whole week without Nigel going off on anyone – or at least without him going in for the kill with any shitty personal remarks. And in that week we finally started getting places. A couple of national pop magazines wanted to come and talk to us, Nigel booked us in to perform some songs at some small clubs in Birmingham, London, Newcastle…we were actually starting to be known by people in the industry outside of Manchester. So, of course, we knew we just had to work that bit harder, make the final push to get ourselves out there. Nigel had plenty of ideas on how to get us noticed, but it was as much our job as his, to put the hours in and graft to get ourselves looking as polished as we could. And I did what I was in the band to do: I worked on routines and got them polished.” Jason shrugged. “You spend your whole day practicing songs and routines and interview questions, you don’t get much time for choreographing anything, so I’d end up staying after hours to get it done. I enjoyed it. Until Nigel started staying late too.”
Jason swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment. Mark noticed Gary finally look up, though his expression was still distant, a slight furrow in his brow that Mark couldn’t understand. “He’d find any old excuse: paperwork, needing to be the one who locked up – anything but what he was actually doing.” Jason’s eyes snapped open, as though he’d seen something behind his eyelids which had startled him, and he shook his head slightly. “He would watch me. At first he’d just sit there for hours, staring at my back thinking I hadn’t noticed. Then after a while he’d start being more open about it, meeting my eyes in the mirror. Then he decided to see how far he could take it.” Howard clenched his fingers slightly. “He started asking me to take my shirt off whilst I danced. Used the same excuse as always: he needed to know whether or not I was fit enough to be put on posters in the bedrooms of teenage girls. I’m not an idiot, though: I knew what it was really about. I still did as I was told. I was tired of arguing with him, and I told myself it didn’t matter. What difference did it make anyway? I’d taken my shirt off to dance of my own accord enough times – breakdancing takes it out of you, you know?” Jason’s lips twisted into a brittle smile. “But I knew it wasn’t like that and he knew that I knew. I suppose I hoped I’d have enough sense to get away before the whole thing could get worse, but I was wrong. He started coming over to ‘properly inspect’ me, so he said. Every time it happened he got closer, started leaving his hands on me longer and longer – and every time I swore to myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. I was so sure I could still control the situation I think I stopped letting myself process that it was actually getting worse.”
Gary looked over at Jason. The stillness that had descended upon the five of them felt heavy and oppressive and he wanted to get out, badly. But as he looked at Jason’s face, the greyness that had settled in his normally bright eyes, he could feel himself swaying back. He’d spent years choosing not to think about any of this, fearing that if he looked too hard at it all he might come back with the wrong conclusions and be forced to realise he’d thrown away his best chance of making it for a collection of half-truths and embellished stories. But that look in Jason’s eyes was hard to doubt. Still, in the back of his mind Gary could hear Nigel’s voice, reminding him that everyone was out for themselves, that he was at least the only one who was honest about it. What exactly was Jason supposedly after, though? What did he gain by keeping Gary from making it in the music industry? A job, a quiet life, a friend. Gary looked over at his friend again, and saw him watching him. “Gaz didn’t know all of it,” Jason said suddenly, his voice strangely soft. “I caught him up later, after…but he didn’t know. No one knew. Howard’s still the only person I’ve ever told every single story to – only one I could face telling it all to.” He glanced at Howard, whose eyes looked at him with an intense tenderness. “He’s the only person I’ve ever trusted to believe every word.” At Mark’s hurt expression, Jason offered him a small smile. “It’s nothing personal, you know? I never even explained the whole thing to any of my brothers, not even my mum…I think I was worried about the obvious holes in my logic.”
“Holes?” Gary questioned, his tone more pointed than he had intended.
“I was the one who kept going back. Some nights…I don’t know, some nights maybe you could argue that things I did or said were downright stupid. I knew Nigel fancied me. I knew exactly what he wanted from me from my first audition, and when we were alone he didn’t exactly try to hide it.”
“Jay, he punished you for being a better bloke than he could ever hope to be around – you were the boyfriend he could never have and no matter what happened he was going to take it out on you,” Howard said firmly. Jason gave a small nod that didn’t convince.
“Whatever his reasons – whatever logic was going on in his head or in mine – I knew the way he would twist it if I told anyone and they confronted him. So I kept my mouth shut on half the things that went on…kept it to myself for years. He’d threaten me sometimes, tell me about how he could make sure I didn’t have any career in music or dance if I said anything. I couldn’t be sure that he was bluffing – I told myself I could live with it, that I was always going to be able to get out of the way in time.” He shrugged. “It never got out of hand normally. But one night…”
Suddenly Mark wasn’t so sure he wanted to know. He glanced over at Jonathan’s usually kind, sunny face and saw a heavy, anxious sort of compassion in his eyes as he studied Jason’s face. Howard’s face was similarly sombre, his eyes sharp and blue as he watched Jason silently, though he maintained the careful sliver of distance there was between them.
Gary stood up abruptly, taking Mark by surprise a little. His arms were folded and his posture rigid as he stared at a point in the middle-distance.
“It was spring: the mornings were icy but by the afternoon the sun would be up and you’d feel like you were melting, especially cooped up in that stale old rehearsal space. I left my jacket behind when I left that night – which wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t have had my door key and my wallet in there. I trudged all the way back, hoping that Jay and Nigel would still be there, working late as usual…I didn’t expect to walk in on Jay shoved up against the wall with a cut lip, a nosebleed and Nigel’s hand around his throat.”
Mark wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to hear, but it hadn’t been that, and he felt a sick sort of realisation dawning and a horrid, unwelcome image forming in his mind’s eye. “When Nigel saw me he didn’t even try and jump away…he just launched right into some awful ‘explanation’ about how Jay was supposedly trying to scam him and me, get me to sign over my songs so the others could go on without me. He gave me some guff about Jay not thinking I fitted in and not wanting to work so hard on the dance routines with me but…I knew Jay too well by then, and he was probably the only one of those lads who didn’t think any of that stuff.” Gary shuddered. “Besides, I saw the look on Jay’s face.”
Mark closed his eyes, but Jonathan turned his gaze to Jason.
“What happened, Jason?” he asked in a soft, caring voice, and Jason looked up at him slowly, distantly, his eyes not quite focusing on his face.
“Like I said, I was staying late to work on some routine or other – we had a lot of stuff coming up that Nigel was working us hard for. Anyway, I wanted to change my mind when he said he was staying late too…I knew what it meant by then when he said he had paperwork to do. But I felt I didn’t have much choice: there were always repercussions when you said no to Nigel, and he’d always find a way to convince me whatever happened was my fault. Back then I fell for it…I was young and naïve enough to think there was actually some logic to it, that it wasn’t totally random and there was no way I could stop it.” Jason shrugged. “I know it sounds daft but…it’s a lot easier to say ‘Get out of there’ when you’re not tangled up in it all, you know?” He shook his head. “I don’t think it would’ve made a difference to what happened next, it would’ve just happened some other time; things were bound to come to a head between us. That night started out the same as all the other times, him staring and gradually getting closer and closer. But this time he tried to go further, putting his hands on me and leaving them there. He told me keeping him on side was in my interests – he was making all these claims about what he could do for me, how he could promote me, make me the star of the band, all that sort of crap. On condition I let him do whatever he wanted with his hands on my body.” Jason shuddered, swallowing hard and closing his eyes. “The more I told him no, the closer he got, and the more I tried to get away the more it pissed him off. He told me I needed him, told me he could destroy me if I didn’t let him have his way, told me he’d kick me out the band – the usual threats. It didn’t sway me: he told me this stuff most days. I was under no illusions about how worthless he thought I was. He’d got me trapped against the wall…I was somewhere between ill and shit scared, so when he tried to kiss me I just went on instinct and shoved him back. That was when things got ugly.”
“Ugly how?” Mark asked uneasily.
“You don’t embarrass a bloke like Nigel and get away with it – there’s always going to be some sort of revenge. He grabbed hold of my arm and pinned me back so fast I don’t even think I realised it was happening – I was shattered, running mostly on adrenaline so…he might’ve been shorter than me but he still had the advantage. He smacked me, hard enough to cut my lip, and slammed me back against the wall, got me by the throat and started telling me how little I was worth. He was so close he was spitting in my face every time he spoke and I just closed my eyes and waited for it to be over. I can’t remember the words exactly but I got the gist: I was useless, talentless…all I was was a pretty face and once that faded I’d have nothing and no one in this world and it was all my own fault. He told me I’d regret being ‘too high and mighty’ for him one day, how I’d learn to wish someone would give me the chances he did…” Jason drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know what he would’ve done if Gaz hadn’t walked in.”
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Howard whispered. Gary saw him flinch and the feeling of being a terrible friend had never been more acute than in that moment.
“He lost it when I wouldn’t back him up in front of Gaz,” Jason continued quietly. “But by then I wanted out: he was determined to make my life a living hell for as long as I was around to let it happen, and no job was worth that. The moment he let go of me I scrambled to grab my stuff and I just ran and ran and never looked back.” There was a silence then, and no one moved, all of them watching Jason intently. Finally his eyes seemed to focus again, and he looked up at each of them before turning to Howard, a tentative, genuine smile coming across his face. Mark was surprised that Howard didn’t pull him closer, but then it occurred to him that Howard knew better than to lay a finger on Jason’s skin whilst this particular story still lingered in the air: it was one of the sweetest gestures he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t help but smile slightly as he watched the two of them looking at each other, the colour slowly coming back to Jason’s eyes as Howard’s face helped him banish the ghosts that still flitted around him. “Hi,” he murmured at last.
“Hi,” Howard replied softly, an answering smile on his lips. And that was when Jason finally closed the distance between them, leaning in close enough for Howard to press a kiss to his forehead.
Mark glanced at Gary curiously then, something niggling at the back of his mind.
“So what did you do about it?” he asked. “Jay got out, thank goodness. But you and Nigel were close so…” Gary swallowed, finding his mouth suddenly dry. He drew in a deep breath, rubbing his forehead tiredly.
“It wasn’t my proudest moment,” he admitted softly. He was aware of Jason and Howard’s gazes turning back to him, and reluctantly he met their eyes. Howard’s expression was calm but disappointed, but in Jason’s face there was nothing but sympathy.
“Hey, nothing was simple when it came to Nigel – even I’d trusted him, in my own way,” he offered kindly and Gary gave him a smile that he hoped didn’t show the sharp flicker of guilt which came over him. He had always questioned Jason’s story: after all, Jason had always been the one to say he was staying late first, and some of Nigel’s explanations had made a certain amount of sense, especially back then. But he’d seen the cut lip, the bloody nose. More importantly he’d seen the very genuine fear in Jason’s eyes, those eyes which were usually so bright and alive. And now here was the same man he’d sympathised with but doubted, looking at him with raw affection and total understanding: this was not a friendship of equals, it turned out – Jason was a better man than him, he was sure of it.
He looked back at Mark and for a moment he couldn’t help but suspect he had just read his thoughts, what with the sombre look he gave him. He cleared his throat and sat back down slowly.
“I knew what I saw that night,” he admitted with a sigh. “But at the same time…I felt like my loyalties were torn. I know that sounds awful but…imagine one of your two best friends turning round and telling you some awful secret about the other one, and when you go and ask the other friend they tell you the same story but with all the roles reversed.” He shook his head slightly, looking down at his hands. “And people wonder why I have trust issues,” he muttered to himself. “After Jay was gone, Nigel told me I’d walked in at a bad time and the whole thing was Jay’s doing. I knew he was lying – I knew Jay, not as well as I know him now but I knew enough. He told me over and over how Jay had been trying to scam him – scam us all – and how he had to make sure Jay knew his place or else the whole band would fall apart because of his ‘arrogance’. I knew that was rubbish and Nigel saw it all over my face, so he changed tone, started reminding me how much work we’d put into the band already, telling me how he didn’t want to have to ruin my chance of getting a record deal over Jay’s ‘attitude problems’. I still don’t know what possessed me to listen to him, but I did: he played on my ambition and I think I let him because…I knew he cared about me, that he believed in me. It counts for a lot when someone as upfront as Nigel shows that sort of faith in you. So I let him talk me round to staying. He even convinced me not to mention anything to the other lads, even after it was obvious Jay wasn’t coming back. He told me it would disrupt the ‘harmony’ we’d found as a group.” Gary closed his eyes. “I s’pose I tried to put it down to the fact the two of them didn’t get on, told myself it was just oil and water and it had got out of control and there was nothing to be achieved by running after Jay to find out more of his side of it. I told myself we were all better off with the new set-up – less tension, you know. And that was the end of it. Or so I thought.”
Jason rested his head on Howard’s shoulder, and Howard pulled him closer somewhat protectively, kissing the top of his head.
“I didn’t see Gaz for a few weeks. Then the next thing I know he’s on my doorstep needing a place to stay coz he had no cash and Nigel had thrown him out the band: my mum was only too happy to take in a stray.”
“She loves a full house does Jenny Orange,” Gary remarked with a chuckle. He tried not to think what Jenny Orange would do to him if she knew how many times he’d doubted her son.
“I thought that Jay leaving would mean Nigel would calm down: the person he seemed to have wanted out from the beginning was gone and I was young and dumb enough to think that was the end of it. But Nigel seemed to take Jay’s leaving as a personal insult, kept saying ‘So he thinks he’s better off without us, does he?’ and trying to get me and the other lads to join in throwing insults. He wanted us all to turn on him, tried to make everything seem like it was Jay’s fault whenever anything went wrong or we weren’t happy with something. Sometimes it worked, but for the most part we’d all thought of Jay too fondly to be swayed. Then one day Nigel gets into this stand-up argument with the lad who he was hardest on after Jay – Liam, I think his name was – and I swear I thought it was history repeating itself. Only Liam wasn’t known for being quite as morally upstanding as our Jay: he would’ve thought nothing of punching Nigel’s lights out then and there, and I think he was going to, for a moment. Nigel certainly thought it was going to come to that – I saw a moment of panic on his face where he realised he was out of his depth with this lad. Then suddenly this calm came over him, and he turned to me.” Gary let out a humourless laugh. “My moral code was probably sketchy, but I had just about been able to justify not saying anything about the real reasons Jay had left the band overnight up ‘til then. But when Nigel turned to me, and tried to get me to calm this lad down by outright lying about Jay, saying he’d hit out at Nigel and slagged us all off in the process…I knew I couldn’t do it.” Gary glanced over at Jason, and the two shared a brief smile. “That pissed Nigel off well and truly. You’re either with him or against him, and by not agreeing to his version of the story I was putting myself on the opposite team for the first time since he’d known me. And he didn’t like it one bit: he properly turned on me like he had never done before – he’d done it to all the lads but never me, and I didn’t handle it half as well as any of them managed to, let me tell you.”
“What did he say?” Mark asked, laying a gentle hand on Gary’s arm.
“Nothing compared to the things he’d say to the rest of them, but he did threaten to take my music away from me, told me how he knew people who could make sure I’d never be able to shop a single note to another manager. Empty threats, probably, but they hurt me. He spent the next few days giving me the cold shoulder, making my life a misery…he tore apart every note of my music and my singing. And I couldn’t cope. Jay was my only mate in that band – the others loathed me for being a teacher’s pet with Nigel, for slowing them all down in the dance rehearsals, getting all the credit in what little press we got and never bearing any of the brunt of Nigel’s temper, so they were all loving seeing me out in the cold and made no effort to make me feel like I was one of them. I’d put myself on Team Nigel early on, and as far as they were concerned it was too late to switch sides. I was so isolated…I’d trusted Nigel so much and for him to turn on me like that…it hurt. And I was so alone without Jay around.”
Mark’s face was troubled, a clouded look in his eyes – he studied Gary’s face for a moment.
“A friendship with someone who thought people were either for him or against him…someone Jay used to know and wouldn’t want to know again,” Mark said in a low murmur, realisation written on his face. Gary looked back at him, sorry, nervous and pleading, and Mark stared back quietly for a moment before finally lowering his gaze, giving a slight shake of his head and a small, dismissive smile. “Guess I knew more than I thought,” he sighed, not able to look Jason in the eye. He looked back at Gary pointedly. Mark was rarely cross, and Gary couldn’t recall ever seeing him truly furious, but for the briefest of moments he could’ve sworn he saw something blisteringly angry in those normally twinkling eyes of his – he’d had secrets kept from him, he’d been lied to, he’d been made complicit in a betrayal of one of his best friends, and now Gary had coaxed him into pretending he had no clue about that little meeting with the past, pretending right to Jason’s face. And yet, Gary realised, he still felt that old conflict within himself: he felt ill with guilt, and knowing Jason had told Howard the same stories about Nigel he had told him all those years ago gave the stories more weight than they’d ever had previously, but still he couldn’t shake the thought that Nigel had never lied to him about anything else before, so why would he lie about Jason? Jason could have encouraged Nigel’s attention more than he had let on, maybe more than he realised – after all, they were all outrageous show offs back then, and Jason was a natural flirt, he could’ve given Nigel mixed signals without even meaning to, and that way everyone could be argued to be telling the truth. And then there was the argument Nigel had always made: Jason was the one to offer to stay behind late first, time and time again. Gary closed his eyes and looked away, hoping Mark hadn’t read the emotions in his face but suspecting he wouldn’t be so lucky.
“What happened to the band, then? I’m assuming they didn’t make it?” Mark asked suddenly, just about managing to stifle the desperate edge to his voice as he attempted to move the attention away from Gary.
“Ah, well, I can answer that bit for you: the band went nowhere in the end, broke up before they’d even begun. A dubiously attention-grabbing video done on a budget got them a few write-ups and a scattering of fans, but Nigel’s money ran out before anyone would sign them – and he certainly couldn’t afford to pay a songwriter, well, not one who came close to Mr. Barlow here,” Jonathan put in. Howard nudged Jason slightly.
“None of ‘em could dance as good as you either.”
“And how would you know, Howard Donald?” Jason laughed, and Howard smiled back at him with a daft sort of pride glinting in his eyes.
“No one in Manchester could, not in them days,” he said. Jason laughed, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.
“And you wouldn’t be at all biased, I suppose?” he pointed out. He shook his head, still laughing, before looking back over at Jonathan and arching an eyebrow. “So, not that we’ve not all enjoyed this stroll down memory lane and all, but is there a reason you came in here asking us about Nigel today?” Jonathan sighed.
“Ah. You remembered that then,” he said with wince. “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but Nigel Martin-Smith is actually on the prowl for a new band. And the worse news: he’s been asking around about you four.”
“Us four as in us, as a band, right here?” Howard asked, his shoulders tensing.
“I didn’t think that would be welcome news,” Jonathan sighed.
He rubbed his hands over his face and leant back in his chair. Howard and Jason looked tense, Mark just looked sad. And then there was Gary; his expression was oddly vacant, and he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “It makes more sense to me now, at least; why he’d hone in on you, despite you not really being the manufactured mould he was more associated with back in the day. There’s history. Added to your songs…a wily guy like Nigel is probably seeing pound signs.” Jonathan pulled a face, distaste clear in his tone, and Jason smiled.
“That sounds like Nigel alright. But what the hell would make him think he could persuade Gaz and me to work with him again?”
“You know what Nigel’s like, Jay,” Gary put in quietly, his eyes fixed on the floor, and Jason frowned.
“I know he holds grudges too – you seriously think he doesn’t still tell anyone who’ll listen about the full of himself bloke he knew once who thought he was worthy of being in his band?” Gary flinched.
“I just meant he thinks he can control everything and everyone, never taking no for an answer. And…I know he felt bad about losing touch with me.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he thinks the four of us would be interested in having him as a manager: we’ve got Jonathan already,” Mark interrupted, giving Gary a small glare. Jonathan inclined his head slightly.
“Technically you have – but we’re still waiting on paperwork, remember. And I might not know Nigel that well, but I know he loves a loophole when he sees one. I’ve met him a few times now, through his club connections: he’s got himself back in the entertainment world through the Northern club and pub scene – I think his chain is the biggest in the North-West these days, actually.” Jonathan shook his head, his expression apologetic. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to encounter him whilst launching you lads: he’s not my sort of person, if I’m honest, and I don’t really agree with his methods, no matter how successful they might be. He’s been looking for a way back into the music industry proper for a while now, but I’d just assumed he’d want to go the manufactured root – that was always his comfort zone, back in the day. A few weeks ago now though, some friends of mine passed on that he’d been poking around asking questions about you…it makes sense now I know there’s history, but at the time I was stumped. I figured the best policy was to be honest with you boys.”
Jonathan looked at Jason then, his expression kind, and Jason gave him a small nod of thanks, because he appreciated the honesty and knew his own honesty had been appreciated in kind. The two shared a small smile, and Jonathan nodded slightly, shrugging. “Look, I really appreciate the information – and if it’s ok with all of you, I’ll try and speed up the process of making all our arrangements legally binding. But in the meantime, just look out: you clearly know better than I do what Nigel can be like when he sets his mind to something, and I really don’t want to give him an opening. As far as he’s concerned you boys are unfinished business, and I suspect that doesn’t sit well with him, no matter how successful his might be in the club-running business.”
Jonathan cast his eyes around the group, and was surprised to notice a deep, heavy frown had settled on Howard’s face. He was used to Howard going into something of a trance when they held their meetings – the man had a world of his own he liked to disappear into when confronted with groups larger than three – but this look seemed different somehow. Jason too seemed to have noticed the curious intensity in Howard’s eyes and he placed a gentle hand on his knee.
“How, what’s wrong?” he asked in a low, calm voice that stirred Howard instantly, causing him to sit up a little straighter. He looked over at Jonathan.
“Did you just say he had a whole chain of clubs?” he asked, trying to squash the uneasiness he felt but not quite managing to keep the nervousness from his tone in a way which could fool Jason, and he felt him shift a little closer to him, concerned.
“Yes…the places look a bit tacky in daylight but by night they liven up: he knows what works, I suppose. Most of them are trendy-but-soulless type affairs in city centres all around the North, especially the North-West, but he’s got a scattering of other places in and around Manchester too – I think he even invested in a piano bar a while back that’s done pretty well.” Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Howard looked at Jason then, and somehow Jason read his expression immediately.
“The creep who was asking about me,” he murmured.
“It was him, Jay. He never said his full name but I’m sure of it.”
“Shit.”
“Excuse me: clueless over here,” Mark interrupted plaintively. Howard closed his eyes, but Jason looked over to Mark and offered him a tight smile.
“Turns out Nigel isn’t quite as far in my past as I thought,” he said. He flicked a brief glance at Gary, surprised by his silence. He was looking furtively at the ground, his whole body rigidly still, as though he hoped by not moving the rest of them might forget he had ever been there. “Gaz, you ok?” Gary looked up, startled. He stared blankly at Jason for a moment, and Jason felt a brief nauseousness in the pit of his stomach which he tried his best to ignore.
“Sorry, I just…what are you and Howard talking about?” Gary stammered out at last, and Howard let out a humourless laugh, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I got booked for a good-paying gig at one of Nigel’s clubs in Manchester city-centre: a long-term thing with the possibility of more work in the future as well as in some of his other places. Of course, he made sure I never saw his full name on anything so that the worst that could happen if he asked about Jay was me being weirded out rather than me realising why he was asking.” Howard pulled a sour expression, shaking his head. “He asked me about Jay, tried a few leading questions which I mostly didn’t take the bait for and I tried to shrug it off. But now…”
Howard let out a sigh that was almost a snarl and Jason smiled at him fondly, rubbing a hand over his back and pressing a soothing kiss to his cheek. As spooked as the idea of Nigel tracking him down had initially made him feel, one look at Howard and a strange, all-consuming calm came over him. He closed his eyes, briefly forgetting the three onlookers and taking a moment to breathe in the warm, spicy scent of his husband, enjoying the sturdy feeling of his body beside him.
“It’s ok,” he whispered against Howard’s skin. Howard pulled back just enough to look at him, and Jason tipped his face up slightly to meet his eyes. Howard’s smile was small, soft and lopsided as he took in Jason’s calm expression.
“Oh yeah?” Howard asked him. “Since when were you the optimist in this relationship.”
“Shut up and enjoy it while it lasts,” Jason shot back with a laugh, pressing a quick kiss to Howard’s lips before glancing back over at Mark and Gary. He saw the strange tension between them and narrowed his eyes slightly. “So, I’m assuming Nigel’s not come after either of you two?” he asked carefully, studying their reactions with a critical eye. Gary opened his mouth then closed it again abruptly, offering a small shrug as his only response, and Mark watched him for a moment before turning back to Jason with a smile that didn’t even come close to reaching his usually bright eyes.
“He’s not come after me that I know of – but I could have easily served him in the caff or something and not even realised,” he said quietly, looking away, and Jason simply nodded, aware of Gary’s continued silence but willing not to push in front of everyone.
The quiet was only broken by Jonathan announcing somewhat apologetically that he had a meeting to get to. It was as if they had been beneath a spell which Jonathan’s voice had magically broken, and all four men suddenly sprang back to life, Gary and Mark offering to see him out whilst Jason and Howard got to their feet in a flurry of goodbyes. Jonathan promised again to keep them updated as Mark and Gary followed him to the door.
As the three of them disappeared from the room, Howard glanced up at the clock and winced.
“Somewhere to be, Howard Donald?” Jason’s voice was laced with a light-hearted sort of amusement that drew a smile to Howard’s lips, and he pulled his body closer to his own, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“If I said no, would you believe me?” he asked playfully, resting his cheek on top of Jason’s head and taking a second to rejoice in the feel of his strong, lithe body, crushed close against his own.
“Not for a moment,” Jason told him with a chuckle, though he didn’t move immediately, allowing Howard a second or two of stillness before he leant back in his arms in order to meet his eyes. “I meant what I said, How: it will be ok. Take the creep’s money and run, just like we agreed. I can handle knowing Nigel Martin-Smith paid my rent for the next three months: it’s kind of a relief, actually.” Howard smiled, cupping Jason’s face with his hand.
“A relief?” he laughed softly, his voice a low, fond murmur as he looked at him. No one he knew could surprise and intrigue him like Jason did. He felt his heart swell as Jason looked up at him, his gaze bright and intense as his lips twisted into a strange, wry smile Howard didn’t think he’d ever seen on his lips before. And he knew Jason’s smiles well.
“I’ve spent so much of my life trying to rebuild, trying to feel safe, trying to shut up his voice in the back of my head. And then I met you. And you looked at me like you knew I was broken and it fascinated you…it’s one of those things you don’t realise is happening at the time, but one day you look back and you see that, for the most part, that fear isn’t there anymore, that those voices only creep up on you in the middle the night now and they’re not even as loud anymore so it’s easier to not believe them.” He shrugged. “Nigel doesn’t have power over me anymore. You might, but not him.” Howard raised an eyebrow and Jason laughed softly. “I mean it – this is ok. The way I see it I get one over on him this way: he thinks he ruined everything and can do it again, and him helping pay the rent is my way of making sure we prove him wrong. You’ve given me more than enough faith to know I can survive – and I have more than enough faith in you to survive too. Nigel can’t hurt you and me, or our life together now – which is more of a life than he wanted me to have and the ultimate proof I need to know his opinions shouldn’t matter to me anymore.”
Howard bent down and kissed the tip of Jason’s nose, making him smile.
“I love you,” he said simply, his voice still a whisper. He kissed his cheek. “You are incredible to me.” He kissed the corner of his mouth. “And I’m not the one with the power here,” he added in a murmur. Jason laughed, leaning back to cup Howard’s face in both his hands. His eyes sparkled as looked up at him, but his expression was serious and earnest.
“I love you too,” he replied quietly, a small smile briefly tugging at the corner of his lips. “But you’re wrong, Howard Donald: you do have all the power here. And that’s ok. I gave it to you; and I know if I asked you’d give it right back. We’re all even here: everything for everything, just like always,” he added, kissing Howard firmly on the lips.
When Jason pulled back from the kiss, Howard watched him, saw the way his eyes suddenly clouded over as he looked at something over Howard’s shoulder. Howard glanced back, catching sight of Mark and Gary standing by the shop’s front door, seemingly locked in an intense conversation of their own.
“What’s wrong?” Howard asked gently, touching his hand to Jason’s chin, and Jason’s eyes came back to him in an instant, a troubled look in them which Howard didn’t like.
“I know Nigel can’t work his way back into my world through you: you, Howard Donald, are the most stubborn bastard I know and loyal to a fault – he hasn’t a hope of twisting your arm no matter how many tricks he tries.” Jason huffed out a breath. “But Gaz, on the other hand…”
“You don’t think he would actually set something up with Nigel, though? Without even talking to you about it all first?”
“I don’t know. But I know there’s something on his mind: he looked like he was about to throw up when I asked if Nigel had come after him, and if there is one thing I know for sure it’s that Gary Barlow is a terrible liar.” He looked back over Howard’s shoulder, watching as Mark and Gary continued their hushed conversation by the door, Mark’s expression somewhere between desperate sadness and utter frustration. “And I think Mark knows it too, if that conversation over there is anything to go by.” Jason sighed, closing his eyes for a moment and letting himself lean into Howard’s strength. “He’s one of my best friends, How…but is it terrible if I feel like I know that – when it comes to me versus his career – I just can’t trust him?” Howard bent just enough for their eyes to be level, and Jason lifted his head, meeting his gaze.
“Jason Orange, you are a lot of things. But you could never, ever be terrible. Just honest to fault.” Howard kissed his forehead softly. “And besides, I have it on good authority that you can be a pretty stubborn bastard too, when you put your mind to it. You’re too loyal to ever turn your back on a friend just for being flawed. ”
Chapter 6
Howard and Mark had taken some persuading, but eventually both men had left and Barlow’s Music Shop had descended into an unusually uneasy silence. Gary had disappeared into the piano room and not surfaced since, and Jason had turned the shop’s sign back around to open and set about tidying the place up, using the time to try and gather himself. He felt shaky somehow, as though with every move he made he was waiting from the walls to fall around him. He remembered the feeling, though he wished he didn’t: it was something he’d mostly learned to banish over the years, but it still crept up on him in the middle of the night sometimes. Howard was the only person on earth who knew it, of course – the only person Jason had ever allowed close enough to know about the nightmares and the only person who had ever been able to quell the aching fear and sadness that always came with them. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this way in daylight hours; even after his ordeal with Emily, this sort of clammy-skinned tension had only really been reserved for those hours between midnight and morning, when Howard was there to stop it seizing him so completely. He took a deep breath and tried to push the feeling away, tried to pretend he felt fine and that Gary’s determination to avoid him didn’t give him an odd, ominous sense of knowing. But he had never been built to pretend.
It was only half an hour before Jason came into the piano room, sitting himself down in the armchair and silently watching Gary as he played a wistful, melancholy tune, his eyes intent upon the keys, as though Jason wasn’t even there. He didn’t look up, even once he reached the end of the song he had been playing, but Jason knew he realised he was there, and he let the silence hang over them – for all that he needed honesty, he was never one to force it from those around him without good reason, and he could see a sadness in Gary’s face which he recognised. The wounds from their time in Nigel’s band had never healed, only scabbed over, leaving them vulnerable when they were picked at: Jason understood that more than anyone.
“Nigel got in touch with me not long ago, totally out the blue.” Gary’s voice was low and hollow, and he still didn’t look at Jason as he spoke.
“That much I’d managed to figure out,” Jason told him quietly, letting out a sad laugh when Gary looked at him in surprise. “You can’t lie for toffee, Barlow. And as soon as Nigel’s name came up today you looked like you’d seen a ghost.” Jason shrugged, offering Gary a smile that Gary thought looked surprisingly at peace – it was a look which he had never known on Jason’s face before Howard came along, but it suited him, Gary thought. “You could’ve told me, you know,” Jason said then, his voice soft as he met Gary’s eyes.
“No I couldn’t,” Gary sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and taking a moment to close his eyes. “After everything else you’ve been through this past year, I couldn’t add bad memories on top of it.” Jason looked down, nodding slowly.
“I understand that, I do – but you have got to stop treating me like I’m ready to break, Gaz. That’s what I’ve got Howard for. What I need from everyone else is to just go back to normal, or as close as it ever gets to normal around here. The longer everyone keeps talking to me like they’re worried about where the landmines are buried, the longer it feels like the whole thing is going on for – and at this point I just want it to be over.” Jason sighed, offering a one shouldered shrug. “So: talk to me. Even if it’s about Nigel. I want to know, Gaz. Because you’re my mate and I’m worried about you. And I meant what I said before: I never blamed you for being close with him. He was different with you and we both know it.”
Gary looked down at his hands, clasping and unclasping them for a moment and trying to work out just where it was he wanted to start. Jason’s patient silence almost made him feel worse, as doubt and guilt mingled in the pit of his stomach, making him feel sick and anxious. He let out a long sigh, trying to organize his thoughts before finally risking another glance over at Jason.
“I was sure you wouldn’t have told Howard, you know.” Jason laughed softly, his eyes briefly dancing with light as he raised an eyebrow, surprised that that was the first thing Gary wanted to talk about.
“Really?” he asked and Gary offered him a small, rueful smile and a shrug in reply. “Howard’s known for a while,” Jason said then, his voice a little quieter as he looked down. “I’m talking way back when we’d just started going out.” He shook his head, a small, fond smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I woke up in the middle of the night one time, scared out my mind, trying to breathe. Same old story. But he calmed me down, made it ok. He didn’t ask for an answer or an explanation, not even when it kept happening. He just sat with me every time – I could call him in the middle of the night and offer him no explanation and he’d still be there, even if I had nothing to say he’d still pick up and talk nonsense to me for a while. Eventually, I wasn’t sure what exactly I was protecting: he put up with all the nightmares and the fear without any of the context, and it didn’t change anything about the way he saw me, the way he treated me. So I started telling him the stories. Giving him the context he hadn’t known. And over time I started to realise that, the more he knew, the more he knew me, understood me…and the more he knew me, the more I didn’t mind so much about the ghosts anymore at all.” Jason sighed, his expression somehow distant, though the smile stayed on his lips. “The ghosts are a lot less scary when there’s someone in the world who knows how to fight them for you all those times you feel like you can’t cope on your own.”
Gary had never thought of it that way; he’d never entertained the possibility that confessing his secrets and sins to someone could maybe give them the ammunition they needed to help him fight the battles life threw his way. It was a curiously Jason And Howard sort of idea: the two of them were both so comfortable in their own skin, so ready to drop to their knees in the mud and push on for something they felt was right. The only thing Gary had ever had that sort of conviction about was his music, and there were times, dark, horrible times, where even that certainty had left him. But then he thought back to the night Mark had prized the confession about Nigel out of him: Mark was angry with him for it now, of course, but at the time Gary had felt somewhat comforted to have someone to share that burden with, who didn’t judge him for it and who offered the sort of advice only someone who knew him well could.
He looked up at Jason, took in the calm, quiet expression on his face and the bright, sharp glint of his eyes.
“Maybe it’s something I should’ve done. Maybe I should’ve said something…to Mark, I mean. I told him I was meeting someone, told him it was someone you and me both used to know and that it ended badly. But I didn’t tell him the whole thing – couldn’t bring myself to go into it in case he hated me over it and didn’t want to listen to any more, didn’t want to see it from my point of view.” He winced. “I know I should’ve given him the chance, should’ve known it’d be better than keeping it from him and making him feel like I wanted him to choose between me and you. But there’s plenty of stories me and him don’t share with each other, so I didn’t think it mattered. He’s got his miserable memories and I’ve got mine – it’s not the future we want for ourselves so we keep it in the past where it belongs.” Jason inclined his head to show he had taken the information on board, but he offered no comment and there didn’t seem to be any judgement in his piercing gaze. Still, Gary knew it wasn’t an approach Jason himself ever took and he couldn’t help wondering if some part of him was despairing of him for it – it made him feel like he had to somehow justify himself, putting him on the defensive suddenly. “I just didn’t want to let the genie out of the bottle, I suppose. And now it’s out I don’t think we’ll ever get it back in.”
Jason was quiet for a moment, looking at Gary thoughtfully, his expression still giving nothing away.
“But that could be a good thing, you know,” he said at last, sympathy in his calm, even tone. “You two are always avoiding talking about it – the fact both of you got broken down along the way – but it’s a part of who you both are, you know, whether you like it or not.” Jason shrugged, offering Gary a self-deprecating smile. “Believe me, I know what it’s like to not want to go there, to want to try and pretend that you’re fine and that you can keep your head above water all the time. But nobody’s perfect, Gaz. And even though I’ve not always been great for total-sharing, I’ve always been honest if there’s a problem, otherwise I would have lost the plot years ago. And, since Howard…” He trailed off, but the words didn’t need to be said. Howard had opened a window on Jason’s soul, slowly letting sunlight fall into places it hadn’t been allowed to go in years.
Gary shook his head, letting out a small laugh that was harsher than he intended it to be. Again it was Nigel’s words which drifted back to him, asking him how much he knew about Mark Owen, reminding him that there were people out there with pieces of Mark’s story that, for some reason, Mark had decided Gary wasn’t allowed to know. And maybe it was hypocritical, because he was just as guilty of keeping his past closely guarded, and he didn’t always share everything he was feeling all the time, for the sake of a quiet life. But Mark was the only one who disappeared off with friends and didn’t come back until late at night, full of nothing but nonsense, reeling off names of people Gay had never even met, and Mark was the only one whose family and friends would hurry to change the subject when a story took a wrong turn in Gary’s presence.
“When I called you the other day…it was Nigel,” he admitted suddenly, his voice little more than a mumble. He risked a look back at Jason, whose expression was carefully neutral.
“Nigel told you that stuff? About you not being married?” he asked. Off Gary’s nod, Jason nodded back, taking a moment to choose his words before meeting Gary’s gaze again. “Nigel’s trying to get in your head, Gaz. You must know that.”
“Then why did it hit so close to home?” Gary demanded, his voice cracking slightly. “He told me there was no guarantee: if we’re not telling each other the whole story, and we’re not even married-”
“Gaz, marriage isn’t an insurance policy,” Jason laughed softly, cutting him off, and Gary looked up at him sceptically. “Look, you of all people should know it shouldn’t be about that: how many times have you written a song about love and romance and happily ever after?” Jason pressed. “I’m not saying it’s always as easy as you make it sound in your songs, but it’s nowhere near as cold as being nothing more than a contract to keep you both safe.” He stopped, sighing, studying Gary’s face carefully, as though trying to work out how best to go on. “Look, Gaz, I don’t know for sure what you and Mark are looking for from your own relationship – because God knows he’s every bit as frustratingly obtuse as you when it comes to talking about that stuff. I don’t know what either of you are holding back for, I don’t even know everything you haven’t told each other. And I certainly don’t know what the two of you think marriage should be about – that’s personal for everyone. But what I do know is that me and Howard both grew up with parents who weren’t exactly role models on the ‘happily ever after’ front; romanticizing a situation isn’t something we do, on the whole, so when we do see something that way, then it’s because we know there’s something in there that won’t be completely destroyed by the real world. We’ve both looked into every dark, awful corner of each other’s pasts and we’ve decided it doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t change anything for us or for the way we see ourselves and each other.”
“So?” Gary asked quietly. Jason smiled at him, sympathetic and apologetic all at once.
“So: you and Mark don’t really go there. You both need so badly for the other one to be perfect, to make you feel more sure of yourselves, because that’s what fits the picture you’ve both got in your heads. You were both raised on fairy tales and old-fashioned ballads in homes that fitted into that perfect picture and you don’t like having to let go of that ideal. Mark doesn’t ask you to tell him things that might somehow change his view of you as his hero. And you don’t go wandering in the lonely, broken parts of Mark’s head because then you’d have to accept that fact that he’s not made of sunshine and sugar – and you’re scared if he’s not always that happy-go-lucky bloke you fell in love with then maybe you don’t really know him at all, and maybe he could turn on you, just like Simon did before.”
Gary flinched, turning away. He had spent so much of their friendship looking up to Jason, and Jason’s advice was always freely and honestly given. And there was a part of him that was so grateful for that presence in his life; the older, wiser brother who never judged or told on him to his parents, who drifted in and out of his life for years but had somehow always managed to pick right back up where he’d left off before. How many times, back before the days of the shop, had Gary been looking for some kind of answer and, out of the blue, Jason would phone him up with a piece of advice or a story he hadn’t even known he’d needed? And he was grateful for that, so grateful. But some traitorous part of him resented it too, was tired of always seeming to be treated like the person one step behind. Again it was Nigel’s voice in his head: he thinks highly of himself that one. Gary rubbed a hand over his face and tried to bite the words back, all too aware of the damage they could do.
“Look, Jay, can we please just…not?” he whispered. He could feel Jason’s eyes on him, and he looked over at him slowly, carefully, hoping to see him ready to back down. A rare sight but he craved it, all too aware of the potential this conversation had to get out of hand if Jason didn’t just leave it be.
“Gaz, I’m worried about you,” Jason said gently. “You look like you’re making yourself ill over this thing with Nigel, and honestly it didn’t look like Mark was ok with how you were coping either, judging from the way you had to practically wrestle him out the door before.”
“I didn’t see Howard doing cartwheels about leaving you either, you know,” Gary pointed out and Jason let out a small, fond laugh, inclining his head slightly in agreement.
“No. But me and Howard will talk about it later.” he pointed out, gentle but firm. “I’m guessing you and Mark won’t,” he added then, shrugging somewhat helplessly. “I don’t know what you want from me, Gaz – I won’t tell you something I don’t believe in, you know? Howard won’t let me not talk about it, honestly; if not tonight then some other time. And maybe neither one of us wants to rake over it so much but we have to do it to keep ourselves sane. Yours and Mark’s approach these days seems to be to be to shove it all away in a drawer, as though it’s not all going to come spilling out eventually and end up drowning you both.”
“God, Jay, does it ever get exhausting?” Gary burst out suddenly, taking Jason by surprise.
“Sorry?”
“Oh, climbing up there onto your high horse and just always being right?!” Gary snarled, and Jason blinked at him, startled.
“Where is that coming from?” he asked, through a tense, nervous laugh, though a part of him suspected he knew the answer to the question. Nigel Martin-Smith’s name briefly hung in the air between them, unspoken and unacknowledged but definitely there, making the air between them fraught and tense. “Look, Gaz, if you don’t want me to look out for you, then that’s your choice, if you don’t want me to offer my opinion I won’t – but all I have ever done is be there for you and support you. When you said you needed help with this place, I came and I worked for no wages for a month ‘til you got everything up and running, and I never complained, even though I had to live with my mum the whole time like I was twenty and unemployed again. When your whole life fell apart and you wouldn’t even get out of bed, I dragged you down here and listened whilst you talked about how you were a failure and I never told you to ‘grow up’ even though you were behaving like a kid and there were plenty of times where maybe I should’ve done. When you wouldn’t even talk to Mark because you were sure he’d think you were crazy, I talked to him for you and invited him in. And when you and Mark decided the only way the two of you would ever be satisfied with your lives was if you pursued your music, I agreed to go along with your band, even though it’s really not that important to me. I put my life on hold for you time and time again, and you of all people should know I’m not judging you for your mistakes or your problems, I’m just trying to give you a different view to help you sort things in your head.”
“But I never asked you for any of it: you just did it anyway. Same old Jason – always needing someone to save to take his mind off his own problems.”
“Don’t. Don’t go there, Gaz. Please.” Gary heard the slight tremor in Jason’s voice, could see the tears shining in his eyes. But for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to care.
He was angry now. Full of memories and hurt and a sense of loss he couldn’t quite understand.
“No, let’s go there. Let’s go to when I showed up on your doorstep after Nigel kicked me out of the band, and I couldn’t face going home and telling my parents it had failed. All I asked of you was a roof over my head. I never asked for your stories.”
“I said don’t,” Jason said, a little more forcefully this time, but there was a telling crack in the words. Gary laughed, the sound brittle and humourless, and he was surprised to find tears were in his own eyes too. “You did ask and you know it. And I told you it wasn’t important, that you should go back to the band – I gave you permission to lie to the lads if it would fix it, all I did was ask whether or not that would actually be ok, whether you could actually cope with those four hating you just for the sake of a music career.”
“You knew exactly what you were saying, Jay, come on. We both know you were holding me to your own standards about playing pretend. Although God knows why it’s such an issue for you when it’s what you spend half your life doing: you were always the biggest show off, you know? The one who ended up the centre of attention in any room. You’d flirt and you’d pose and you’d make everybody fall in love with you, and then you’d turn around and pretend it wasn’t the plan. No wonder Nigel got the wrong idea – you encouraged attention all the time and you always kept going back for more.”
The words were out before Gary had even realised he was saying them, and he and Jason stared at each other for a moment, both surprised and wounded in equal measure.
“Wow,” Jason said somewhat shakily, pushing himself slowly to his feet. He crossed the room, bringing his hands up to his face and trying to steady his breathing.
Gary closed his eyes, listening to the sound of Jason pacing the floor. He felt guilty, but he was still somehow too empty to give an apology: he’d finally put a voice to the doubts he’d felt for years now, and whether or not he’d gone about it the right way was just an accident of fate. “Where is all of this coming from, Gaz? Please, because I need to know.” Jason’s voice cut into Gary’s thoughts, raspy and tight but still somehow determined. He’d stopped pacing and was standing in the corner of the room, arms hanging limply by his sides. The expression on his face was one Gary recognised: it was the look on his face that night when Gary had walked into the rehearsal space. Fear, hurt and a desperate need to keep up the fight flickering in and out. He felt a spark of pain when he saw it, because it reminded him of why Jason’s stories of Nigel had – at least at first – been easy for him to believe. “Seriously, what is it that’s got you so pissed off with me after all this time? Is it Nigel? Or is this something you’ve always thought?”
Gary couldn’t answer that. The doubts had come and gone before now, but before they’d simply flickered in and out so briefly that it had been easy to push it aside, put it down to the tantalizing ‘What If’ of the possibility that his time with the band could have ended differently and he could’ve lived the life he’d dreamed of. It had been seeing Nigel again which had brought it all back. But it had always been there – perhaps not at first, but it had crept in in the weeks just after Gary had left the band. In fact, he could trace it back almost exactly, because there was one more story that Jason had chosen to leave out when Jonathan had been there before: the one where Nigel had come looking for him and found Jason instead.
“I want to believe you Jay…I just…” Gary closed his eyes. The guilt came back with force then, bursting out from wherever it had been hiding, as though it had simply been cowering from his anger and now sensed an opening in which it could retake the reigns and try and undo the damage which had – too quickly and too easily – been done.
“You just don’t.” Jason finished for him, his voice wavering.
Gary swallowed hard, feeling the bile rise in his throat; he could hear how desperately hard Jason was trying to hold it together and it was painful to hear someone so calm start to fray at the seams. And the thought that suddenly came to him, seemingly from nowhere, was that Howard was definitely going to kill him for this: what he was doing here wasn’t simply damaging one of his closest friendships, it was decimating all three of his closest friendships. All this over a question of one lie told years ago? Did Nigel ever lie, though?
He drew in a long, shaky breath and slowly looked up at Jason, who was staring at him with a profoundly sad expression. Somewhere in those eyes lurked the memories of his father walking away and not coming back for far too long, and of Nigel turning on him in the space of a half-hour; Jason had lived in fear of goodbyes and endings ever since, and had tried every avoidance trick in the book to evade the pain. His ability to forgive had sometimes seemed boundless to Gary – he would rather forgive than be forced to close a door on someone, and those few people he allowed close enough to him to risk a painful goodbye would never be shut out forever, at least not through Jason’s choosing. And wasn’t that why he had let Gary stay in his home, welcomed him into his family when Nigel had turned on him, despite knowing full well that Gary had done nothing to try and confront Nigel for what he had done to drive Jason himself away?
“I’m sorry,” Gary said in a sad murmur. Jason just stared at him, studied his face in that all-seeing way of his. And whatever he found there seemed only to hurt him more.
“Don’t apologize,” he told him carefully, a slight edge of anger creeping into his tone. “Don’t bother, not if you don’t mean it.”
“Look, honesty isn’t always the best policy, ok? Can you not just let sleeping dogs lie for once in your life?”
“What’s this about, Gary? What did I do?” Jason asked him blankly, his voice hollow. And Gary felt irritation flare up once more at yet another demand of honesty. His expression hardened and he met Jason’s eyes fiercely.
“Nigel came to find me – he found out where I was and he came round to your mum’s looking for me but I was out. So he found you. And he told you to pass on a message: place and time, meet him there and I could come back to the band again, he’d find a way to make it work. I came back as he was leaving-”
“And when I told you what he’d said, you told me it didn’t matter, you weren’t going to go, you’d find a way to go it alone-”
“I lied, ok? I meant it at the time but I…I couldn’t throw away that chance when we were just so close, Jay.” Gary let out a bitter, sharp laugh, tipping his head back and looking at the ceiling. “Of course, you decided to make sure I never got chance anyway – probably told yourself you were doing me some sort of favour in the long run, right?” He finally looked back to Jason, his eyes dark and cold, but Jason simply stared back at him, confused and silent for a moment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gaz, but I didn’t mess with your chance of going back to the band – I told you exactly what I was told.” Gary almost wavered in his resolve. Almost.
“Then how come I went there and no one showed, Jay? How come Nigel – who said himself, to my face, that he needed my songs – didn’t come? You really expect me to believe he just set the whole thing up, just so he could hold it over us in years to come?” Gary looked at Jason incredulously, and Jason offered him the saddest smile Gary had ever seen, shrugging limply and letting out an empty laugh.
“Yes. I really do.” He sniffed, blinking furiously in an attempt to stop his tears. “Because you’re one of my best mates. And I’ve never lied to you. And when it counted? I was always there – whether or not you might have asked me to be. And what’s more? I stuck around, because I believed in you.”
Gary looked at Jason, a lump in his throat. He felt guilty and frightened and overwhelmed and he realised suddenly – terrifyingly – that he simply couldn’t find anything to say that came close to the sheer number of things he felt. Because whatever anger and frustration he may have been feeling, whatever things he might have said, it didn’t change the fact that their history – and their friendship – meant so much to him. He’d lived amongst Jason’s family, he’d got postcards from him out of the blue. He’d answered the phone to him way too early on Sunday mornings, always surprised to find their conversation picked up more or less where they had left it, no matter how many months it had been since they’d last been in touch. And yet, through it all, somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d always doubted him. Sometimes in slivers, sometimes in huge chunks. But it was enough to undermine everything, somehow.
“I told you to leave it alone,” he managed in a whisper, before quickly getting to his feet and all but running out of the shop.
***
Howard hurried along Oldham Street, trying to keep his pace even and resisting the urge to break into a sprint. He was fairly certain he had made the journey across town in record time; it had only been ten minutes since he had gotten Jason’s phone call, but it was still ten minutes too long as far as he was concerned. When he’d first picked up the phone, all he’d been able to hear was the sound of Jason’s breathing, fast and heavy down the line, followed by his own name and then, eventually, Gary’s being stammered out in a weak, shaky voice. It was a tone Howard remembered, and the sound of it down the line to him had triggered some strange, silent steel within him, his body seeming to remember the old patterns before Jason had even managed a single word. He’d moved instinctively, turning on his heel as he cut into Jason’s attempts to explain with a calm, gentle voice, repeating an old, familiar phrase: ‘In through your nose, out through your mouth, Jay. I’m ten minutes away.’ He’d waited for Jason’s small, raggedy ‘Thank you’ before hanging up the call and had only stopped in order to pick up a bottle of cold water from the newsagents – another step in the old sequence which he remembered with an efficient, effortless sort of calm. He half-jogged the final distance up to the shop, taking note of the sign turned around to closed. As he pushed the door open, he briefly found himself trying to recall the last time he had had to do this, and was surprised when he realised it had been almost two years now. It was strangely comforting to know he hadn’t lost his touch.
Jason was sitting halfway up the shop’s stairs, and he looked up when Howard entered, offering him a weak smile. Howard quickly crossed over to him, giving him a gentle smile of his own as he pressed the bottle of water into Jason’s hand and sat down with him on the steps. Light briefly danced in Jason’s eyes at the gesture, and Howard recognised the pure, boundless love there. Jason accepted the water with another small smile, quickly unscrewing the cap with a breathed ‘Thanks’ and bringing the bottle up to his lips.
Howard took a moment to assess him, his eyes roaming Jason’s face for clues. His breathing was raspy but steady, and though he looked pale and shaken, there was a determination in his eyes that told Howard he was bruised but not beaten. Howard had seem him worse, but he had seen him better, and his protective nature triggered a pang in his chest. He had come to sit a couple of steps below Jason, half-kneeling in front of him so as to better see his face, but now he pushed himself up to sit beside him instead, turning his body towards him and leaning in to press a kiss to his temple.
“Better?” he asked softly into Jason’s skin, rubbing his back. Jason lowered the bottle from his lips and swallowed, giving a small nod, his eyes staring unseeingly into the middle-distance. He drew in a long, deep breath, then looked up into Howard’s face.
“A little,” he said before leaning gratefully against Howard and closing his eyes. “Better for seeing you.” Howard let him tuck his head under his chin, holding him for a minute in the silence of the shop and letting him collect his thoughts. Outside the sun was shining, and the air in the shop was stuffy, but Jason’s skin was cool against Howard’s own.
For a moment Howard’s mind wandered back to the night he’d first woken to find Jason sitting up in bed, his forehead resting on his knees as he fought to steady his breathing. He’d sat with him, watching him struggle to keep Howard from seeing the pure, awful fear on his face, his eyes closed and his shoulders heaving. Howard had, briefly, let himself feel helpless – but there had always been a protector in him and that part of his nature had taken over quickly. He’d rubbed his back and kissed his temple, and Jason had slowly – tentatively – leant into him, curling closer and closer until eventually his breathing had evened out. And, just when the two of them were about to fall back asleep, Howard had asked him if he wanted to talk about it. Jason had said ‘I’m sorry’ and nothing else, and Howard had kissed the top of his head to show him that he had never needed Jason’s apology. The next morning when Jason woke, Howard had pulled him close and told him so, unequivocally, before mumbling into his shoulder that he had always known who Jason was and that that would never change. It had awakened something between them, an intensity of feeling that set every cell in their bodies alight when they were together. It was as though he had thought he had fallen in love, only to discover he’d actually only been snagged on a branch halfway down and – upon being dislodged – hadn’t stopped plunging since. He never questioned how something so wild and dazzling could simultaneously feel so whole and secure.
Howard had realised, without needing to be told, that it was not the first time Jason had woken in the night. He’d also somehow known it wouldn’t be the last. So he’d promised himself that – even if he could never outright prevent it, even if Jason never told him what was wrong or why it kept happening – he would never feel so powerless against it again. The next day he’d armed himself with knowledge, and, the next time it had happened, Howard had sat up with Jason, quietly reminding him to breathe in deeply and out slowly, once again holding him until it was over. With time had come more rituals, more traditions and techniques. Howard did it willingly and unquestioningly – Jason always had the option to talk, he always had the option to say nothing, the point was Howard was there and he was determined to make sure he never stopped being there, until eventually a time might come when Jason would realise that nothing he said could make him go, because Jason had asked him to stay, and that was a word Howard wasn’t about to take for granted. And finally, one night when Howard had asked Jason if he wanted to talk about it, a quiet had fallen between them and Jason had whispered the beginning of the secret: ‘I have a lot of ghosts from the past who like to visit me at midnight.’ The secrets had been given in fragments and murmurs ever since. Jason would call him and Howard would remind him to breathe before telling him how long it would be before he could get there to hold him, and, if he couldn’t get there, he’d simply stay on the line, whispering advice and nonsense until it was over, sometimes even until they both fell asleep.
That was the way in which Howard had learned a lot of Jason’s darker stories, the ones he didn’t like to be known by. In broken, abstract pieces and ragged whispers and in conversations down phone lines when it had been too much for Jason to be able to get back to sleep. And with every piece Howard was given, the panic attacks had seemed to lessen to the point where they’d almost faded out entirely. Every now and again Jason would wake in the night, but it would all be over before it even began these days – in fact, now, when he woke in the night, it was just plain old bad sleeping, and he’d get up and make himself tea before crawling back to bed in the early hours. Somehow, seeing him like he was now – fragile, ashen and breathing harshly – was more devastating to Howard than any of the times before.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Howard murmured, following the old script so perfectly it coaxed an immediate smile out of Jason, and he let out the smallest, saddest of laughs, briefly burying his face in Howard’s shirt. Howard smiled slightly, crushing him closer to him and giving his shoulders a fierce squeeze.
“Haven’t we been here before, Howard Donald?” Jason managed in a faint whisper. Howard dropped a kiss to the top of his head, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry,” Jason added then. “I just…felt so out of control all of a sudden, like I couldn’t cope and I…I couldn’t breathe. I don’t even know why, really.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Howard murmured, giving Jason another small kiss on his forehead. “Well, not unless you want to apologize for not congratulating me on making it across town in absolute record time,” he added then, his tone suddenly turning mischievous, and Jason sat up, looking up into his face for a moment before both of them broke into soft laughter. Howard quirked an eyebrow at Jason and offered up his hand for a high five, and Jason indulged him, still laughing and shaking his head slightly. They didn’t break the contact, and Jason interlocked their fingers before tucking his head back beneath Howard’s chin.
“I love you,” he said quietly, twisting enough to press a couple of small kisses against Howard’s shirt, right over his heart. Howard smiled quietly, squeezing him tighter and closing his eyes for a moment.
“I love you too.” The two of them fell into easy silence, then Howard pulled back slightly, looking down at Jason and meeting his eyes. “But seriously, Jay: ten minutes,” he said, trying to keep his expression solemn and failing, and Jason laughed, elbowing him harmlessly. Howard couldn’t help but grin, and Jason rolled his eyes at him, settling back into the embrace with a slight groan.
It was an oddly peaceful moment, and Howard knew without having to ask that Jason felt it too. They were content, despite the circumstances, and it reminded Howard of the night Jason had finally told him the whole story of him and Nigel Martin-Smith. After the words and the tears there had come a quiet between them, broken only by kisses and touches.
“I suppose I should offer some sort of explanation,” Jason said quietly after a while, his voice gentle and distant, and his eyes downturned. Howard dropped another kiss to his head, dipping his head and resting their foreheads together.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and nudging his nose against Jason’s, taking a moment to breathe him in.
“Shut up, Donald: you’re dying to know,” Jason told him, his voice crackling with fond amusement. Howard felt the tickle of Jason’s laugh dance across his skin, and when he opened his eyes he was smiling at him, knowing and calm. “But thank you,” he added with a small shrug, his smile turning shy. “For a lot of times, not just this one.” Howard smiled too.
“You’re welcome. Always.” He kissed the tip of Jason’s nose. “So: I’m guessing this has something to do with the fact you’re in the shop alone?”
“What happened to not needing to know?” Jason smirked and Howard pulled a face.
“Smart arse,” he shot back, going in for another kiss and being thwarted when Jason ducked away, smacking him lightly on the chest.
“Do you want me to talk to you or not?” he asked, though there was a small laugh in his voice, and Howard smiled, leaning in to peck Jason’s cheek quickly then leaning back.
“Go for it.”
Jason sighed, reaching for the water bottle again and taking a swig, before leaning his weight back against Howard, resting his head on his shoulder.
“You know I told you I thought Gaz was holding something back earlier?”
“He’s been in touch with Nigel?” Howard guessed. Jason nodded.
“Honestly, it didn’t bother me that much – I mean, I was there too, you know? I’m more than capable of realising that Nigel genuinely cared about Gaz, and the feeling was mutual. Nigel is capable of being awful to people, but if you’re not the one he’s being awful to, he can actually be kind of good sometimes, and I never wanted to police who Gaz called a friend, that was all Nigel’s doing.”
“So?” Howard asked gently, brushing some of the hair off Jason’s face and dipping his head to meet his eyes.
“So…he told me he was in touch with Nigel. And I wasn’t really all that surprised or bothered by it. And then he told me it was Nigel who he’d been talking to the other day; you remember, when he called, questioning everything about himself and about Mark?”
“Makes sense, I s’pose. Nigel got in his head deliberately – it’s got to be part of a game,” Howard surmised quietly. “Same reason he was trying to get me to talk to him about you. He’s trying to create fractures in the group – he wants Gaz and his music back and he wants revenge on you in the process.”
“That’s what I thought. So I told Gaz.” Jason pulled a face. “It didn’t go down so well.” He took another long swig of water and Howard pulled him a little closer. “Gaz turned on me. Told me how the stuff that happened with Nigel was partly my fault: I’m a flirt, I’m a show off, I’m the one who didn’t walk away.” Jason shook his head, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, and Howard felt a flare of protective anger burn hot in his chest.
“Jay – what that man did-”
“I know,” Jason breathed out shakily, cutting him off. “Mostly, I know.” He took a sidelong glance at Howard then, his eyes glassy but full of affection. “Thanks to you, I figured out somewhere along the way that it’s not my problem that my dad walked out and it’s not my problem that Nigel likes to play games and that I really need to stop overthinking every action I make because of things I can’t control. But Gaz is my best friend…and if even he thinks-”
“Don’t,” Howard interrupted quickly, firm but kind. He placed a hand beneath Jason’s chin, tipping his face up to meet his gaze. “Don’t go to that place, Jay,” he said, a little more softly. “Seriously, just don’t – don’t go to that dark place in your head because you don’t belong there, ok?” Jason nodded somewhat unconvincingly, looking down, and Howard watched him with concern.
Some distant part of his brain was firing out signals to him to get up, stalk out and hunt Gary down. He felt fiercely angry at the depth of the betrayal; he couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept of doubting Jason, of all people. Jason was frank and honest and he would bend over backwards for the people he cared about – this was the same man who’d never once asked Gary to cut Nigel out of his life, even after the terrible things the man had said and done. The same man who forgave Gary anything. The same man who never objected to the fact that Gary’s only truly unwavering loyalty over the years had really been to his music and nothing else. He pulled Jason close to him, letting him bury his face in his chest again and drawing in a deep breath, trying to cool the anger he felt, trying to remind himself that Gary was his friend and he was going through something awful too, being manipulated by some idiot from his past into questioning everything, even his oldest friend. But it was too raw, too painful to Howard to see Jason like this; he’d heard Jason’s raspy breathing down the line, heard the genuine fear in his voice. He’d told Howard once that it was as if his past chased him around, waiting for him to slow down for a moment so it could creep up on him in the dead of night, scaring him out of his mind. He should at least have been able to trust his friends to not pounce on him too.
“The worst part was…he’s spent all this time doubting me, on some level. Nigel just brought it to the surface, but it must have always been there, you know?” Jason was speaking mostly into Howard’s shirt, but he was managing to keep his voice steady, at least, and that much reassured Howard a little. “You remember I told you about Nigel showing up at my mum’s house?”
“He told you he wanted to offer Gaz a second chance?” Howard ventured, vaguely recalling the story. Jason nodded.
“Well, I don’t know how he managed it, but I think Nigel must have set the whole thing up.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know…because he’s a bastard? Because he knew he could rely on me to tell Gaz what happened and he could rely on Gaz to be ambitious enough to actually go?”
“Gaz went?”
“Yeah. That was new information,” Jason sniffed, laughing mirthlessly. “I don’t really mind the lie. But what got to me was what Gaz had assumed about me: apparently Nigel didn’t show, and now Gaz reckons I did it on purpose somehow, set him up to fail.”
“What?!” Howard spluttered. Jason shrugged helplessly.
“That’s what he said. He told me…he told me he thought it was my way of ‘saving him from himself’ or something, that he assumed I was trying to hold him to certain standards.”
“I’m going to stuff him inside his favourite fucking piano and not let him out for a month after this,” Howard managed through gritted teeth, and Jason let out a small laugh, leaning back and looking up at Howard with watery eyes.
“Harsh, How,” he said softly and Howard looked back at him, offering him a smile.
“Not from where I’m sitting,” he replied, somewhat sulkily, before kissing Jason’s forehead.
“I’m going on record as being against the plan, just so you know,” Jason told him with a faint smile and a shrug. “Either way: the last I saw of him he was telling me this was all my fault for digging and then storming out the door.” Jason glanced down. “I don’t do so well with people walking out, you know? Bad memories.”
“I know,” Howard said quietly, pulling him back to his chest protectively.
They fell into one of their deep, rich silences – the kind that seemed to fill the air around them, spreading out to create an ocean of calm which left the two of them entirely separate from the rest of the world. Howard could feel the warmth of it lapping at his skin like waves. Light streamed in through the front window, falling in neat, perfect beams across the old wooden floor. The dust motes danced in the air, the light forming a rim of hazy gold around Jason’s outline, and the building seemed to let out a sigh around them.
Jason’s breathing was even and calm, his expression peaceful and content, and Howard was reminded yet again that this man was a jumble of contradictions – he was easy and complex, he was complete and he was broken, he was wild and he was gentle, the centre of attention who was never quite comfortable with all those eyes on him. The man who was always moving, now still and silent in his arms. And all of that – as messy and beautiful as it was – wasn’t really what defined him. Jason was possessed of a rare sort of resolute goodness: he was true to himself and he was true to his word in a quiet, genuine sort of way that those people who he loved felt the full force of. It was incomprehensible to Howard that someone who knew him as well as Gary could doubt that: Howard had started to realise it from their very first meeting. He may not have known Gary for as long as Jason had, but he had at least thought he had known him just as well. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Jason’s soft voice broke into Howard’s thoughts, vibrating slightly against him as he didn’t lift his head from where it was lying on his shoulder.
“Oh really?” Howard asked, sceptical. Jason smiled quietly.
“You can’t get your head around why Gaz is doing this, coz you thought you knew him and now you’re questioning what he’s really like,” he said, shrugging as best he could in Howard’s firm embrace. “But the thing is, How, you don’t know Nigel. I mean, you’ve met him, but you’ve never really spent time around him like Gaz and me.” Jason sighed, turning and pressing kisses into Howard’s shirt once more before pushing on. “He’s got this way of making you feel…just…so helpless, you know? Even with Gaz, that much is the same. And even though you know he’s pulling the strings, you still feel like you can’t stop it – like it’s inevitable he’s going to win but you still have no choice but to keep playing the game.”
“And what game is he playing here exactly?” Howard asked, kissing the top of Jason’s head.
“Divide and conquer?” Jason suggested. He let out another heavy sigh. “I don’t know. I stopped playing his game a long time ago – and I don’t intend to go back to it. It’s bad enough I’ve allowed his voice to stay in my head all these years, without me letting him know it.”
“And yet, from your tone, I’m sensing I’m still not allowed to stuff Gaz in that piano,” Howard mumbled into Jason’s temple, making him laugh. He gave Howard a harmless thump.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I’ve been called worse,” Howard said with a smirk. “Mostly by you,” he added playfully, and Jason sat up, smacking Howard’s arm despite his laugh before slowly falling back down against him and letting him bring him back firmly into the circle of his arms.
After a moment, Jason took in a deep breath, blowing it back out slowly and closing his eyes.
“All I know is that we can’t make every upset in our lives into the end of the world, because when the end of the world does come, we’ll only end up realising we wasted all that time on crying.” Howard pulled back just enough to press a kiss to Jason’s temple, dipping his head in an attempt to meet his eyes.
“You have a beautiful soul, Jason Orange,” he whispered. Jason looked back at him quietly and Howard leant in to kiss his forehead. “Please don’t let anyone tell you differently, ok?” he added in a whisper against his skin.
***
Howard jangled his keys agitatedly as the lift made its slow climb up to the top floor. Jason had insisted he was fine and, though Howard had attempted to protest about not wanting to leave him, Jason had been adamant that he had to shut up the shop and get across to the cafe to warn Mark about the events of the afternoon. In the face of Howard’s protests, Jason had played his trump card: reminding him of what happened the last time he had dared to be late to pick up Grace from school. The warning had worked, and Howard had somewhat reluctantly left Jason tidying up the shop’s small kitchenette, sending out silent pleas to the universe that – for once – Grace would actually not come out engrossed in a conversation with Izzy that she deemed too important to cut short. His pleas hadn’t been heard, though he found it hard to hold it against Grace, who had sensed something was up barely two minutes into the drive home and had got the information out of him barely two minutes after that. He couldn’t help but smirk slightly thinking about it: even if Jason was against a piano-related accident befalling Gary, something told him that Grace would be willing to overrule him should Gary make the mistake of prolonging the fall-out, and the mental image was entertaining.
Howard knew he was being overprotective – he also knew that Jason knew he was being overprotective, only letting him get away with it because he was Howard and he loved him for it. Still, after everything the two of them had been through together, he just couldn’t shake the hangover of nervousness from his head; he felt with great conviction that he would dearly like to erase Nigel Martin-Smith from the face of the earth, along with all the damage he had left in his wake.
He was jolted from his thoughts by Grace suddenly making a grab for his keys, snatching them from him and holding them out of his reach.
“Oi!” he protested and Grace rolled her eyes.
“You were rattling them and it echoes in this lift and that’s annoying,” she shot back.
“Bossy boots,” Howard pouted, and Grace simply smiled back at him, shrugging blithely before turning back towards the doors, just in time for the ping of the lift reaching its destination. Howard could only smirk and roll his eyes as she skipped out, making a rush for the apartment door.
Jason had – as Howard had suspected he would – beaten them home, and when they made it into the apartment they found him curled up on the sofa with his laptop. He looked up at them with a tired but genuine smile, blue eyes catching the sunlight. There was an easiness about him once more, light and colour restored to him almost completely, and as he met Howard’s gaze he seemed to sense the thought, his smile turning mischievous as he quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Did you miss me?” he enquired, and Howard smiled back at him fondly.
“Always,” he replied, his tone striking a balance of honesty and humour that seemed to light Jason up further still, his eyes sparkling as he laughed.
“Good to know,” he replied and Howard winked back at him, shrugging off his jacket and taking Grace’s blazer and schoolbag from her, allowing her to skip across the room and jump enthusiastically onto the sofa. “Good day at school, I take it?” Jason laughed as Grace crash-landed at his side and Grace nodded, beaming.
“Last lesson on Monday is art and that’s my favourite,” she told him excitedly, before suddenly her expression sobered somewhat and she grabbed Jason into a sudden fierce hug. “Sorry about Gary,” she told him earnestly, and Jason chuckled, kissing the top of her head.
“Don’t be. He’ll come round eventually,” he said, glancing at Howard, who shrugged, flopping down the other side of Grace and sighing.
“She’s getting almost as good as you at reading minds,” he explained. “Only difference is she’s a lot scarier: she knows something’s up but not what so she just pesters ‘til she gets her answers.” Grace stuck her tongue out at him and Jason suppressed a laugh.
Howard felt that same easy calm from before returning to him then; the way the apartment caught the late afternoon sunshine and the sound of Jason and Grace bickering made him feel suddenly overwhelmingly at peace and he took a moment to enjoy it, breathing in the familiar smell of home and letting his weight sink back into the cushions. Jason had set his laptop aside, and Howard glanced at the screen out of idle curiosity; an email chain between Jason and Justin was open, Jason’s half-finished reply visible at the top. Howard swallowed down the brief stab of irritation he felt that Jason was still having to deal with so much disapproval from his twin and tried to ignore the slight twinge of hurt he still felt from their argument earlier. He didn’t like knowing that somewhere out on the edges of the world he, Jason and Grace were currently sitting in, bathed in sunbeams, were the storm clouds of a conflict Howard wasn’t sure he would ever be ready to face. He glanced back at Jason, still smiling and content, and it occurred to him just how much he didn’t want Gary or Justin or Nigel Martin-Smith – or anyone – to question that smile or the fullness of it. Jason had no agenda in any of this: he was finally – and completely – happy in a way he hadn’t been for far too long. And Howard couldn’t help but feel there were few people so deserving of that feeling. Jason was a fundamentally good human being, and no matter what other flaws anyone may or may not find in him, that should be what counted the for the most.
“What are you staring at, Donald?” Jason asked, interrupting Howard’s thoughts, and Howard blinked, realising Grace and Jason’s conversation had come to a pause, the two of them looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Howard smiled back at Jason, soft and quiet, giving him a lazy one-shouldered shrug.
“Nothin’.” His eyes sparkled. “Just you,” he murmured, for once not bothering to pretend. Jason’s answering smile was tender and sweet. Howard chuckled self-consciously. “Anyway: what of it, Orange?” he asked, pulling a face, and Jason chuckled.
“Wow, the blunt approach – I like it.” He leant over Grace and pressed a brief, chaste kiss to Howard’s lips.
“Urgh,” Grace huffed, wrinkling her nose.
“Oh, don’t start already – you’ve only been home five minutes and you’re already sick of us!” Howard teased, poking her lightly. “Anyway, if you can stop rolling your eyes at me for ten seconds: it’s my turn to do dinner – any preference what I make?”
“I don’t know if it influences anyone’s decision, but Mark happened to be so overcome with guilt over letting Gary convince him to keep secrets from me that he gave me the last three portions of Stella’s Belgian chocolate brownie free of charge…” Jason put in, waggling his eyebrows and laughing as Grace let out a squeal of delight.
“With the white chocolate chunks?!” she demanded hopefully, and when Jason nodded she let out another squeal, turning to look hopefully back at Howard.
“Well in that case I’ll have to come up with something full of vegetables to justify that much sugar for desert,” Howard said with a laugh.
“Poor, noble Howard Donald, always being led astray,” Jason joked, giving Howard a quick wink.
“We all have our crosses to bear, Jay,” Howard shot back with a grin.
“Actually, technically dad should be noble,” Grace put in, her tone matter-of-fact. Howard and Jason exchanged amused-but-intrigued glances, and Howard leant in, placing a hand to his daughter’s forehead jokingly.
“I’m sorry, was that my daughter sticking up for me?!” he joked, laughing as Grace batted his hand away and stuck out her tongue at him.
“Not for much longer I don’t think,” Jason chuckled.
“All I was saying was that that’s what your name means. Or…part of what it means. We were doing this project in art where we had to find out what all our family’s names mean and create a family portrait using pictures that represented the meanings. It was really fun.” Grace shrugged. “Your name means ‘noble watchman’ – which is really hard to come up with a picture for, just so you know.” She looked up at Jason then, smiling. “Your name means ‘healer’,” she told him brightly. “I think it suits you,” she added with a little nod that made Jason laugh.
“I think I remember my mum telling me that once – which led to a whole argument between her and Justin about the merits of his name meaning something along the lines of ‘righteous’ and whether or not that was actually a backhanded compliment.” Jason rolled his eyes with amused exasperation and Howard chuckled, nodding slowly as he mulled it over.
“I think Justin and me may have found some common ground on that one actually – it does sound like your mum has some explaining to do there.” He reached across the back of the sofa, resting his hand on Jason’s arm and looking over at him with a wry smile. “Don’t tell your mum I said that though: I’m really not ready to lose her as an ally on Team Howard.” Jason smiled back at him quietly, his eyes somehow communicating sympathy and reprimand all at once.
“Hey: I’m Team Howard, that’s all that matters, you know,” he said softly. Howard smiled back at him, wanting to believe that that was enough to make the lingering doubts in his head go away but not entirely sure it was. “And anyway, as my mum pointed out to Justin – she wasn’t really thinking about meaning, she just wanted to come up with a second name beginning with ‘J’ so the two of us would match.”
“Is there a law that twins have to match their names? Because there’s a pair of twins in the year below me at school, and their names match too,” Grace said, tilting her head to one side in genuine intrigue, and Jason laughed.
“No, no law. But I think it’s human nature to like to impose a bit of symmetry on things, sweetheart – it’s our way of trying to make the world seem a little less crazy than it actually is,” he replied.
***
When Gary got in, the flat was in darkness. He’d spent the afternoon driving aimlessly around the city and out into the countryside; driving had long been his go-to method for clearing his head, but sadly today the usually effective ritual had failed him, and despite having churned everything over in his mind a thousand times over he still didn’t feel like he fully knew what it was he felt or how he wanted to deal with it. Jason’s stricken expression briefly flitted into his head – not for the first time since he’d made his swift exit from the shop that afternoon – and Gary blew out a quick, harsh breath, taking a moment to squeeze his eyes closed. He’d gone about everything the wrong way, that much he was willing to admit now: Jason had been right to say he should have just been honest with him about Nigel getting back in touch, and he certainly shouldn’t have let Mark end up so oblivious and inadvertently placed him in the middle of it. But his feelings on the rest of the mess were still tangled and confused; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt simultaneously so lost and so conflicted. And the worst part of it all was that none of the people who he had come to depend on to help him with his problems were going to be able to come to his aid this time – they were all too closely involved. He’d already fought with both Jason and Mark, questioned them both and doubted them both and not eased any of his doubts about either of them in the process, and he knew that treating them the way he had had closed him off from any hope of one of Howard’s blunt, yet strangely insightful, pep talks. He felt a pang of immense regret at that; strangely enough, even though he found himself questioning everything else in his life right now, his friendship with Howard was something he still had total faith in. Howard possessed a certain rough-edged honesty which simply couldn’t be distrusted: he was frank and no-nonsense, and as down-to-earth as they came, and he tended to say what he thought even when most people would shy away from it. His mouth got him into trouble sometimes, but never with Gary – he never quite knew what Howard was going to come out with, but he always knew it would be candid and sincere. It was something he thought he could do with right now. But the other thing that Gary knew resolutely about Howard Donald was that he was incredibly, stoically loyal, and he loved Jason Orange with every cell in his body; that love drew out every fierce, protective instinct the man had. Gary knew he would be firmly on Howard’s bad side tonight as a result, and he suspected he’d get short shrift if he called him asking for advice. Funnily enough, Jason would probably be more willing to give him a pep talk than Howard right now.
Gary flicked on the light and surveyed the living room. In the corner, Cadbury was curled up in his bed, watching him silently. The dog slowly lifted his head, looking at Gary with dark, accusatory eyes: where Jason had Howard to help fight his battles, Mark had Cadbury.
“Not you too, lad,” Gary sighed, crossing the room to give the dog a quick pat. Cadbury simply harrumphed and rested his head back on his paws. It wasn’t outright rejection, but still Gary was somehow sure the dog knew more than he was letting on. Gary straightened up and shrugged off his jacket, glancing around the room. Despite the quiet in the flat, Gary knew Mark must be home: the scarf he’d been wearing that morning had been discarded on the arm of the sofa and his favourite new boots were sitting by the door, and Gary was fairly sure the empty mug on the coffee table hadn’t been there earlier either.
It wasn’t late, but Gary was still more than ready for his bed. With a heavy sigh he headed down the corridor, trying his best not to make too much noise as he nudged open the bedroom door. Sure enough, Mark was there, curled on his side, his back to the door. The curtains were drawn, but not all the way, and the bedroom was lit in a strange burnt-orange hue by the streetlamp outside; there were speckles of water on the glass, a fine Manchester mizzle having broken the dense, muggy air which had blanketed the city that afternoon. For a moment Gary thought he’d got away with returning home undetected, but then Mark slowly rolled over, his eyes shining in the dimness of the room as he looked up at Gary expectantly.
“You took your time,” he murmured sadly. Gary closed his eyes.
“Can we please not do this now,” he whispered. At first there was no reply, and when Gary reopened his eyes he found Mark still watching him, his expression unreadable in the semi-darkness. “Mark…” He trailed off, lifting his arms slightly in a shrug of helplessness. Mark almost flinched, and Gary was briefly able to see the melancholy in his face then – a flicker of a seemingly boundless sadness that went far beyond the events of the day.
“You could’ve called, you know – told me you would be home late.” Mark said, pushing himself up in the bed. He lowered his gaze as he spoke, a tiny frown creasing his forehead. “I was worried – everyone’s supposed to check in these days, but you didn’t pick up the phone when I called.”
“I figured Jay would’ve clued you in; I’m assuming he came to you with his version of events after I left?” Gary said, knowing that the bitter edge to his tone was somewhat harsh but still not quite able to tame it. Mark shot him a dark look.
“Jay’s ‘version of events’? What’s that supposed to mean? Like Jay would ever lie about something like this?”
“Oh spare me the Saint Jay speech.”
“Gaz, he was worried about you. He was upset, you know, but he was more bothered about whether or not you were going to be ok.”
Gary had to admit, that took a little of the wind out of his sails. He knew his anger was misplaced, knew he was being too hard on Jason and definitely too hard on Mark. He just felt so off-balance. Whether or not Nigel’s words had been warranted, he couldn’t deny that they’d unlocked the doubts he’d been trying to keep at bay for years, and now they were loose there was no putting them back in their box, even as he saw the destruction they were reaping around him. He felt helpless and confused and strangely angry; some part of him was resentful of Mark for giving him any leeway to doubt him, resentful of Jason for always being just virtuous enough to encourage everyone to believe him and for always having to be right about things. It wasn’t fair that everything he felt was somehow invalidated by Jason and Mark’s warm personalities – to everyone, the two of them were above suspicion on the simple grounds that they never intentionally set out to hurt anyone. Gary didn’t care about intentions; even good people could hurt others if they were careless enough – or selfish enough.
“Can we please not get into this, Marko…please.” Gary pinched the bridge of his nose, sitting heavily down on the bed, turning his back on Mark’s sad expression. “It’s been a very long day and I’m really tired of being made to feel like I’m in the wrong for just looking at things logically.”
“You made Howard want to commit an act of violence with a baby grand piano – according to Jay,” Mark shot back, letting out a hollow laugh and rolling his eyes. “And I know he can be overprotective, but he thinks of you as his best mate, Gaz, so for him to get that worked up at you I know that you can’t exactly be blameless, you know?”
Gary rubbed his hand over his face, letting out a frustrated huff. It hurt to hear how angry Howard was with him; it was one thing thinking that it was the likely state of affairs, it was another having the suspicion confirmed. “Gaz, how can you seriously be doing this? To Jay of all people…he’s been in your life so long, and he’s always come through when it mattered. How can one word from this Nigel bloke just turn everything upside down?” Mark’s voice was softer now, but somehow the tenderness was worse than the anger.
“It’s not just about Nigel, Marko. It’s about…about everything.” Gary shook his head. “I’m just so tired of playing by his rules – how does that make him any better than Nigel? All this endless expectation of honesty and openness, even when I don’t want to talk about something – all this determination to help me whether I want his help or not. It’s just another way of controlling me: you tell me he’s always come through, but why? Because he’s always known the position it puts me in – as if I owe him my trust because he’s placed himself in some role I never asked him to play.”
“Gaz!” Mark exclaimed, genuine shock in voice. “Jay doesn’t know how to not do stuff: it’s the way he’s built. And he doesn’t ever expect anything in return – you’re family to him, we both are – and Jay just…he doesn’t know how to not be the big brother. Come on, Gaz, you know that – that’s been his whole life, it’s just who he is. If he just want you to be honest with him about stuff that’s going on then that’s just because he’s trying to protect you, you know? He needs to know what he’s dealing with so he can help. And that help doesn’t come with any strings attached, ever.” Mark shook his head, turning his eyes up to the ceiling and letting out a groan of frustration. “You realise you sound exactly like this Nigel, don’t you? Calling Jay out for being a good friend, saying he’s getting some sort of kick out of it and making himself seem superior? Doesn’t that ring a bell?”
“Marko-”
“No, Gaz, you know it’s true! Those are the same things Nigel used to say, you even admitted that much yourself this morning – you can’t turn around and say Jay has some chip on his shoulder when you know as well as I do Jay is the most self-deprecating bastard on the planet.” Mark let out a slow breath, sitting back a little bit, and when Gary glanced over at him he saw how shadowy his normally bright eyes looked. In the strange orange fuzz of the room, his sadness seemed to dance across his face, shifting from a personal sadness to a different kind of sadness, a sympathetic one. Mark cared about Jason deeply, had gratefully accepted his kindness and his protectiveness and his willingness to help; Mark had a genuine love of his and Jason’s long talks and a fierce affection for their frequent sessions of bickering. Mark was grateful for Jason’s role as a big brother in his life; he liked the safety net it gave him. Learning about what had happened with Nigel had hurt him, in part because he wished they had told him the story a long time ago, but mostly because he couldn’t bear the idea of anyone thinking so many untrue things about one of his best friends. Mark couldn’t abide awfulness of any kind, especially not when it was inflicted on those he cared about. He and Gary stared at each other for a moment, both thinking the same thing: whatever you might think of Jason, you could never possibly think he deserved to have been at the mercy of Nigel’s spite.
Mark shifted slightly, pushing himself along the bed so that the two of them were sitting closer. He looked down, tracing patterns on the sheets for a moment before taking a steadying breath. “Look, Gaz, I know you were there, and maybe that makes it harder to take a step back and see the whole picture, but you have to have noticed what that man did to Jay, you know? Nigel stole a part of Jay, with what he did and said – and you can turn around now and say you don’t believe that, but deep down you have to know it’s true, because you’ve known him even longer than I have, long enough to watch it make him the person who he is now. The person who won’t ever be that bloke you first met at that audition ever again, no matter how much he’s managed to piece himself back together over the years.”
Silence fell between them then. Gary could feel Mark’s eyes on him still, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at him. A part of him recognised the logic. Another part of him still couldn’t quite believe that Nigel would have gone to the trouble of seeking him out at Jason’s house just to set Jason up somehow – Nigel had always been good to him, had cared about him and believed in him, it just didn’t make sense for him to turn on him so harshly, especially not since it had cost Nigel a lot to lose Gary from his band too. And yet, Gary had watched Nigel burn bridges in the past, had seen the scorched earth policy he operated by. Jason, on the other hand, had an almost pathological fear of goodbye.
“I still wish you’d told me, you know.” Mark’s voice cut into Gary’s thoughts, taking him by surprise.
“Told you what?”
“About the band, Nigel. Who it was you were going to see and why Jay might not like it.” Mark picked at a loose thread on the corner of the duvet, his face scrunched up slightly. “I wish I could’ve known those stories a long time ago…because you and Jay and Howard have all known and had this piece of the puzzle I wasn’t allowed to share.” Mark gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I wouldn’t have judged you for any of it, you know? And it just…would’ve been nice to have been told.” Gary glanced back at him, and Mark looked up to meet his gaze; his eyes were glassy and tired, and in the dark of the bedroom they shone bright with disappointment. “Maybe then we could’ve talked about it, you know? Got the whole picture clearer in your head before you went to Jay with it, maybe even before you went to talk to Nigel again – it might’ve helped to talk it over properly, with someone who’s enough of an outsider to all that history that they could give a more unbiased look.” Mark chewed at his lip for a moment. “We can still talk about it, if you like,” he offered more quietly. Gary let out a harsh, humourless laugh.
“Oh come on, Marko: we both know there’s plenty of stories you haven’t told me either – and it’s pretty clear by now you’ll never be putting those out in the open for discussion,” Gary muttered. Mark winced and didn’t look up to meet Gary’s eyes.
An uneasy quiet settled on the two of them. The distant sounds of the city at night could be heard beyond the window, muffled and dull; it made Gary feel strangely adrift from everything, detached and overwhelmed by a hollow sort of sadness. There was something about the orange fog of the streetlamp’s light as it focused the shadows and stillness that gave Gary the strangest sense of something being left behind; a memory, a moment, a chance – he couldn’t be sure, but he felt a powerful longing to have it back and the heavy weight of the loss of it pulled his body down. He was anchored in this stillness, this darkness, and though Mark was beside him, he still somehow felt completely alone.
“I don’t tell you my stories because you never ask me to.” Mark spoke so softly Gary had to strain to hear him. “And I worked out a long time ago that you don’t ask because you don’t want to know, in case I don’t match up to the person you need me to be.” Gary flinched, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to protest. He heard Mark let out a half-laugh, half-sigh, and when he spoke again there was a slight catch in his voice. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t try and run from my past sometimes, Gaz. I’m not built like Jay – I hate being broken, I don’t know how to own it. But you run from your past too, you know – the only difference is you don’t ever admit it.” Mark paused a moment, looking away. “You’ve run from it for so long you’ve come full circle, though. And blaming my secrets and Jay’s scars is just another way for you to pretend you don’t have scars and secrets of your own.” Mark’s voice was strained now, and Gary closed his eyes, trying to hold back a mixture of frustration and tears. “You don’t ask questions about anything you think you don’t want to hear, you know? My past, yours…you’re so scared we might both be too screwed up to fit the perfect picture you have in your head and it freaks you out.” Mark sniffed slightly, staring up at the ceiling in an effort to stop himself from crying. “I’m always the one who has to take the blame, though – if I’m not the person you can imagine fitting into that fairy tale picture of love and happiness you have in your head, then it can’t be your fault when things are tougher or don’t work out how you hoped. And don’t get me wrong, Gaz, I try and hold on to that picture too – no one wants to believe there could ever be any awful, broken thing in them that makes ‘happily ever after’ that bit harder. But…Gaz, I just don’t know how much longer we can go on holding our breath this way, you know?”
Gary couldn’t look at him, but he could feel his eyes on his back all the same. The words made him feel uncomfortable and he tried to ignore them, refusing to fully process them: the last thing he needed was yet more opinions in his head, it was too hard to hear his own thoughts already without Mark adding yet more pain and accusation to the tangled heap.
“Don’t try to guilt-trip me right now, Marko, please: I’m just not in the mood.”
“Gaz-”
“Just. Don’t.” Gary spoke with icy calm, a quiet force in his tone that cut Mark off immediately. “You know, I’m not the one who disappears off with old friends to get drunk and not come home for hours – or days. And you know, when these friends of yours show up, I never get an invite.”
“I used to invite you,” Mark told him in a low voice. “You always said no and after a while I got tired of asking – I knew there was no point.”
“Well maybe I got tired of all their stories which would mysteriously finish halfway through and all the jokes that never got explained – there are things I know you’ve chosen to keep from me, Marko, things you wouldn’t talk about even if I asked you to.”
“And there’s part of you I’m expected to never question too, you know – stories I only know because Jay doesn’t realise I’ve not already been told.”
“So we’re back to noble Jason again, are we?” Gary asked, his tone sour.
“That’s not what I meant, Gaz, and you know it!” Mark protested, frustration edging his voice once more. “But since you want to go there: what about Jay?”
“What about him?” Gary snapped.
“He’s told Howard so much. He’s told him every story that he knows has made a part of who he is, even the parts of himself he usually tries to protect, the parts he doesn’t like. The two of them are so sure they’re flawed, and broken, and messy…but when I look at them, all I can see is that stupidly perfect picture that you and me keep trying and failing to achieve.” Mark drew in a shaky breath. “I’m having to try so hard to have an honest conversation with you, Gaz…but I just don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“And?”
“And…it’s scaring me, you know? Out of nowhere today, you turned around and told Jay you didn’t believe in him and the shock of it nearly broke him – the shock of it nearly broke Howard and me! But if you said the same thing to me right now? I don’t think I would be anywhere near as surprised.”
Gary sat in silence for a moment, not looking at Mark. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to clear his head, trying to pretend Nigel’s words weren’t still ringing in his ears and to swallow down the tears that were threatening to overwhelm him.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a horse whisper. He felt Mark moving behind him, and was surprised when he felt his soft, wet lips pressing a kiss to the side of his face.
“I know you are,” Mark murmured into his skin. He wrapped an arm around him and buried his face in the crook of his neck, drawing in a deep breath. “But I also know you’re just not sorry enough to take a gamble and actually believe in me.”
***
Howard opened his eyes and squinted blearily around the room, taking a moment to adjust to the semi-darkness around him. Blushes of white and amber were cast across the ceiling, the city’s lights making hazy half-patterns across the room as they mingled with the moonlight, casting abstract shadows on every surface. Rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn, he lifted his head slightly from the pillow. The apartment was quiet, and outside the night was calm, raindrops drying on the windows, but beside him the bed was empty, and the door to the bedroom had been left ever-so-slightly ajar, letting in a sliver of yellow light from down the hall. He rolled over, reaching across to check the time on his phone. He let out a rueful chuckles, shaking his head. It was always 3a.m. with Jason. He pushed himself up and out of bed, padding quietly down the corridor.
Jason was curled up on the sofa, watching the TV with disinterest, an empty mug balancing next to him on the sofa’s arm. He didn’t look up from the screen, but Howard knew he knew he was there, the small half-smile that had formed on his lips was the giveaway – it was the smile Jason always gave him when he found him in the early hours of the morning.
“If you’re here to ask me if I’m ok, then you should know me well enough to know the answer, Howard Donald,” Jason said after a beat, his voice low and soft, an almost mischievous edge to it.
“I know the answer you’re going to give me,” Howard shot back, and Jason laughed, the sound sleepy, rough and pleasing.
“So why go to the trouble of getting out of bed?” he asked, flicking a glance up at Howard, his blue eyes glittering quietly in the fuzzy light.
“Now who’s asking questions they already know the answers to?” Howard said, his smile soft and sweet as he pushed himself up from where he’d been leaning and came across to the sofa. He bent to steal a quick kiss from Jason before flopping down beside him, slinging his arm along the back of the sofa so that his hand came to rest on Jason’s shoulder. “Outside of this room? You can tell whoever you like that you’re okay as many times as you like, and you know I won’t tell them any different. But here, with me, at three in the morning? All you need to do is be Jay. Whatever that means at this moment. Ok?”
A slow smile coloured Jason’s lips and he twisted his body slightly, reaching over to interlock their fingers. He brought their clasped hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to Howard’s skin and looking up to meet his gaze.
“I love you, you know that?” he murmured, resting his head back, his eyes still intent upon Howard’s. His smile was crooked and honest and he ran his thumb along the back of Howard’s hand slowly. “I think maybe knowing that is exactly the reason why…I actually am ok, right at this moment,” he said quietly, his tone thoughtful. “I won’t pretend – I’m not good at it at the best of times and with you it would be impossible – the way Gaz was talking today…scared me so much. Because it was almost like I was talking to Nigel again, back in that place where every move was wrong and I was never enough. But I know that’s exactly what Nigel wants…he wants me back in that place because back then he had control.” Jason sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. Howard shifted a little closer to him, and in a mirror of Jason’s earlier gesture, he pressed a kiss to the back of Jason’s hand.
“And where does that leave you and Gaz?” he asked gently.
“Where we’ve always been,” Jason said. “Best mates. People with too much history to hold grudges.” He flicked a glance across at Howard and gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “He always needs a project. He always has to have a distraction. Because when he stays still too long he’s forced to look at the real world. And it doesn’t always match up to the world he wants to live in, you know?” Jason closed his eyes again, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Howard squeezed his hand. “Nigel will promise you the earth if he thinks he’ll get something in return. And he knows Gaz well enough to know what his idea of happily ever after involves. So he offers Gaz a part of the fantasy – and he destroys the things in his life which might get in the way of that by pointing out their flaws.”
“So setting you up as the bad guy, making him doubt Mark…”
“All part of some bigger Nigel Plan. I know it. Nigel can sell him the moon and then some: he can talk anything up and make it sound like a good idea, and he can make you believe what he wants you to believe if you don’t go in with a good dose of scepticism. I learnt that the hard way.” Jason shook his head. “You know, a part of me thinks he’s been planning this since the day Gaz walked away from the band: you don’t cross Nigel and get away with it, he has to either leave his mark on you or get the last word. If he can make Gaz hate me and split him up from everyone who might warn him against going back into business with him? He can get revenge and make money doing it. And probably scar Gaz for life in the process.”
“And you think Gaz would really go for it? Work with Nigel again, just like that?” Howard asked, raising his eyebrows. He was close with Gary, and he knew that – for all his determination to succeed with his music – when it came down to it, he wasn’t someone who went in for cold calculation or backstabbing.
Jason bit his lip, considering Howard’s question carefully.
“One talk with Nigel the other day, and he was already doubting everything about his and Mark’s relationship,” he said slowly. “And I know those two have their flaws, I know Nigel couldn’t destroy something that didn’t have any holes in it to begin with – that’s not the point though.” He looked up at Howard, offering him a slight shrug. “I know Gaz loves Mark. I know that, for all their secrets, there is no one either of them would rather share their life with than the other.” Jason’s lips twisted into an expression which was almost wry, and he rolled his eyes slightly. “And I also know Gaz didn’t mean half of what he was saying to me today: it hurt to hear him say it, but…I know Nigel meant something to him, back in the day. He’s being forced to pick sides – and I know how bad that feels, you know? I can’t hold it against him for not coping.” Howard nodded thoughtfully, once more bringing their entwined hands up to his lips and pressing a reassuring kiss to Jason’s skin.
“So what you’re saying is: it’s going to get worse before it gets better?” he guessed. Jason smiled up at him lopsidedly, his blue eyes bright but sad.
“Something like that,” he agreed softly, edging slightly closer to Howard and placing his other hand on his knee. “But it will get better. That much I know. I don’t trust Nigel – but I trust Gaz. He’ll find a way to work it out, with or without Nigel’s help.”
Jason fell silent again, his eyes turning down; Howard watched the way his face fell into shadow and he edged closer, unclasping their hands in order to cup Jason’s cheek, forcing his gaze back up to him.
“Hey,” he whispered and Jason’s eyes met his own once more. Jason offered him a small, tender smile in return.
“Hi,” he murmured back.
“So I’m going to ask again, because I’m annoying and overprotective and I know you too well to be fobbed off: are you sure you’re ok? With everything going on, Nigel sniffing around…are you ok?” Howard spoke in low, firm voice, his eyes studying the sharp angles of Jason’s face. He was so gorgeous to Howard in that moment; the three o’clock in the morning Jason who only he knew and only he loved, whose eyes were intense and whose words were always so softly spoken yet so deliberate. Jason placed his hand over Howard’s own, turning his head slightly in order to place a kiss against Howard’s palm.
“I’m ok, Howard Donald,” he whispered, closing the final gap between their bodies and giving Howard and small, soft kiss on the lips before settling back, resting his head against Howard’s arm with a sigh. “Actually, I’m ok because you’re annoying and overprotective and you know me too well to be fobbed off.” He shrugged. “I was lucky enough to be able to marry my best friend, How. You came along and you loved every daft, broken part of who I am and you never looked at me any differently for any of it. Nigel can’t take that away from me. You proved him wrong: about me, about my life. You changed how I thought about myself and you stopped his voice constantly being in the back of my head.” Jason smiled quietly up at Howard, blue eyes sparkling. “Nigel can say what he likes about me and think what he likes about me and he can try every trick in the book to try and ruin my life. But I’ve got you. And besides, we’ve got through bigger storms, you know? What’s a little more rain to you and me?”
Chapter 7
Nigel’s office was cold. Literally. An air-conditioner was humming softly to itself above, and Gary shivered slightly, rubbing on his arms. Everything in the space was hard and cruel, with cut-glass, chrome and too-much leather mingling to make a dark, uncomfortable space which Gary couldn’t ever imagine himself working in. He thought of the shop; warm, jumbled and creaking, full of people and dust and books. He shivered again and bit down on his bottom lip. There was nothing in the space to distract himself with – the closest thing to a personal touch in the room was a plastic plant in the corner, although Nigel’s desk was stacked with papers and files, just enough to give off the illusion of someone running a complex-but-efficient empire. Gary felt out of place; he didn’t want to be here, he wasn’t even sure if he ever had. And yet he’d still come. Tuesday at ten, just as requested – he felt as though he were being tugged on a string in Nigel’s wake. Bobbing about, rattled and powerless as he lurched towards a destination unknown.
The door opened abruptly, and Gary jumped. Nigel didn’t even look at him as he entered, his mobile still clamped to his ear as he crossed over to the desk and took a seat. It was well over twenty minutes later than when he’d told Gary to meet him, but who was counting? Not Nigel, clearly. He raised a dismissive hand at Gary by way of a greeting, before turning his chair slightly to return to his phone call, leaning in to look at something on his computer screen. Gary looked down at the ground, listening to the agitated clicks of the mouse as Nigel shook his head in a slow, exasperated fashion that Gary couldn’t help but feel was partly for his benefit. Such a busy man, he was, so good of him to make time for Gary – right? Gary knew he could slip away now, avoid whatever game it was Nigel wanted to make him part of and just go back to his life the way it had been before that man had walked back into it. But he also knew that walking away wouldn’t make that sick feeling in his stomach go away. He would still have those wispy, pervasive doubts about Jason in the back of his mind. The clunkier, heavier ones about Mark. And there would still be the question about what could have happened if he’d just stayed with the band all those years ago. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes a moment, listening to but not processing the sharp, clipped words Nigel was giving to whoever was on the phone. The only clear thoughts in his head were ‘I shouldn’t be here’ and ‘But I couldn’t not be here’.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Gary.” Nigel’s voice took Gary by surprised, and he blinked up at Nigel in bewilderment. The other man’s face was pinched and tight, his blue eyes cool. He wasn’t even a little bit sorry. “Business. You know how it is: you can’t trust anyone to do anything properly.” He gave Gary a thin, grey smile and leant forward, his hands clasped in front of him. “So, you decided to come and see me after all?” He attempted to arch an eyebrow, but the skin of his face was so stretched it barely moved. “I bet that went down well with our old friend Jason.”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Nigel?” Gary shot back, his voice tired and dry.
Something flickered briefly in Nigel’s beady eyes, and Gary knew he’d been read; a calculation was already being made in Nigel’s head, a plan mapped out on how best to handle that glimmer of brokenness Gary had just inadvertently revealed. He sat back a little, unclasping his hands and opening his arms in an expansive gesture.
“You didn’t have to come here, you know, Gary,” he said through a brittle smile.
“Didn’t I?!” Gary barked, a humourless laugh in his voice. He winced inwardly at the bitterness in the sound. Nigel’s face twitched again, something resembling amusement flitting across it before he quickly smothered it, shrugging casually.
“Well I don’t see a gun to your head,” he remarked, looking Gary up and down thoughtfully. “But since you’re here, you could at least hear what I have to say – don’t you think?” he added then. Gary clenched his jaw, attempting to keep his gaze steely as he met Nigel’s eyes. “I’m only thinking of you, Gary, whatever Jason might try telling you.”
“Can you please leave Jay out of this, for once?” Gary snapped. Nigel’s lips twisted up at the corners and Gary rolled his eyes, looking away. “This isn’t about Jay, ok? And Jay told me he didn’t care whether you and me were still in touch or not, if you must know. What went on between you and him…I wish it had just stayed between you and him, instead of the two of you dragging me into it all the time.” He drew in a deep, fortifying breath before looking back up at Nigel. “What is this about, Nigel?”
“I’m worried about you, Gary. I want to help you, I want to show you the way you’re going right now isn’t the only way to get where you want to go. I care about what happens to you, Gary. I want to see you succeed. And I don’t think Jason – or that boyfriend of yours – are the answer.”
Gary swallowed, nodding and looking down again. The real question he wanted to ask was ‘Why now?’ – but a part of him already knew the answer: because now was convenient for Nigel, because no one could sniff out an opportunity the way Nigel could and because no one had ever denied Nigel as many opportunities as Gary had the day he’d picked Jason’s side. “You are a brilliant songwriter, Gary Barlow. You have an undeniable talent. But unlike Jason Orange? You have absolutely no instinct for self-preservation.” Nigel’s voice was quiet but firm, and Gary had to work hard to avoid his piecing gaze. “I made a mistake, the first time around – I tried to find a group of lads who each had their own talent and ambition and I forgot that a good band needs more than that. Chemistry, Gary. That’s what works: on a stage, in an interview – people like to see friendships, a band of brothers.” Nigel shook his head slightly. “I should’ve known better: I thought your songs alone would be enough but I forgot I needed the band to hold long enough to get those songs out there, get you all a bit of success to stop you falling out with each other. I would keep that in mind this time around, Gary – I would find you people who were willing to be mates with you, who wouldn’t drive you away.”
“Jay didn’t drive me away,” Gary murmured, eyes turning down. “And I have mates already; ones who didn’t have to audition for the part.” Nigel waved a dismissive hand and rolled his eyes. “Jay has never driven me out, even when he should’ve done,” Gary added more quietly, delivering the statement mostly to his hands.
“Jason Orange was smart enough to realise the songwriter was the one with all the power and made the most of the situation,” Nigel told him and Gary scrunched his face up in confusion.
“And what situation was that, exactly?” Gary asked, looking back up sharply and meeting Nigel’s eyes. The other man faltered for the first time since he’d entered the room, and he quickly glanced away, his thin lips curving down at the corners.
“Gary, I doubt Jason has ever made a friendship in his life he couldn’t find some benefit to himself from. He’s a manipulator, Gary: he has a chip on his shoulder and he thinks he can make all the rest of us give him what he wants by trying to keep himself one step ahead.”
“Nige, that’s not Jay; you know that’s not Jay. Jay is a cocky bastard sometimes but…he likes people, he gives people a chance to be his mate no matter how bad a start they get off to. He listens to people, even when everyone else is putting someone down. And back then…you were the one with all the power – not me, definitely not Jay…you were our manager, you were in a position of authority over all of us-”
“I did what I thought was right by all of you, Gary. I sunk all my money into you boys – it was in my interests you succeeded.”
Gary studied Nigel’s face for a moment, trying to find some clue in it. But there was nothing. He wasn’t answering the question Gary had asked and he never would, he was too clever for that. And wasn’t that incriminating enough? He thought of how clearly Jason had always answered the questions Gary had asked him about those days, how he’d always looked him in the eye as he spoke and frowned at every flaw he found in his own logic, shaking his head like he thought he deserved to be doubted. “This isn’t about Jason Orange any more, Gary. This is about you. Your life. What do you want it to look like – who do you trust to help you find it.” Nigel had regained his composure, and was leaning forward again, his blue eyes intent upon Gary’s bowed head. Gary squeezed his own eyes shut for a moment, and when he opened them again he lifted his head to meet Nigel’s gaze. “I’ve told you before, Gary Barlow: you have something special about you. You could take over the world, with the right people around you.” Nigel shrugged. “I’m honest about what I want out of you, Gary. I always have been. There’s nothing worse than someone you can’t trust. And maybe you’ll hate me when it’s over, but we’ll both be very wealthy men with very happy careers behind us. No lies, no guilt trips; just success and an early retirement.”
The two of them watched each other in silence. Somehow Gary knew he’d given too much away; in something he’d said or done, or perhaps just by coming here at all. He swallowed hard.
“Why now?” He finally managed to get the question out, but the victory felt hollow. His voice was faint and uncertain; he couldn’t stop giving himself away, it would seem, and there was an almost-smile in Nigel’s eyes. Gary cleared his throat and pushed himself up a little in his chair. “You could’ve come and found me any time – if you believed in me half as much as you say you did, you could’ve stopped those other lads from making my life hell. You’ve could’ve found a new group, you could’ve got me to stay.”
“Gary,” Nigel said, his voice saccharine and placating, his arms outstretched once more. “I didn’t have the money to start over with new lads – I took a risk, I let you go. But I never forgot you. And now, now I have the money and the time-”
“When I went to stay with Jay you came and told him a place and time that I could meet you and we could put it all behind us, you told him you wanted me back in the band – clean slate. That was a chance when you could’ve got me back, if you’d told me yourself when you saw me coming back.”
“I know that was a mistake, Gary – but I wasn’t sure if you would listen to me. But I suppose Jason didn’t much care for the plan and warned you off it?” Nigel asked, though the look on his face suggested he thought he already knew the answer. Having information Nigel didn’t was a novelty for Gary, and it restored a little courage to him.
“He told me to go for it. He told me I should go for it.” Nigel masked it well, but Gary caught the brief flicker of surprise on his face – and perhaps there was just a slight edge of panic there too, the sense of a man who always had a trick up his sleeve suddenly having to come up with a new plan on the spot. “I was the one who said I wouldn’t go,” Gary told him, and Nigel’s eye twitched. Gary was the proverbial kid in the audience who’d spotted the false-bottom in the top hat and Nigel found he could no longer stick to his script. Gary glanced away, a frown creasing his features as he took in another deep breath. “But I did go. Just like you wanted me to. And no one was there. So I went back home and I never told Jay and I tried not to think about it for so long.” He regarded Nigel out of the corner of his eye. “So tell me honestly, if you want me to trust you so much: did you ever have any intention of showing up that day? Or did Jay just give me the wrong time and place?”
There was that look on Nigel’s face again: as though he was trying to do a very complex sum very quickly in his head. And then – slowly enough that Gary could see it happening – the gleam in his eyes returned, and he sat back in his chair with a practiced smile. Gary felt ill, and he suddenly realised he really didn’t want to know the answer to the question after all. There were only two outcomes, really: he’d either doubted Jason for nothing for all these years and helped Nigel hurt him all over again, or his best friend was a liar who’d cheated him out of his big break. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he felt sure Nigel could still read him too well to be fooled.
“I’d forgotten all about that day,” Nigel said slowly, looking down. “God.” He shook his head in a show of sadness that almost convinced, but there was a brightness in his eyes which Gary didn’t think he should trust. “The honest answer, Gary, is that it isn’t something I’m proud of – it wasn’t my finest hour, I’ll admit.”
“What are you saying, Nigel?” Gary asked, his voice shaking a little. Because he knew what Nigel was saying, really, and he couldn’t quite bear the thought of it.
“I’m saying, Gary…that I made a mistake letting you walk out of that band. And even though there was a part of me that knew I should ask you back…a part of me was angry at you-”
“So you didn’t show up?! You just left me standing there, thinking my mate had lied to me?” Gary demanded hotly. Tears were prickling the backs of his eyes and he blinked them back desperately; Nigel couldn’t see him cry, not after this. Oh God, Jay. He pushed himself up from his seat abruptly, causing Nigel to stand too, offering out his arms in a gesture of appeasement.
“Gary! I was angry! I felt like you’d betrayed me when you walked away, I felt like I’d lost you. I was sure you wouldn’t even have gone to meet me anyway.”
“No,” Gary said forcefully, setting his jaw firmly and glaring across at Nigel with as much determination as he could muster, trying hard not to let the lingering flickers of uncertainty show. “No, you don’t get to rewrite history this time, Nige. You left me standing there, and you gave up on me, because you wanted to hurt me the way you felt I’d hurt you by staying mates with Jay – and now that you’re looking for a new project, you’ve come back into my life thinking you can just pick up where we left off. And it’s not happening. We are done. I’m done.” He swallowed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. It felt like there were bands around his lungs, tightening relentlessly. “I’m done.”
He shook his head and pushed his chair back, looking over at Nigel for a moment, his expression helpless and disappointed. “I never thought, for one moment, you wouldn’t come. And I honestly never thought you’d play with my life like this.”
“Gary-”
“I’m done, Nigel. It’s over: game over. I don’t want to play with you anymore. All you do is meddle, and lie, and turn people’s lives upside-down so you can get your own way. I should never have trusted you, I should never have believed you over Jay.” He winced. He was sure he shouldn’t have revealed that particular piece of information – perhaps it was the one thing he should have tried not to reveal above all else. Nigel’s ice-blue eyes lit up for a split-second. He was always information-gathering, Nigel was: he’d been the same way back in the day too, Gary remembered that, even when they’d been at their closest, that glint in his eyes had always unsettled him. He shook his head again and turned away, heading for the door.
“If I’m such a liar and a cheat, Gary Barlow, then why did I tell you the truth about that day?” Gary stilled. He turned slightly, glancing back at Nigel over his shoulder. Nigel shrugged. His demeanour had changed suddenly, and there was a slight smile on his reptilian lips. “Surely that would be the thing to lie about, if I was so calculating and cruel. Surely it would serve me better to lie about not meeting you that day than to tell you tales about your bandmates, or your boyfriend. Don’t you think?”
Gary shivered. He couldn’t bring himself to move. That sick, uneasy feeling had returned to the pit of his stomach. The bands around his lungs tightened. And Nigel Martin-Smith stood at his desk with a thin, dry smile on his lips and a gleam in his eyes. “I didn’t ask you to come here today to rake over old memories, Gary. I asked you to come to talk about your future.” He shrugged. “If I’m the Big Bad Wolf, Gary Barlow, then how come I’ve been upfront with you about all my mistakes, swallowed my pride and come and found you?”
“I don’t need to listen to this,” Gary muttered, shaking his head, though he didn’t turn away.
“Whether you work with me or not, I think there’s actually a lot of reasons you should listen to me. Starting with those bandmates of yours, actually.”
“You know nothing about them – you have no right to start getting in my head, telling me stories about how Jay is too full of himself. Jay has done nothing but be my mate, he’s never asked for anything in return and he’s never held any of my screw-ups over my head later: because no matter what you say about him? Jay has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to the people he cares about – that’s the part of him you always overlooked because you were too busy treating him like he was just another pretty face for you to push around.”
“So maybe Jason isn’t the problem. This time.” Nigel shrugged, as though the admission were nothing, as though he’d never said a bad word about Jason Orange and Gary’s friendship with him in all his life. Gary spluttered out a humourless laugh.
“So who is then? Howard?! That bloke’s honest as the earth.”
“And a good DJ too, apparently. I’m happy for the two of them – they make quite a handsome pair up in that DJ booth I suppose. Showy, but not bad to look at. If you like that sort of thing,” Nigel said, his voice a sneer and his smile faltering for a moment. Then he raised his eyes back up to meet Gary’s. “But really, I never thought they were the problem. Howard clearly doesn’t need you to succeed, and Jason doesn’t have what it takes and he knows it. Besides, he found a new talent to piggy-back with his DJ.” Nigel smiled again, coolly now. The expression seeped into his pinched face slowly and Gary felt like he was going to throw up right there. Because Nigel only smiled like that when he knew he’d won. “That boyfriend of yours, on the other hand: the total package. I’m surprised the music industry hasn’t snapped him up. And what do you think it is he needs, Gary? Other than a nice warm body to come home to each night?” Nigel smirked. “Or maybe we should talk about what stopped him making it when he was younger – what he might have been busy doing, and who he might have been busy doing, that might have stood between him and being the cutest pin-up nineties pop could’ve dreamed of?”
“Stop,” Gary pleaded, closing his eyes tight.
He shouldn’t have come here. Jason was right: Nigel was playing a game and Gary knew he was in the centre of it, but he had no idea how to get out. Nigel laughed, the sound jagged and cold, and he flicked his eyes across his desk, searching a stack of papers before finding what he wanted and brandishing it like a trophy. He waved the large, brown envelope in Gary’s direction, coming around his desk and holding it out to him.
“Mark Owen has quite a colourful past, you know. Messy too. Musical, though – and he has a lot of friends from those days, and they’re every bit as musical too.” Nigel waved the envelope again, raising his eyebrows at Gary expectantly and gesturing for him to take the envelope from his hands. “I own a studio space, you know. In the Salford area: bought it before the prices went up. I’d make a lot of money selling it, but I prefer to keep the studio going – stay in touch with the industry a little.” He tipped his head to one side, eyes glittering at Gary sharply. “I don’t suppose you know of a bloke called Ben Mark, maybe?” Gary felt the colour drain from his face and he met Nigel’s eyes fearfully, nervously. Nigel’s smile was as cunning as it was patronising. “Jamie Norton, perhaps?” he added. Gary shook his head – in disbelief rather than denial – and Nigel stepped closer, pressing the envelope to his chest and holding it there. “Take it. Look what’s inside. And ask yourself what Mark Owen might be doing in recording space, with two musician friends and without you.”
As Gary bewilderedly took the envelope, Nigel stepped away, shrugging blithely and sitting back down at his desk like he’d just handed Gary the day’s paper rather than a live grenade. “You know my number, Gary. When you’ve decided our next move you call me. I’ll get a head start on the paperwork; I’m sure those boys in your band will sign when you explain to them the opportunity on offer.” Nigel glanced back up, his smile disconcertingly bright. “Jason and the husband will be no bother. But I imagine you and your boyfriend will want to talk it all over before anything is signed. I can assure you, though: you will have the moral high ground on this one.”
***
There was something glorious and wild about the sight of Jason Orange walking towards him, framed by hazy gold sunbeams, smiling warmly and holding a to-go cup of his favourite coffee blend. Howard’s breath caught in his throat when he looked up and saw him. Jeans, a crisp, dark blue shirt, smart, tinted aviators and a lopsided smile. He looked like pure light itself. He cocked his head slightly, arching an eyebrow, and Howard recovered himself when he saw the look of challenge dancing in Jason’s eyes, only just visible behind his shades.
“Morning, gorgeous,” Howard said, his voice rough and genuine. He leant his weight back slightly then, folding his arms, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “What time do you call this, though?” he demanded, and Jason narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, removing his shades and tucking them into the neck of his shirt; he scrutinized Howard’s face for a beat, his expression all warning, but the corners of his lips quirked up, betraying him.
“Watch that mouth of yours, Donald, or no cinnamon roast with an extra shot for you,” he retorted, waving the coffee cup enticingly and laughing as Howard made a grab for the offered drink like a man possessed. Jason’s reflexes, however, were slightly quicker, and he quickly moved a step back, holding the drink just out of Howard’s reach – he was smirking still, and Howard had to work hard to suppress a grin of his own, forcing his lips into an exaggerated pout and attempting to bat his eyelashes at his husband, who rolled his eyes fondly and finally handed over the coffee cup, watching with amusement as he took a delighted gulp of the coffee and then looked back over at him with a smirk.
“See, I know you, Jay: you love this mouth of mine,” Howard said over the rim of the cup, his voice low and his tone devilish. Jason simply shook his head, glancing down in an attempt to hide his smile.
Howard chuckled, taking another gulp of the coffee and sighing contentedly as the liquid warmed him from within. He let out an almost-hum. “God I love you right now,” Howard all but moaned. “I so needed this.” Jason laughed again, his head tipping back this time as he swung around to lean next to Howard on the shop’s counter like it was a dance move. He bumped their shoulders.
“Only right now?” he asked, leaning in, and Howard met the look, a grin forming on his lips once more as he winked back.
“What can I say? I like to keep things interesting,” he shrugged. Jason quirked an eyebrow and Howard leant in, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Hey: you’ll always be in my top ten favourite people though.”
“More romantic words were never spoken,” Jason remarked with an airy sigh, and Howard chuckled as he saw the light which danced in his eyes. “Good job I love you too really, isn’t it,” he added then. “Or who knows how far out of the top ten I might slip?” Howard smiled, shrugging in a poor attempt at nonchalance as he took another sip of his drink.
With another small shake of his head and an affectionate smile, Jason pulled himself up to sit on the counter, his shoulder still brushing Howard’s. Howard could feel the muscles of his arm, firm and warm against his own. “So, your daughter was safely delivered to the school gate. With only seconds to spare – might I add – because, in a bid to win an award for just how much she takes after her father, she forgot her homework and we had to turn back five minutes into the journey…”
“That’s my girl,” Howard joked and Jason laughed, rolling his eyes in a show of despair.
“You shouldn’t be so proud of that, you know?” he pointed out with a wry grin. “I hope ‘I swear I set off in good time’ is written on the Donald family crest.”
“Right above a picture of a watch that’s five minutes slow,” Howard shot back with an unapologetic smile. Jason couldn’t help laughing once more, tipping his head back in an effort to squash the amusement. “Good job it was you dropping her off and not me: we would’ve never made it on time if I’d been there too,” Howard added then. Jason nodded.
“Of course – the sacred law that two members of the Donald family can never reach their chosen destination on time unless they travel separately.”
“Or unless they bring you,” Howard grinned. Jason chuckled, tilting his head slightly in order to regard Howard out of the corner of his eye.
“I knew there was a reason the universe brought us together.” He sighed in that put-upon way of his that always made Howard laugh. “Although, I’ll be honest: I was struggling to come up with anything myself.”
“Because I needed someone to laugh at my jokes?”
“No one should ever laugh at your jokes, Donald.”
“And yet you still do.”
“I’m a hopeless case.”
“You’re wonderful.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Jason asked through a half-sigh-half-laugh. Howard shrugged, casual and content.
“More romantic words were never spoken,” he murmured in reply, his voice rough and soft as he tipped his chin slightly and met Jason’s eyes. His smile was wolfish and delighted as he took in Jason’s expression – caught off guard in a small, fond smile – and his eyes sparkled bright. “And you thought I didn’t listen when you talked.” Jason’s smile turned lopsided as he leant into Howard’s body slightly, laughing. He smelt like burnt toast and fabric softener, like Sunday mornings.
“You’re a menace, Howard Donald,” he mumbled into Howard’s shoulder, and Howard’s smile was soft and tender as he shrugged just enough to force Jason’s head back up. The two looked at each other for a moment in silence before finally Howard broke the spell, leaning in to steal a kiss – long and fierce – and when he finally pulled back he met Jason’s gaze again, his eyes shining.
“For the record: you really are wonderful.” He leant their foreheads together, smiling fondly at the slight look of confusion on Jason’s face. He stole another small, chaste kiss from Jason’s lips. “You’re wonderful,” he whispered earnestly. Jason’s lips twisted into the smallest, shyest smile Howard had ever seen.
The two of them drew apart suddenly at the sound of the shop’s bell, and Howard grimaced at the jarring feeling of the silence being broken. A sliver of space opened up between him and Jason as Jason leant backwards, unfolding his body slowly and giving himself just enough momentum to leap gracefully down from the counter. He spun away from Howard with a low, soft laugh, flashing him a conspiratorial wink before propelling himself forwards into the other room. Always moving. “Sophie! What can we do for you today? More piano workbooks or are you looking for something different?” His voice was bright and clear and charming as he folded his arms, leaning in the archway like he’d been poured into place. The consummate professional in a heartbeat. Howard chuckled softly, shaking his head and leaning back to watch Jason go, his smile incredulous and reverent.
Jason moved like no one else; his body was like music, graceful and rhythmic. For a moment Howard found his mind wandering back to sitting on the sofa with Jason that morning at 3am, to watching him stretch out his body and sigh, like he was shaking the ghosts off his shoulders, his smile brilliant and quiet as he’d pulled himself closer to Howard’s body. Jason, as ever, capable of being so simple and so complex all in the same moment; eyes closed and smiling like nothing in the world had ever hurt him, voice soft and gentle as he whispered ‘thank you’ against Howard’s skin. Howard didn’t know why Jason always thanked him – after all, he knew he reaped the rewards of keeping Jason safe from the shadows. He was the one who got to feel the beat of Jason’s music, got to watch him twist his body against his own and laugh and wind their fingers together like it was choreography. He thought of the way Jason had kissed his skin and pulled him close, thought of the slow ebb and flow of his movements as he silently tugged Howard back to their bed. Like the rest of the world didn’t exist – like he had no history, like he had just appeared out of the early morning darkness one day and started to dance. Howard would fight a hundred ghosts to see that. And it occurred to him, dimly, that he didn’t care what Justin said as much as he’d thought he did. Not when he got to see Jason like that. Not when Jason was glancing back over his shoulder at him now, that same quiet smile on his lips. When Jason was dancing – in early morning haziness or in late morning sunbeams – Howard was content. He felt peaceful in that moment. And from the glint in Jason’s eyes as he looked back at him briefly, he knew he knew it too. He felt it to.
Howard stayed at the counter for a minute or two longer, even as Jason turned back to his customer and followed her off between the shelves. Jason was all light and teasing charm as he spoke to Sophie – one of their regulars who had a not-so-secret crush on Jason that Jason was too polite to draw too much attention to. Howard bit back a chuckle as he heard Sophie’s shy laugh in response to one of Jason’s jokes, and he tipped his head back, letting out a long, happy sigh. It wasn’t as though everything was ok – it wasn’t. But he and Jason were in it together; there was always light and music and hope tied up in that knowledge, Howard thought.
By the time Jason had finished talking Sophie through the shop’s latest delivery of piano workbooks, Howard had migrated to the shop’s kitchenette, where he was leaning back against the counter and waiting for the kettle to boil. As he looked up at Jason they shared a smile, Jason almost chuckling from the warmth of it. He stretched and hopped down into the room. “Sophie greeted, assisted, sold to, charmed and dispatched with a kiss on the cheek in less than ten minutes,” he announced, grinning as Howard nodded with considered approval.
“Good timing: tea’s almost ready,” he offered by way of a response, nodding his head towards the kettle. There was a slight twinkle in his blue eyes and Jason smirked at him. As their paths crossed the two exchanged a casual high-five-low-five, quick and perfect, before Jason spun around and jumped up to sit on the counter beside where Howard was leaning. “What a team,” Howard joked lightly as Jason bumped against him affectionately, and Jason smiled back, lifting one shoulder in a lazy shrug.
“I don’t know: you should see me and Mark when have the shop to ourselves. We run like a dream.” Howard arched an eyebrow, shooting Jason a sceptical look as he turned to resume making the tea. “Do you ever wonder if I married the wrong bloke, Howard Donald?” Jason teased. Howard chuckled.
“The last time you two were here alone, Mark knocked over the guitar picks box and forgot to ask a customer to pay…and didn’t something happen to Gaz’s favourite piano?” Jason suppressed a laugh, tipping his head in agreement.
“Mark spilt a mug of tea over it. Gaz nearly a had a heart attack when he got back…” He paused for a moment, as though lost in thought, a slight frown creasing his features. “In Mark’s defence, he wouldn’t have spilt the tea if one of the customers hadn’t knocked the drum kit over.” Jason flicked a glance up to meet Howard’s eyes, finally breaking into a soft laugh. “It’s still one of the best days I’ve ever had in this place, though,” he added. “But when it comes to teamwork? Just to set the record straight: it’s always been you since the moment you walked into this shop and told me I could call you whatever I liked,” he said, his voice a little quieter. “I can’t resist that kind of offer,” he added.
“Banter,” Howard joked, glancing down with a shy smile. Jason chuckled, nudging him softly. They looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes, both smirking slightly.
“Banter takes rhythm, Howard Donald.”
“Well you’ve always had rhythm, Jay. No one could ever keep up with you.” Jason leant in, his eyes still focused on Howard as his smile grew intense.
“No one ‘til you.”
Howard grinned and glanced away, busying himself with making the tea in an effort to brush off the shiver that Jason had sent down his spine. Jason watched him in silence for a moment before shaking his head slightly and leaning back with a soft sigh. “I stopped by Stella’s on the way over,” he remarked after a beat. He smirked at Howard’s pointedly raised eyebrow. “Hey, no remarks about covering my shift: I could’ve told you to drop your own daughter off at school, you know. Her school isn’t that close to my dentist – and you have yet to compliment me on my perfect teeth,” he retorted, giving his teeth a quick flash for good measure and making Howard laugh. He shook his head, turning round and handing Jason his tea.
“Shut up and drink this god-awful herbal crap I made for you,” he shot back. “You’re forgiven for leaving me alone to cover your shift for five whole extra minutes, I suppose – if only because I can’t say no to that perfect smile,” he joked, rolling his eyes in a show of exasperation. He leant back against the counter and crossed his legs at the ankle, looking up at Jason from the corner of his eye. “How was Mark anyway?” Jason smirked, taking a sip of his drink and then giving a small shake of his head.
“Nice save, Donald,” he teased, before letting out a sigh.
He leant back, taking a moment to consider the question. “Mark was ok. Well, no, he wasn’t ok. He was…pissed off, mostly. Gaz left this morning before he was up – he assumed he’d come to open up the shop, but when I told him you hadn’t seen him either he scrunched his face up into the closest thing to fury I’ve ever seen on his face.” Jason shook his head again and took another long sip of his tea. “It takes a lot to make Mark Owen that angry, you know? I don’t know what those two talked about when Gaz got home last night, but I don’t think it ended well. Especially since Gaz isn’t answering his texts, apparently.”
“You ever wonder what those two would be like if they actually talked things through?” Howard queried with idle interest. Jason took a moment to consider the question, his tea cupped in both hands. He rested his chin on the rim of the mug and sighed, looking into the middle-distance.
“Married,” he declared at last. “Living in London. Three dogs. Successful songwriters slowly making a name for themselves in the mainstream media thanks to some sort of ‘behind the scenes’ style TV show Gaz secured for them through a network of contacts who trust him implicitly. Definitely a lot of awards to show for it all.” Howard raised his eyebrows, surprised.
“Wow, you really have thought about it.” Jason smiled wryly.
“You know me, How. Dancer. Smiler. Daydreamer…Over-thinker.”
“I know you, Jay,” Howard agreed softly, leaning in to press a kiss to Jason’s temple. “Through rainstorms and ghosts: I know you and your mad, beautiful mind. Always.”
***
Gary had always had a vague understanding that Mark Owen wasn’t like most people. He held endless, dark oceans inside himself. Dying stars, glittering universes. Infinite depths of black holes and stardust. He was full-up on the inside and painted bright on the outside, and you could see both sides of him most clearly when he smiled. He was a quirky, complex thing.
Gary was fairly sure he had no oceans inside himself. No black holes. No quietly dying stars and no glittering universes. Mark Owen had the lot; he’d exhausted the world’s supply of wonder and absorbed it into his soul, leaving nothing behind for Gary Barlow. What Gary had always had was projects. Aims. Tangible dreams. No universes spilt out of him when he smiled, but he had always had great universes he’d been aiming towards; he tried to keep his focus on where he was going, kept that light glinting in his eyes. He was a solid, determined person who liked to keep his feet on the ground. Less dangerous that way. People who held oceans and universes inside their bodies were capable of anything, after all – they were liable to shoot off in directions that couldn’t be planned for, and there was no keeping their feet on the ground, not even if you held onto their legs.
He hadn’t gone to the shop all day. He’d considered it. Got as far as Oldham Street and sat in his car for a while, trying to force himself to move. He’d seen Howard arrive to open up, and as he’d watched him he’d felt the sense of displacement acutely. He was still and silent and he didn’t belong here, not even at his own shop. And it had been Nigel’s words which had come back to him then, the ones he’d said as Jason had disappeared into the night with his bloodied lip and his determination to never come back: “You don’t belong in his world, Gary Barlow. And he doesn’t belong in yours.” Maybe that was why he’d decided to go to Nigel’s meeting after all – to get some answers, to see if Nigel had been right all those years ago. A part of him wished he’d made a different choice now, as he glanced across at the envelope sitting beside him in the passenger seat. Still unopened. Still taunting him with secrets and possibilities. Nigel obviously didn’t think he belonged in Mark Owen’s world either – Gary was inclined to agree – but what secrets could possibly be hiding in that envelope that meant Mark didn’t belong in his world either?
Mark and Jason had both tried to get in touch with him over the course of the afternoon, texts and missed calls piling up on his phone’s screen. Howard was tellingly silent. Howard was such a gentle soul, but he loved with a fierceness that was formidable – Gary knew he would come to feel the loss of that protection more keenly in time, but in that moment he was too numb to notice it. The only feeling which could penetrate the fog he was in was the sensation of that envelope burning his fingertips as he picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It had been playing on his mind since the moment Nigel had handed it to him, even as he’d walked out of the office and back to his car, even as he’d told himself over and over in his mind that he wasn’t going to let Nigel win by actually looking inside. He’d kept telling himself he wouldn’t look, that it didn’t matter, that Nigel had already planted too many doubts in his mind to be given the chance to disrupt his life any more. As he’d driven out of Manchester and out onto the motorway, he’d started to list all the things he’d ever heard Nigel say about Jason and all the reasons he should never have listened to them. Yet here he was now, in an empty corner of a service station carpark, turning that envelope over in his hands. Ready to let Nigel influence his opinion of another of the people most dear to him.
And the thing was, Mark Owen held endless, dark oceans inside himself. Dying stars, glittering universes. Infinite depths of black holes and stardust. He was capable of anything, liable to shoot off in directions that couldn’t be planned for – and there was no keeping his feet on the ground. No matter how tightly Gary had tried to hold onto his legs. Some part of him had almost expected to have that fact thrown back in his face one day, and it seemed like Nigel would be the one to finally do it.
***
“How would you rate me?”
“How would I rate you?”
“Yeah, you know; scale of one to ten.”
“Is there any specific criteria I have to work on, love, or is this just a general assessment?”
“Just on general amazingness and all-round greatness.” Jason finally looked up from checking the till’s cash draw against the shop’s sales book, quirking his eyebrows at Howard and smothering a laugh.
“General amazingness and all-round greatness,” he repeated dryly. Mark suppressed a laugh.
“Feel free to go up as high as a hundred if you don’t feel like ten is quite enough to capture it,” Howard shot back, leaning back on his hands and batting his eyelashes at Jason mischievously. Jason shook his head slightly as he looked back down at the sales book and resumed his task.
“I’d give you a five at best, love. And there are some days you’d be lucky to get a three out of me,” he said, the very corners of his lips quirking up into a smirk, though he kept his eyes focused on the book in front of him.
Mark bit back another laugh as he caught Howard’s eye; Howard was waggling his eyebrows, a gleeful, impish look in his eye. Suddenly, he pulled himself up to sit on the counter, reaching around to grab the book out of Jason’s hands.
“Ok: new criteria,” Howard declared, unflinching even as Jason narrowed his eyes at him, letting out a sigh which was somehow despairing and affectionate all at once. For a moment the two men stared each other down – Jason folding his arms and Howard holding the book out of reach – and Mark glanced between the two of them with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Howard arched an eyebrow, licking his lips slightly, and Jason narrowed his eyes even more. “Go on: rate these lips and don’t even lie,” Howard challenged then, pointing to his lips as he pursed them into an exaggerated air-kiss. You had to know Jason’s face pretty well to see the laughter he was biting back – Mark caught it, but only just, spotting the brief glint in his eyes as he leant forward ever-so-slightly, bringing his face close to Howard’s as though to accept the kiss. Howard’s face lit up expectantly and Jason almost smiled.
“Piss off, Donald,” he murmured then, just before their lips could touch, following the sentiment up by quickly and breezily snatching back the sales book, plucking it from Howard’s fingers with one hand whilst giving Howard a light push away from him with the other. Howard broke into a laugh as he fell back, and a smile curved Jason’s lips for a moment, even as he shook his head and turned back to the till, slamming it closed and locking it for the day. “I’m going to tidy up the kitchen. Make yourself useful and pull down the shutter out front and then we can go,” he said, dodging around the counter and turning on his heel to blow a kiss back to Howard, winking before he swept out of the room. Howard grinned, pretending to catch the kiss and then shaking his head, chuckling softly.
“See, Marko: that right there was me winning,” he said in a hushed, conspiratorial tone, pushing himself up off the counter.
“No it wasn’t, Howard Donald!” Jason called back and Howard laughed, his grin wide as he winked at Mark and pushed himself away from the counter. He was still chuckling as he headed outside.
Mark leant back on his hands and let out a soft sigh as the door closed behind Howard. He’d come to the shop after his shift in an effort to distract himself, but he was starting to realise that the shop was probably the worst place for him to be; there was just too much in its atmosphere. It made him think too much. It made him feel too much. Too much history weighed the air down. Memories, jokes and nonsense danced in the dust motes, banter and music hummed in the silence. And Howard and Jason cluttered up the air with their easy bickering and uncomplicated smiles. Mark loved them too much. But he wasn’t sure if he loved Gary too much or not enough. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sound of cupboards opening and closing in the kitchenette as Jason tidied up for the day, the rattle of the shop’s shutters as Howard tugged them down. And then he felt the buzz of his phone in his pocket and he jumped. His breath hitched slightly as he looked down at the screen – the feeling of relief flooding into his system jolted him and he practically jumped off the counter. Finally a text from Gary: can you get home so we can talk?
***
The flat was cast in the dim grey hues of early evening, and the air was cool and quiet. Mark found Gary at the kitchen table, a mug of long-cold tea cupped in his hands – he didn’t look up when Mark appeared in the doorway, but Mark could see the slight stiffening of his spine which told him he knew he was there. For a moment he waited, shoving his hands in his pockets and biting awkwardly at his lip, watching the top of Gary’s bent head anxiously. There were some papers spread out on the table, a mix of documents and photographs and a battered looking CD case; Mark barely gave them a glance, too distracted by the heavy weight of the silence he was being greeted by.
“Gaz?” he ventured nervously. Gary winced at the sound. Mark swallowed. “You said you wanted to talk…?”
There was another pause, and for a moment Mark thought Gary was going to carry on sitting there, staring down into his tea as though he wasn’t even there. But then he lifted his head, blinking slowly, as though he’d been woken from a deep sleep in the middle of the night.
“Gaz, are you ok?” Mark asked gently, stepping further into the room.
“Am I ok…” Gary repeated quietly, rubbing a hand over his face. “What do you think, Marko?” he asked, his tone clipped and tired. Mark’s forehead creased into the smallest of frowns. He had a sick, uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach; he felt lost and uncertain, unable to understand Gary’s mood and not knowing how best to try to reach out to him. Some instinct was telling him to tread carefully – he had the strangest feeling he was walking into a trap, but he still somehow knew he had no choice but to keep walking forwards, as though he’d already chosen his path without realising and now there was no way back.
“You know, Gaz, I might know more about how ok or not you were if you’d actually bothered to go into the shop today,” Mark pointed out somewhat defensively. Gary barked out a laugh.
“Oh, that’s rich: we all know you come and go from your place of work as you please! And not always to come to the shop either – how many times have I popped over to the caff and they’ve told me you’ve just left with some friend I didn’t even know was in town?” Mark blinked, bewildered.
“Where’s this coming from, Gaz? What does it matter how I manage my shifts at work? Howard’s always subbing for Jay at the shop, and how many times has Jay covered for you without warning?” Mark laughed, shaking his head in frustration and turning away, throwing his arms up in frustration. “Isn’t that the reason for this whole mess anyway? You walking out on work to go meet your old manager without telling any one of us what was going on?” He stilled then, a piecing clarity filling him instantly. He turned back to Gary slowly and studied him for a moment, and from the way Gary glanced down self-consciously, Mark knew he was right. He shook his head, in frustration as much as disbelief. “That’s where you went this morning, isn’t it? You went back to see Nigel again – that’s why you’re in a mood with everyone because Nigel’s filled your head with more poison.”
“This isn’t about Nigel,” Gary snapped. Mark rolled his eyes.
“Oh I know it’s not about Nigel – it’s about Jay and me and Howard and how none of us are good enough for you and we’ve all ruined your life and held back your career.”
“Don’t be a drama queen, Marko – that isn’t what this is and you know it.” Mark simply shrugged.
“I’m being a drama queen when you’re the one who’s sat in the flat looking ready for a fight?” Mark swallowed hard, trying to keep down the frustrating mixture of hurt and anger building up in his chest. He blew out a breath. “Nigel or no Nigel, I know enough to know what you’ve been getting at with me and Jay these past few days, you know? It’s about how you’re absolutely sure you deserve something more. We’re the ones who don’t match up to you, rather than it being a case of the real world just being kind of shit compared to the way you dreamed it. I’m the one who’s broken. Jay’s the bloke who took your career away. Nigel’s just the way out – the proof that Gary Barlow can have the world if he just wants it hard enough and throws enough of the deadweight away.”
Gary flinched and looked away, rubbing his hands over his face and letting out a small growl of frustration.
“Look, this isn’t just about Nigel anymore, ok? I said it and I meant it: this is more than just a Nigel thing. This is about everything – it’s about me and us and the music and everything, Marko. This is about everything. And maybe I shouldn’t have trusted Nigel as much as I did, maybe I shouldn’t have let him get in my head and get Jay hurt in the process. I know I shouldn’t have said those things to Jay and I would give anything to go back in time and change the moment I let myself doubt him. But I can’t. It’s done. It’s over.” Gary swallowed, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath before looking back over at Mark again, sadness and anger in his eyes as he met Mark’s gaze. “But you know what? At least I know where I stand with Nigel. At least he owns up to who he is, to what he is. He doesn’t lie to my face and try and pretend to be something he’s not.”
Mark felt his skin go cold and his breath caught in his throat. He turned more fully, looking carefully over at Gary, his eyes wide and distraught.
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Pretending to be something I’m not?” Gary looked down, unable to hold Mark’s gaze. Mark felt suddenly dizzy, though not the sort of dizzy where he felt he might go over any moment, more the sort of dizziness where it felt like the whole room might just spin off into the atmosphere any moment and throw him down. “How am I lying to your face, Gaz? Why would I want to?” Gary huffed out a laugh, shaking his head and rolling his eyes like Mark had asked him some wildly obvious question. That was when Mark finally looked properly at the papers spread out on the kitchen table.
Taking a step forwards, Mark picked up a print-out of what looked like a sign-in sheet and leant in close to study it. He could feel Gary watching him out of corner of his eye, the scrutiny hot and uncomfortable on his skin, but he tried to push it out of his head, focusing instead on trying to process the information in front of him. It was a sign-in sheet for studio space, and after a moment Mark realised why he recognised the logo: it was for the Salford studios which one of his best friends worked at regularly as a session musician, somewhere Mark had spent a lot of time over the years, hanging around and mucking in with bits and pieces when he got the chance. He ran his eyes quickly down the names, and a sick, angry feeling came over him as he saw three signatures he recognised all too well. He glanced up at Gary, frowning, before looking back down at the other papers. There were studio notes there, some of which he recognised as being in his own handwriting, and in amidst some more poor-quality photocopies of worksheets and paperwork, he spotted prints-outs of grainy CCTV images from in and around the studio space, each depicting Mark with Jamie and Ben, the three of them laughing and joking together, working together, even talking together outside on the studio steps. There was a higher-quality picture of Mark standing smoking outside the studio, his guitar case on his back. Mark put down the sign-in sheet and reached for one of the photos: Mark sitting on a small, squashy sofa with a guitar in his lap, Ben sitting beside him, both peering over something being shown to them by Jamie, their expressions intense. Mark knew when these photos had been taken. “Have you been following up on me?” he asked Gary slowly, looking up, his usually bright eyes now hard and cold. Gary looked back at him with fierce intensity, raising an eyebrow.
“Why, Marko? Should I be?”
“Tell me you’re joking,” Mark said with a rough, nervous laugh, tossing the paper back down onto the table and letting it slide back across to Gary, stopping only when it bumped against his arm. Gary shook his head, clenching his jaw as though trying desperately to restrain his temper. He shrugged, meeting Mark’s gaze.
“I don’t know – maybe it is all a joke to you: why else would you be sneaking off to a studio space with two of your best mates, working on music that was started by my band?”
“Sorry: your band?!” Mark spluttered, disbelieving, but Gary didn’t flinch.
Mark ran a hand through his hair, letting out yet another humourless laugh as he looked despairingly up at the ceiling then back to Gary. “Since when were we your band, Gaz? And since when was what I worked on with Ben and Jamie some big secret? I told you Jamie works down at the studios in Salford – I always tell you when I go down there. I’ve even invited you a couple of times, not that you’ve ever come.” Mark shook his head, throwing up his arms to emphasise the point. “God, Barlow: Jay’s even come over when I’ve been there sometimes and brought me coffee and asked to look at what I was working on. He’s even brought How and Grace over before: Grace put her voice on one of my songs once.” Gary was looking at him with a scrunched-up expression that seemed to be as angry at it was confused, and Mark realised immediately that Gary either didn’t believe him, or didn’t want to. He felt desperate and hurt – all he wanted to do was shake him, ask him if he really thought so little of him, but he fought to keep a hold of his frustration and tamp it down,. “Did Nigel tell you all this? Is this where this stuff has all come from?”
“So what if he did, Marko? You can’t lie and tell me none of it happened: Nigel owns those studios, I’m sure this isn’t the only evidence he can get a hold of.” Gary bit his lip and looked down, his face fixed into a furious frown. “You know, I never thought you’d do this. You of all people: I thought when it came to music, it was the only thing we had going for us where we actually seemed to function like a team.” He looked back up at Mark from the corner of his eye. “But you decided to use me instead. And you know what? I should’ve known. That many half-finished stories and unexplained jokes…there had to be something you and your mates were all hiding.”
“Oh no: no you don’t, Barlow – don’t try and start all that stuff again. I told you last night, I wanted to tell you some of that stuff, you just made it clear you didn’t want to know, that I was on some sort of probation where I couldn’t be anything less than Bubblegum Owen all day, every day: sunshine and rainbows only, in case you don’t fit into Gary Barlow’s love songs when you let him in on the fact you’re broken.”
“Don’t try and turn this around on me, Marko: I’ve listened to the recordings you know.”
“What recordings?”
“These.”
Gary picked up the CD case which had been sitting on the kitchen table in front of him, throwing it with force in Mark’s direction. Mark only just managed to catch it, looking down at it in confusion, his brow furrowed. There was a tracklist written on the disc in Sharpie, and Mark regarded the track names for a second, trying to decipher which of the three might be the cause of Gary’s bitterness. Then he spotted it. ‘Track 3: Hold On’. He smiled sadly, shaking his head and rolling his eyes skywards before tossing the CD box back down onto the table. He spun on his heel elegantly, flopping down into the chair opposite Gary’s with a dry, brittle laugh, tipping his head back.
“God, and, you know, if you’d just come to the shop Saturday morning instead of going to Nigel – behind all our backs, just so you remember – then you would’ve known I was going to work on that track.” Mark shrugged, smiling a strange smile that was both angry and placid at the same time; the pain, he realised, had become so great, his whole body had gone numb from it. Self-preservation was an amazing force, he thought. “I told Jay when he came into the shop, you know. He said to go for it – that we were getting nowhere with that chorus and a fresh set of eyes would be great for it. Jamie really helped out, and I wanted to get his ideas down on the track before I forgot the thread of it; you know, use the moment? I was going to show it to you after. And for the record also? That second track was one of my own: no input from you, just some suggestions from a couple of my musical mates who I was getting to catch up with for the first time in ages. Or don’t you recognise Ben? From the tour? I ran out to meet him during dinner the other night: when I came back in I told you I’d got him to spend his day off with me and Jamie at the studio.” Mark closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, realising for the first time that he was in danger of crying. “But why would you remember – you were so out of it that night anyway,” he sniffed, rubbing a hand over his face.
When he opened his eyes again, Gary’s head was bent – he couldn’t meet Mark’s eyes. There was a chance he was close to tears too, Mark realised, but the thought somehow just made him feel worse. “Do you love me?” Mark asked suddenly, his voice meek and scratchy. Gary winced slightly, but he didn’t look up. “Do you love me, or do you just love the idea of me?” Mark swallowed down a lump in his throat, turning his eyes down to the floor and trying hard to keep his voice level. “Am I just some manic, crazy little cartoon who came along and loved music as much as you did and made you laugh by talking too much about stacked heels and scarves? Because if that’s what I am to you, Gaz, then I think we’re both way too far down the wrong road, and maybe it’s time we both just stopped walking and went home.”
Gary was quiet for a long time. Mark glanced up at him, but his expression gave nothing away, and he still couldn’t look him in the face. The kitchen was lit gold by the evening sunshine, covering everything in a hazy glow; it almost made Mark feel as though they were suspended in the thick summer air, spinning and missing each other like stars on a child’s mobile, turning in perfect synchronisation, forever chasing at each other’s shadows.
“So what does that say about whether or not you love me?” Gary’s voice was a low, rough murmur, but, as softly as he was speaking, Mark still started at the sound. He became very aware of the feel of his heartbeat in his ribcage. Gary looked up at him at last, his sharp, determined eyes unusually distant and quiet. It was Gary, but left out in the sun too long; faded, fraying and fragile. “I mean, since we’re being honest here, right? Since we’re talking. So talk to me, Marko: tell me whatever it is in your past that I’m missing that makes loving me – but not all of me – ok. Because I’m not the only one guilty of that and you know it.” Gary shrugged. “Or maybe you could try telling me what part it is I’m missing that makes stealing my music ok, how about that? What part is it that makes going behind my back with people I don’t know ok.”
Mark simply stared at him, blinking. Something inside him crumpled; he could feel his heart free-falling from its place in his chest right down to the pit of his stomach. He felt a tear escape, rolling slowly down his cheek – this time he made no move to stop it.
“What are we doing here, Gaz? What is this – you know?” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and hardly noticing as yet more tears fell. “The day I first came to Oldham Street, I remember you standing in the door of the shop, just listening to me play all my songs. I played ones I’d never played for anyone before, because I didn’t want to play you anything twice – I didn’t want you to get bored, I wanted you to keep standing there, watching me play.” Mark let out a small, watery chuckle. “Jay told me later that you’d drove him mad for weeks after that, singing my songs and nothing else round the shop the whole time. He said your eyes lit up when you’d heard me sing because it didn’t sound like anything you’d heard before – and because it was the sort of song you didn’t think you were capable of writing yourself.” Mark smiled lopsidedly. “You fell in love with my music before you fell in love with me: I’ve always known that, you know? I just always told myself it didn’t matter – that’s Gary Barlow, it’s always music with him, just like it’s always rhythm with Howard and Jay. I told myself I thought I was built the same.” He took a deep breath. “I guess I should’ve thought one day you’d turn around and say it was the other way around, I guess I should’ve…I should’ve known how crazy it would make you that I had a world of music inside my head that was just my own, that I had stories to tell you couldn’t tell for me. You fell in love with my music first, Barlow: and you know the daftest part of that? That’s where you can find all my secrets. All my broken, stupid pieces. All that darkness you’re so afraid of now, all those stories you think I’m hiding. I told you who I was the day we met. But I guess I should’ve demanded the same in return, because right now? I’m pretty sure I don’t know you at all – that I’ve never known you.” Mark met Gary’s eyes, and though he was still crying he felt a little stronger – finally strong enough to push himself to his feet. “I’m just starting to wonder, Gaz, you know? How I could love someone who’s always so cold, how I could love someone who sees everything as being black or white and nothing in between.” His voice cracked on the words, and he sniffed again, and this time he tried to brush away his tears. “But I do love you, you know. I love you so much it’s like I don’t know what to do with it – it’s too big to fit inside me and I don’t know what to do about it, how to cope. And those songs? The ones you’re saying I stole? I wrote you into them. Because that’s the only thing I’ve ever known how to do with things that big. I wrote you into all of my songs since the day we met.”
“But how was I supposed to know?” Gary burst out suddenly, getting to his feet and throwing his arms out in a plea. “How was I supposed to…how am I supposed to know?” he asked again, his voice softening slightly with emotion. He shook his head, attempting to blink back tears of his own. “How am I supposed to know?” he asked again in a murmur, looking at the ceiling for a moment before finally looking back into Mark’s eyes, offering him a helpless shrug. “You’re always pulling away at the last moment, you’re always moving.” He swallowed. “How am I supposed to know when every time you turn around, it’s like there’s this whole new side of you I don’t even recognise?”
“You don’t recognise what you don’t want to see – in case it makes you see those flaws in yourself,” Mark whispered, looking down. “You don’t want to love in thunderstorms and broken glass. You want a million love songs and butterflies.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, steeling himself before meeting Gary’s eyes once more. “And the worst part, the part that hurts the most? It’s that, right now, in this moment, even though you’re looking at me and thinking ‘Maybe there’s some truth in that’, it’s still not enough to make you think for one second that this isn’t still somehow my fault. Deep down, you don’t believe in me, Gaz. You didn’t believe in Jay, so why should I be any different? It’s all got to be black and white in your world; day or night, right or wrong. All or nothing. You can’t believe in anyone who might be broken – nothing they do can ever be whole. Not even how they love you.”
He’d wanted to say something. The way Mark had looked at him – imploring some kind of denial or defence – had made him want to say something. But he’d just felt so empty. His skin felt raw and his throat felt dry and there was nothing left. Not even a shred of a song. For the first time in his life, his mind had been completely and totally quiet. And Mark saw it – Gary could see the exact moment he saw it, could see the slight curl of his lip and the sudden spark of anger in his eyes.
“I’m done, Gaz. I’m done.” He’d shaken his head, standing up and backing away from him like he was disgusted. “Do me a favour: when you put this into you first single with Nigel, don’t try and make it sound like I was the one who went and broke your heart,” he’d said through gritted teeth before spinning on his heel and storming out of the room. It had taken Gary a long time to bring himself to move. Strangely, whilst his body felt light and hollow, his head felt like it was made of lead, and lifting it took all his strength. When he finally pushed himself up from the kitchen table and made his way out into the lounge, he’d found Mark moving round the flat like a whirlwind, throwing things into an overnight bag and swiping angrily at the tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Where are you going?” he managed at last, his voice croaky and uncertain. Mark didn’t look at him, simply brushed past him on his way back down the corridor.
“What’s it matter, Gaz? Do you want me to give you a full report on who’ll be there and what song ideas they might give me in the process?” he asked, sullen but sniffling as he turned into the bedroom.
“It’s not like that and you know it, ok? I just…you have so many friends and so many secrets and…and you have so much music inside you…and you don’t tell me where it all goes. You don’t even tell me where it all comes from. It just pours out of you like it’s never going to stop and…I don’t feel like that, Marko. My music…I’m terrified, all the time, that it’s going to stop, that if I don’t keep hold of the pieces of it I have then maybe I’ll never put it together enough to make it.” Gary raked a hand through his hair, feeling desperate and helpless and still not entirely sure how it had all got this far. “It’s all I know for sure that I have, ok? And I spend a lot of my life chasing after the pieces I’ve left behind, the pieces other people leave behind. I live in fear of finding out that I don’t have all those pieces – I’ve never had the luxury of giving myself away the way you do.”
“Giving myself away?” Mark echoed. He stilled, turning from where he’d been rooting around under the bed amongst his shoes and looking up at Gary slowly. “You say that like there’s a choice – every time you write a song you give a piece of yourself away, Gaz. Every time you make a friend or spend a day with your family. Every time you fall in love.” He laughed softly, pushing himself to his feet. “And maybe I’m not saving myself enough, not keeping enough back for any one person to hold on to. Maybe that’s my trouble – maybe Jay’s right, maybe I give too much without checking the cost. But what I do know is that I would’ve tried to show you the world if you’d asked me to, I would’ve poured it all out onto you if you made me think for one moment you wanted to know…I would’ve given you whole universes in a night if I thought it would make you love me. If I thought it would make you lose yourself – lose control – long enough to see what we could have together if we just tried.” With a flourish he turned back, leaning down and grabbing the first pair of boots he could lay his hands on. He snatched them up and whirled round on his heel, stalking past Gary without meeting his gaze. Gary followed the sound of his voice back down the corridor and into the lounge. “And you know, Gaz, do me a favour, ok? When you go and you write down every word of this conversation in your notebook tonight, make sure you don’t take credit for any of the parts that were mine, ok? Since that’s how this works. Don’t plagiarise – but get a song out of it whatever the cost.” He threw the boots into his suitcase and looked up, meeting Gary’s eyes. He was crying still, but his expression was firm and determined. “You’re supposed to give it all away, you know: that’s how love works. You give until there’s nothing left. You fall ‘til there’s nowhere left to fall. And you just…you hope those arms are going to catch you. You believe those arms are going to catch you, when it matters.” He shrugged, a lopsided smile suddenly lighting his face. “I mean, look at How and Jay, you know? They’re so…crazy. And they’re so ok. The sky was falling around their ears and everything was on fire…and they made it out.” The smile vanished, and his eyes turned down to the floor, one tear escaping and rolling down his cheek. He sniffed. “Now look at us: the sky is falling and everything’s on fire. And you’re standing there, convinced I’m the one with the matches.”
***
The evening air was cool and hazy, with a certain summer stillness that made everything seem heavy and bright. The late evening sunshine was pale and soft, glimmering and winking down the street and making pretty shadows across the buildings. Mark squinted up into the light, allowing his vision to blur into smudges of gold light and rainbows through his eyelashes. He shivered slightly, turning to glance back at the flat. He thought he could make out Gary’s silhouette in the bedroom window, but it was hard to tell in the thickness of the evening air and he quickly turned away again, swallowing down the lump in his throat. And then the sound of a car cut through the peace, and Mark looked across towards the end of the street, a great weight of gratitude threatening to overwhelm. The tiniest of smiles briefly flitted across his lips as the car pulled up in front of him: Jason, top-down, shades on, music playing softly in the background.
“Need a lift?” Jason asked, his voice low and calm, his expression kindly neutral. Mark wanted to throw his arms around him for that, for that understanding pretence of normality and for the unquestioning way he’d come when he’d got Mark’s cryptic call. How anyone could ever resent Jason for that instinctive protectiveness he had was beyond Mark – he’d always wanted someone like that in his life, always suspected he needed that to stay sane. Jason wasn’t just the perpetual big brother, he was more than that. He was the 3a.m. friend who would always pick up the phone and show up where you told him you needed him to be. He was the guy who would bail you out of jail as easily as he would agree to buy the next round of drinks. He would patch up cuts and bruises, fight your corner unquestioningly, and never forget your birthday, and, most important of all, he would never ask for an explanation as to why you ended up broken down on some country lane at three o’clock on a Monday morning, or how you locked yourself out of the house, or got cuts all over your face or became involved in a bar brawl in a town you’d never been to before. If you needed help – needed to be saved or mended or stuck up for, if you needed a listening ear or a loyal sidekick, needed a laugh or to have your tears dried, even if you just needed to see a friendly face – you called Jason, any hour of the day or night. And Jason always came: if you needed something from him, in Jason’s world, that was it, you just…needed it. No questions. No judgement. Not even any pity or anger or barbed remarks about the time of day – not unless you looked like you were in need of the banter or if it was well beyond time for some tough love.
Mark had called Jason on instinct, asking for a lift and a bed for the night. Jason hadn’t even hesitated – he’d agreed to pick Mark up like it was the most normal thing in the world, pausing only to ask Howard if he minded taking over cooking dinner. He hadn’t asked Mark why. He hadn’t pointed out that Mark had his own car, or that he had plenty of friends with far more room to put him up for the night. He’d just told him he’d be there in about half an hour, and then he’d come. “Come on, stick your bag in the back and we’ll get off,” Jason prompted softly, and Mark blinked, focusing back on his friend’s face. He’d hooked his shades into the neck of his shirt, and his expression seemed more tender without them – he had some of the most expressive eyes Mark had ever known, and he managed a smile when he met their gaze.
“Thanks Jay,” he murmured, leaning across to put his bag on the back seat. He paused, looking back at Jason thoughtfully. “For everything, you know?” he added then. Jason gave him a small, conspiratorial smile.
“It’s what I’m here for, Marko,” he told him with a shrug. And, Mark knew, it really was that simple to Jason. “Now get in: How’s in charge of dinner, which means he’ll eat it all himself if we’re not home soon,” he added then, eyes twinkling, and Mark was surprised to find himself managing a laugh as he opened the car door. He shook his head slightly, falling back gratefully into the passenger seat, a tiny smile still on his lips. Jason flashed him a wink and restarted the engine.
It was only as they were driving away that the exhaustion hit him, and he suddenly became hyper-aware of the weight of his limbs. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, taking in the feeling of the light evening breeze on his skin. His hair fluttered, tickling him, and beside him Jason was silent, allowing him his peace, the only sound the roar of the road beneath the tyres and the disjointed strumming of a guitar coming over the car’s speakers. The song was mellow and sad and something about it calmed Mark, squashing the nervy feeling in his chest. He felt less like he was about to cry now, but perhaps he was just too tired. In the back of his mind, he could still see Gary’s face, the look he’d given him when he’d come home. As though they’d just been two strangers all this time. And Mark was starting to wonder if maybe that really was all they were to each other after all; his whole world, as steady and secure as it had seemed just one week ago, was suddenly foreign to him, people’s pasts spilling out into the open and changing his perception of everything.
He opened his eyes, glancing over at Jason. He felt his stomach drop as he thought of all the things he had gone through, all the ways he’d been formed into the beautiful soul Mark loved so dearly. But his sadness was tinged with anger. Gary had kept that from him – had kept a part of Jason from him, and not even because Jason had wanted it that way. He knew Jason, he was sure of that, but thanks to Gary he couldn’t help but feel some piece of that friendship that he’d always believed to be so complete – so total, so brotherly – had been missing the whole time.
“What was nineteen-year-old Jay like?” he asked suddenly, his voice soft and rough. A lopsided smile formed on Jason’s lips. He thought for a moment, keeping his eyes on the road, and Mark took the opportunity to study his face. He took in the familiar, sharp angles of it, trying to pick out which parts of it belonged to the Jason he’d first met and which parts came from the Jason of all those years ago. The one who’d danced every night ‘til no other dancer had the stamina left to keep up with him. The one who’d joined that boyband and befriended Gary. The one who got backed into a corner by Nigel Martin-Smith and still didn’t give in. Jason caught his eye for a second and he gave a small, one-shouldered shrug.
“Mostly the same as this Jay,” he replied quietly. “Probably more selfish. Definitely more of an attention-seeker,” he added then, his grin lighting up his face for a moment. “And although Howard would make some crack about ‘How is that even possible?’ despite having no room to talk himself? Definitely cockier too,” he said, rolling his eyes before blowing out a long breath. “Less afraid of people. But learning fast,” he murmured after beat.
Mark watched Jason’s face, and he saw the sadness in it. Jason was so strong in Mark’s eyes. So full of love and kindness and so determinedly loyal. Where Jason saw fear, Mark saw the bravest person he’d ever met: someone who got back up, even with the scratches still raw on his face, and came back every time with more love, more kindness, more loyalty and more compassion. He was neurotic and maddening. But he was funny and clever and charismatic, and he still lit up when you put him on a stage, even if he doubted that light more now. He hadn’t hidden his darkness inside himself the way Mark had, he’d let it smear and smudge across his face and worn it like war paint; he was covered in mud but still dancing, Mark was spotless but frozen in place. And Mark was about to say it all – to try to tell his friend just how much he saw in him – but when he glanced back at Jason again he caught him smiling quietly, and Mark realised that it didn’t need to be said. “It doesn’t change anything, you know,” Jason said and Mark smiled back at him faintly, giving him an almost imperceptible nod. Somehow, Mark realised, Jason had always trusted him to know him, even if Gary hadn’t. Mark tipped his head back against the headrest.
“Okay,” he said with a slow, sleepy nod. “But that’s not the most important part,” Mark added then. Jason raised his eyebrows, glancing at Mark expectantly. “Did nineteen-year-old Jay still make the best cheese toasties known to man? Because that’s what I need to know, Jay,” Mark said, opening one eye to look over at Jason again, flashing him a bright smile. Jason laughed softly, his eyes twinkling in a way that lifted Mark’s spirits more than he’d thought was possible.
“I’m wounded you’re even asking: some of us are just born with talent, Marko,” he joked, his tongue briefly poking out of the corner of his mouth as he licked his lips, his expression mischievous. “Mum’s recipe. I was the only one of any of her boys that listened though,” he added. Mark smiled, closing his eyes again for a moment and sighing.
“Well then I know I would’ve liked nineteen-year-old Jay,” he said thoughtfully. “But I’m glad I got to know this Jay. Our Jay. That makes me happy, that does,” he added more quietly.
Mark caught the small smile on Jason’s lips, and a brief smile flitted across his own face. The two of them fell into an easy silence once more, and though Mark could feel Jason glancing at him thoughtfully now and again, he was grateful that he still didn’t push him to talk. The sun was dipping lower in the sky, casting everything in shades of blue and amber and making the air feel cooler and lighter; Mark watched silently as the city flitted past his eyes, letting the breeze ruffle his clothes and hair and trying to focus on nothing but the sound of the song playing in the car, the slow acoustic shifting into something faster and dreamier as Jason navigated his way around the city traffic and turned off towards Salford Quays.
“He keeps things from me,” Mark said after a few minutes had passed. He bit at his bottom lip and looked down at his hands, avoiding Jason’s eyes. Jason didn’t reply, though, simply tipping his head in acknowledgement of the statement but keeping his eyes on the road. Mark drew in a deep breath. “He keeps things from me, even when something isn’t his secret to keep.” He closed his eyes. “But I’m not allowed secrets. And having them is what makes him doubt me, you know?” When he opened his eyes again, he risked a glance over at Jason, whose expression was quiet and neutral. “There’s only so much you can take feeling like a disappointment to someone. There’s only so many times you can be told you’re the problem before you start going crazy.” Mark shook his head. “And there’s so many problems…what’s the point anyway?”
Jason looked over at Mark, concern on his face. When Mark looked up at him he felt tears prickling the backs of his eyes. He didn’t know what he would have done if he didn’t have Jason in his life; the comfort of his presence was almost overwhelming, and it occurred to him dimly that maybe, if he’d had Jason in his life back when he was nineteen, he wouldn’t have got into half as much of a mess as he did. Maybe he’d have written fewer songs, but Gary Barlow might love him more. Mark looked down at his hands again sharply, playing with the ends of his sleeves and still biting on his lip. Beside him Jason was quiet, licking his lips once more as he looked back at the road, his expression still thoughtful. They were pulling up towards the apartment building, and the way the fading sunlight played off the Salford glass made everything feel strangely ethereal and magic.
As Jason pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine, he sighed softly, pausing for a moment with his hands still on the steering wheel, as though gathering his thoughts. The moment was full of that brotherly mix of sympathy and frustration that he had always given Mark so freely, and if it hadn’t been for the heaviness that had settled in Mark’s chest it would almost have been enough to coax another smile out of him. Then, finally, Jason looked over at him, turning in his seat to face him properly. And although Mark couldn’t quite look him in the eye, he could still make out the bright blue of Jason’s calm, piercing gaze.
“You know, sometimes there aren’t as many problems as you think,” Jason told him, his voice low. “Sometimes…everything just starts further back, with one thing, one moment. If you stop for a second and just filter it down, you might realise there’s more point to talking it over than you realise.” Jason was looking at him so intently, but Mark couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes, shaking his head instead and looking away quickly. Jason’s forehead creased into a frown of concern.
“I tried talking, Jay. It didn’t fix it.” Mark swallowed hard. “Because even though I love Gary Barlow, Gary Barlow doesn’t love me. Not really.” He sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m broken. I don’t work properly. And neither does he. And two broken things…they don’t make a whole.”
Mark felt Jason place a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he still couldn’t look at him. Instead he squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly, waiting for Jason to draw his hand away and get out of the car, waiting for him to say he knew Mark was right and he’d known it all along. Jason saw everything, he had to have seen through his and Gary’s pretence of the perfect romance. But instead, Jason left his hand in place, giving Mark’s shoulder a small, firm squeeze.
“Broken isn’t a definition of a whole person, Marko: take it from someone who knows. Everybody’s broken…at some point you have to figure out the pieces and make something new.”
Mark looked over at Jason sceptically, and Jason offered him a kind smile. “Hey, I know it’s not easy – you know that I know. It took me long enough to figure out. But I did, though. And it started to dawn on me that…sometimes you just have to let it go and accept that you’re broken – but that that’s not all you are. You have to just decide that there’s a person you used to be and a person you are now, but that that’s not the end of what you have to offer. To your own life or someone else’s.”
“What if the person you want doesn’t see it that way?” Mark asked in a croaky voice. “Not everyone in the world is Howard,” he added sadly. Jason chuckled, the sound fond and gentle, and he rolled his eyes slightly.
“And thank God for that: the man’s a nightmare – believe me.” Mark managed a small, wonky smile and Jason shrugged, rolling his eyes with rueful exasperation. “I could bang you and Gary’s heads together sometimes, you know that?” he told him with an affectionate smile. He shook his head and sat back with a sigh. “Ok. Enough soul-searching for now. You look like you could use a good meal and some banter, and lucky for you Howard Donald specialises in both.” He nodded his head towards the apartment building. “Come on – let’s head up before my husband completely destroys my kitchen; you can eat and I can clean, ok?” Mark managed a small laugh, giving Jason a tiny nod of agreement. Jason nodded back, eyes twinkling. “Good. And when you’re done eating, you can tell me what the hell happened between you and Gaz tonight,” he added. Mark couldn’t help but let out a small, shaky laugh.
“You tricked me,” he protested softly and Jason shrugged.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m just the same old Jay, always needing someone to save,” he said, rolling his eyes and offering Mark a wry smile. Mark smiled back softly, shaking his head.
“No. You’re just…Jay. That’s the best thing about you, you know? You’re just Jay. No games, no demands. Just heart and soul…and a strange need to perform handstands in public places.”
“And here I thought my handstands were the only reason we were friends.”
***
Gary paced up and down the flat, turning his mobile over in his hand but finding he was not quite able to bring himself to actually swallow his pride and just give Mark a call. He’d watched him from the bedroom window as he’d stood on the pavement outside their home, shivering slightly in the evening air, looking so small and lost. Gary had been about to run out after him and make one more attempt at reigning their argument back in, at coaxing him back inside so they could talk, so he could try to get his point across better this time, in a way that wasn’t so harsh and accusatory. But then he’d spotted Jason’s car. It had been the same as when he’d watched Howard opening up the shop that morning: the feeling of total displacement, like he was trapped behind a two-way mirror, watching them live their lives without him, leaving him isolated and unneeded. And yet, even as he had looked down at Mark throwing his overnight bag into Jason’s backseat, some part of his brain wasn’t processing everything that was happening; he was still holding his breath, waiting for Mark to turn around and come back home. He kept going to the windows every time he thought he heard a car, kept imagining the sound of a key in the lock or thought he felt his phone vibrating in his hand. He jumped at shadows. And he fully expected Mark to walk through the door before it went dark.
In the end it was Jason who texted him. Sweet, stupidly loyal Jason Orange. Surprising how the fight with Mark almost paled in comparison when he thought of his argument with Jason. He had no idea how to explain himself, how to make up for all the years of doubt which Nigel had managed to deflate in a sentence, his tone dismissive like it hadn’t changed a thing. And yet there Jason was anyway, lighting up his phone screen with – of all things – an apology for not being able to talk Mark into coming home. Gary closed his eyes and chucked his phone down onto the coffee table, falling back against the sofa cushions with a strangled yell. How could it only take him forty-eight hours to destroy his life? Because sure, maybe Nigel had handed him the bombs, but he had to own up to being the one to detonate them, and now he had no idea how to begin the clean-up. For all Jason’s kindness, he couldn’t face him after what he’d done – and if the thought of facing Jason was scary, the thought of facing Howard again was outright terrifying. And as for Mark, where could he begin? Taking it all back would just be a lie – he was still wounded at the thought of Mark in that studio, writing without him, and he didn’t know how to shake that. But when he tried to reason it out in his head, he knew he had no right to feel so betrayed.
His phone lit up again and Gary leant up, peering down at the screen. His eyes widened in disbelief when he saw Nigel’s name on the screen: Hate to do this to you Gary, but urgent business in London. I won’t be around for a week or so. I’ll let you know when I’m back up North and we’ll set something up. Nigel had always been good for performing a hit and run.
***
The hoodie was soft, clean and comforting. Mark pulled the well-worn fabric over his head, closing his eyes for a moment as he let out a breath. Being one of Howard’s, the hoodie completely dwarfed Mark’s smaller form, the sleeves pooling dramatically at his wrists, but there was still something strangely reassuring about the scent of the material, freshly washed as it was; the smell of the fabric softener reminded him of rainy weekends when he was a kid, the same mixture of safety and familiarity coming back to him so strongly his lips curved into a slow, nostalgic smile. He supposed he looked somewhat comical, between his damp hair, the hoodie sleeves bunched up in his hands and the tracksuit bottoms – an old pair of Jason’s – rolled up multiple times at his waist. But for once he didn’t mind. His case was full of odd, uncomfortable and mismatched items which he’d thrown in without really thinking it through, but there was something genuinely sweet about Jason’s knowing smile and the way he’d wordlessly gone and rummaged through his and Howard’s wardrobes whilst Mark had showered, knocking on the bathroom door to let him know he’d left the clothes outside for him.
As Mark emerged from the bathroom he could hear the sound of Howard and Jason’s voices, low and rough and playful, their laughter crackly and warm. The radio was humming away in the background, and the occasional splashes and clanks suggested the pair were attending to the dishes left over from dinner – a tasty concoction of Howard’s making that Mark would have enjoyed a little more if Howard and Jason hadn’t been firmly, but gently, insisting he tell them everything that had happened between him and Gary earlier. Mark hadn’t been able to read their expressions as he’d told them the whole sorry story, and after a while he’d begun to mumble his explanations to his plate, studiously avoiding their gazes; that had been when Jason had kindly changed the subject to something lighter and, eventually, suggested Mark would feel better after a shower and a change of clothes. As was so often the case, Jason had been right; though not a complete fix, Mark had to admit he felt slightly less like he might break any moment, and that was a welcome relief.
“Have you ever noticed how your definition of wrong is usually just ‘not how you’d do it’?”
“No, my definition of wrong is usually whatever way you’re doing something, Donald.”
“When you talk like that I start to think you don’t love me.”
“Howard Donald, if I didn’t love you then you’d be out this apartment in a heartbeat and I wouldn’t spend half my life wiping fingerprints off every reflective surface in sight.”
“Not my fault you like living in a palace of glass, you know.”
“Of course: we could’ve lived happily ever after at your place instead, if I’d somehow managed to cram my body into that shoebox you called home.”
“Actually, I think I would’ve had a lot of fun trying to cram your body into that shoebox I called home.”
“I don’t even want to know how you’re making that sound dirty.”
“Your mind made it sound dirty, love: I’ve got the soul of a saint.”
“Which means I have to have the patience of one.”
Mark grinned fondly as he listened in on Jason and Howard’s bickering. He could hear the clank of plates and the swishing of water in the sink, punctuating every barb and dig, and as he came out of the corridor he realised why. Both Howard and Jason were spattered with suds from the washing up liquid, and as they stood side by side at the sink, they elbowed and jabbed at each other, flicking water and laughing softly. Howard was making a poor attempt at drying, and Jason leant over to inspect the plate he was placing on the drainer. “You missed a spot,” he remarked, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as he ducked away from another flick of soap suds from Howard.
“You’re a control freak, you know that?” Howard asked, his tone rough but playful and a grin on his lips. Jason beamed back at him innocently, giving a casual shrug.
“So I’ve been told.” He lifted a plate from out of the sink and handed it to Howard, who took it without needing to look. “Which begs the question: what do I see in you?”
“A sexy body and a cracking knack for telling jokes?” Howard suggested. Jason splashed him and they both smiled at each other, Jason arching an eyebrow in challenge.
“Are you absolutely sure you can hear yourself when you talk, or does the sound just never make it through all those layers of un-combable curls?” he asked, and Howard narrowed his eyes at him.
“Are you making digs about my hair?” he shot back, and Jason smiled back at him pleasantly, standing up on his tiptoes just slightly and flicking some water straight into Howard’ face.
“Anything that needs that much hairspray to keep it going, I’m going to be questioning the manageability of.”
“Oh you are going to pay for that one, Orange!” Howard exclaimed, scrunching up one eye and wiping the soap suds from it enough whilst reaching out with his other arm and grabbing Jason around the waist. “I always win and you know it!”
“Don’t you ever get sick of saying that, coz I know I get sick of hearing it,” Jason said archly, struggling slightly in Howard’s grasp, elbowing him off him.
“I wouldn’t have to keep saying it if you just knew when to give up, love,” Howard replied, making another grab and biting back a grin as Jason dodged out of the way with ease.
“If you wanted someone who knew when to give up, why’d you fall in love with me?”
“Coz I like a challenge – now stop struggling and c’mere!” Howard splashed more water in Jason’s direction, not quite catching him as he ducked just in time.
“Where’s the challenge in that, Donald?!” Jason shot back, getting another flick of soap suds in somehow amidst the chaos.
The two struggled for a moment, laughing and jabbing each other back and forth, still managing to get splashes in at each other every now and again, and Mark simply stood watching them for a moment, trying not to laugh as Howard began trying to tug Jason back to him once more. It was an insight into their world away from other people’s eyes; not too different from their public personas, the same battle of wills playing out the way it always did, just with even more flirtation in between.
After a minute, Mark cleared his throat, and the laughing pair fell back against each other, turning around quickly and attempting to smother their laughter. Jason’s eyes glittered as he swotted Howard off him.
“Now I know why you didn’t want me to help with the washing up,” Mark grinned at them, clambering up to sit at the breakfast bar. Jason rolled his eyes.
“No, that’s because I’ve seen how you wash up, Mark Owen: unbelievably, you’re worse than this one,” Jason told him, his smile mischievous. Howard flicked him with the dishcloth and Jason stuck his tongue out at him, snatching the cloth out of his hands before turning pointedly back to Mark. “Feeling any better?” he asked, his tone bright and kind. From anyone else it could’ve been patronising, but from Jason it only made Mark smile softly. He offered him a one-shouldered shrug.
“A bit. Well, no, a lot, actually. But there’s only so much warm water and a hoodie can do to stop me going over everything in my head though, you know?” he sighed. Jason nodded, tipping his head to one side in thought.
“Brew?” he offered. Mark’s smile widened.
“Would you mind?”
“Course not. I’ll even let you put in your own sugar,” Jason told him with a wink. Howard waggled his eyebrows at Mark comically, nodding his head in Jason’s direction.
“Eh, he’s never said that to me you know,” he joked. Jason suppressed a smile, glancing over his shoulder at Howard and narrowing his eyes at him.
“Shut up, Trouble, and finish off the dishes.” Howard pulled a face.
“Oh now you trust me to wash the plates the ‘right’ way,” he teased. Jason threw the dishcloth at him, and as Howard plucked it from his face the two shared an amused smile before both turning back to their tasks.
“You know, I remember the moment I first thought you two were going to last,” Mark said after a moment, his head on one side. Jason and Howard both turned to glance back at him curiously, before exchanging a worried glance of their own. Mark ignored their concern, looking down and drawing in a deep breath. “I was in the back room with Gaz messing about on the piano – we were letting you pair work on the stock-take whilst we argued about some chorus or other.”
“Some things never change,” Howard remarked idly, leaning back against the counter as he dried his hands. Jason smothered a smile, placing a mug of tea and a sugar bowl in front of Mark and rolling his eyes.
“You were saying, Marko,” he prompted, pulling himself up to sit on the counter. Mark smiled, cupping the tea in his hands and busying himself with shovelling in the sugar, looking down into his mug somewhat shyly.
“It was funny, you know: you two could always keep up that rhythm when you talked, like it was a tennis match, but with in-jokes and wind-ups. Like you’d known each other forever.” Mark flicked a glance up at Jason, who was watching him quietly. “Me and Gaz have always loved you, Jay, but we couldn’t ever keep up with you, you know?” he said. Jason smiled, eyes shining as he looked over, briefly, to Howard before quickly turning away before his smile grew too wide. “I was sat in the back room just listening to the two of you go on at your own little stand-up routine. And I suddenly thought: I’ve never heard Jay laugh like that before. It was like I was hearing you for the first time, almost – like when you play a new song on your best headphones and hear all these extra notes. And the more I listened, the more I realised that, on some level, Howard must’ve known it too, because the more you laughed the more he’d go. This bloke who only ever mumbled to everyone else became the life-and-soul just like that, and it made me smile. Because I knew it was good – it was supposed to be like that, it was going to be something made to last.” Mark sighed, shaking his head. He took a sip of his tea, closing his eyes and squeezing them tight, taking a moment to gather himself. “But with me and Gaz, it’s never been that clear at all.”
“Marko-” Jason began to protest, but Mark cut him off with a shake of his head.
“No, it hasn’t. Not really. I can’t think of one moment where I knew we’d be ok – not like with the two of you.” Mark swallowed back the tears which were threatening him, shivering slightly as the wave of emotion made its way down his spine. “You know, sometimes…sometimes I’ve wondered if me and Gaz only ended up together because it made sense, because you and Howard were together and it just…made things simple. Rounded things off.” He gave a sad, rueful smile. “Sometimes I think we’re just each other’s cosmic consolation prize. We don’t belong together, we’re just together for the sake of having a relationship.”
When he looked up, he found both Howard and Jason were looking at him with marked concern, and he shrugged somewhat helplessly. “Sometimes it just feels hopeless – like we’re pretending to be something we’re not because it’s better than being alone.”
“Marko, you can’t believe that: you and Gaz have been half-nuts over each other since the first day you showed up on Oldham Street,” Jason told him softly. Mark looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
“But it didn’t go anywhere.”
“Maybe not right away,” Jason admitted with a small, fond chuckle. “But believe me, it almost did plenty of times: I wanted to throttle the pair of you half the time.” Mark couldn’t help but smile slightly.
“He’s telling the truth you know,” Howard put in. Mark looked over at him, raising his eyebrows slightly. Howard flashed him a mischievous grin in response.
“The parts of our conversations you weren’t eavesdropping on? He told me the whole story: the visits to the shop, the songwriting sessions, the lunchbreaks at the caff where he had to play chaperone because you were both too shy to just admit you wanted to see each other and whenever you were left alone you’d both sit there twiddling your thumbs like little awkward schoolkids.” Howard’s grin widened as he exchanged a glance with Jason then shrugged, looking back at Mark, eyes alight with friendly amusement. “Our second date wasn’t even supposed to be a date: Jay showed up at my door and told me you pair were driving him crazy, mooning over each other but doing nothing about it, both pretending you hadn’t kissed when you were both in front of him then confiding in him behind each other’s backs.” Howard shrugged, leaning back, his smile softening. “I took him to my DJ gig with me: one of the best gigs I’ve ever played and he even kissed me in the booth. Whole club was saying how jealous they were the whole night. I still probably owe you and Gaz ‘Thank You’ cards for that,” he added then, looking down with shy laugh. Jason’s expression was shy too, but he covered it with a roll of his eyes.
“The point is: you two might not have been simple, but there has always been something between you that was special – neither one of you would have been so scared if it wasn’t.”
Mark nodded, but his expression was still sceptical. He wanted to believe Jason, but from where he was sitting he just couldn’t reconcile his and Gary’s history of crossed wires and false starts with the picture of romance he had in his head. “You both build up romance so much in your heads, you know that?” Jason said, as though he was reading Mark’s thoughts. His voice was low and gentle, and when Mark glanced up at him with a frown he simply watched him quietly with those bright, piercing eyes of his. “Love isn’t about how good you are at making the story perfect, and if you think How and me have a perfect story then you obviously have forgotten how we even ended up together – crossed wires, resistance, uncertainty…sound familiar?” He arched an eyebrow, his lips quirking up at one corner, and Mark laughed slightly, shaking his head.
“It’s not the same though. You still got your kiss in the rain. But Gaz and me, we-”
“Want the same things out of life. Care about the same things, share the same values. You both look at the world from a really similar point of view.” Jason sighed. “That’s what counts, you know. Not the stories you haven’t told each other or the parts of each other’s lives you don’t open up about so easily. When it comes down to it: you do know him, in the ways that count. The other stuff can come later, as long as you know the life you’re trying to get to at the end of it is the life both of you want.”
For a moment, Mark considered the thought. He tried to think back over all their conversations, all the times their values and ambitions had been challenged.
“Maybe I used to think that,” he half-whispered. “Maybe before…before the stuff with Rob came up and before he started talking about you and Nigel and your past.” Mark huffed, shaking his head and closing his eyes, trying to clear his mind. He took a long gulp of tea. “We want the same things in life. We look at the world the same way. We believe in the same things.” He looked up at Jason then, his expression lost and his eyes unusually dim. “But every time any of those values or hopes get tested? We fall apart. And we fight. Or we just walk on eggshells for a while to make sure we don’t.”
“So what?” Howard put in, his voice softer than Mark had ever heard it before. He looked up, brow furrowed, and Howard shrugged. “People fight and fall apart and avoid things they don’t want to talk about all the time. Whether or not you want to keep pushing? That’s what matters.”
Mark smiled a sad, lopsided smile, looking away. Howard and Jason were all push – even their idea of romance pushed; they liked challenging each other, they liked having something to fight for. They even liked having things to bicker over. But Mark and Gary liked comfortable, cosy, sweet. Did that count as a shared value? Mark worried at his lip and tapped his thumb against his mug. “Look, don’t get me wrong: Gary Barlow has been a prize prat this past week, and I fully intend to tell him so – whether Jay wants me to or not,” Howard added suddenly, before letting out a huffy sigh. “But he’s human. Jay can be a prat sometimes too. I can be a prat a lot of the time. But you sulk, you sort it out in your head and then you look at it all differently in the morning.” Howard shrugged. “This doesn’t have to be something that undermines your whole life together, you know?” Mark let out a hollow laugh, slumping a little across the breakfast bar.
“That’s probably a lot easier to say for a bloke whose relationship couldn’t even be undermined by his husband going missing,” he murmured, wincing slightly at the clumsy way he’d let the words slip out and looking between Howard and Jason guiltily. They didn’t look at him, though – they glanced at each other.
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Howard’s lips for a moment, his eyes intense. Then slowly he looked down, his eyebrows knitting into a frown once more.
“Look: in a battle of Jay versus the world? I will always be on Jay’s side.” He looked up at Mark again, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “Don’t matter if we’re arguing, don’t matter if we’re not talking, don’t matter if he’s being a bastard to me about something stupid. It don’t even matter if I know he’s wrong. I’m on Jay’s side no matter what, all he has to do is take my hand and tell me we’re off to war, then I’m ready. It’s not even about the relationship at that point – it’s about the fact Jay doesn’t deserve half the crap he gets thrown at him, and husband or not I’m not putting up with it.” Mark flicked a quick glance at Jason, just catching his small, shy smile. “But that’s not the point,” Howard added quietly. “This right now? It isn’t Gary Barlow versus the world. It’s maybe Gary Barlow versus Nigel and history – and me if he keeps on the way he is. But at the heart of it, what this comes down to right now, is Gary Barlow versus you. He’s an idiot for saying what he said, but at the same time, Marko, the only person who can decide whether or not it undermines your relationship is you.”
And Mark knew he was right. He could’ve chosen to fight his corner harder. He could’ve chosen to stay at the flat and hear Gary out. He could’ve tried to keep a clearer head. But he’d just felt too much: too hurt, too angry, too confused. The sound of those words coming out of Gary’s mouth still rung in his head – brittle and off-key. He flinched and blinked back an unexpected onslaught of fresh tears. Howard was right, he was letting this undermine his and Gary’s relationship. But the alternative seemed unbearable: keep listening to that sound, keep feeling...just keep feeling. Feeling everything. Feeling too much.
Mark swallowed hard.
“If we really belong together, if we’re supposed to be the loves of each other’s lives…then why does it hurt so much? Why does it feel like the most un-survivable sort of pain every time we argue, even if it’s just about stupid stuff?”
“Papercuts, Marko,” Jason replied. Mark looked up at Jason with a small frown, and Jason smiled back at him quietly, giving a quick shrug. His head was tipped just slightly to one side, and as Mark met his gaze he found himself surprised by how much those blue eyes could express with just one quiet look: it was a look full of everything – sympathy, encouragement and understanding all at once. Mark felt like his whole body ached, but Jason’s smile was still soothing somehow, like the coolness of water on a burn.
“Papercuts?” Mark repeated, brow still furrowed. Jason lifted both his hands, briefly waving his fingers elegantly. His ring caught the light with the movement. He leant back and gave a small nod.
“Papercuts – that’s what it all comes down to,” he said softly. “Look, you know when you get a papercut on your finger: it hurts like mad and you feel the whole finger must be about to fall off because of it. But it’s not. It’s a tiny cut and it’s healed by the next morning.” He shrugged again. “But the thing is, that’s where all the nerve endings are. It makes everything feel worse than it really is.” Jason’s expression clouded, and he looked down. “Fighting with Howard about a last minute change of plans or a lost car key hurts. The feeling when we fight about the stuff that actually matters? It’s unbearable.” He gave Mark a small sympathetic smile. “We’ve all been there, Marko: sometimes, when you really care about someone…having them say something to you you don’t like…it feels un-survivable. It feels like everything inside you is on fire. Except in the centre of your chest…where everything just goes cold.”
“That sounds familiar,” Mark conceded quietly, taking another sip of his tea. Jason nodded.
“Ok. But…you know, if you get a paper cut you don’t chop off your whole finger and lose all hope,” he pointed out. “The nerve endings are there for a reason. Gaz isn’t just anyone, you know? He gets to say things to you no one else could – good and bad. He can say things to you he shouldn’t say and still be forgiven.”
Mark looked at Jason thoughtfully, licking his lips before he spoke again, in a low, careful voice.
“So…what if it was Howard?” he asked. He sat up a little, meeting Jason’s eyes somewhat cautiously. He felt strangely nervous asking: as though he knew the answer but didn’t really want to hear it. Jason and Howard exchanged a glance, and Mark looked over at Howard too, eyes wide, imploring and uncertain. “What if it was Jay?” he asked. “Who told you you were a liar and a cheat and he wished you didn’t have a past? Who said he couldn’t trust you or believe in you enough for things to be ok?”
Howard opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, shaking his head slightly and offering Mark a helpless shrug.
“I don’t know,” he sighed, looking over at Jason again, who offered him a tiny smile. And Mark could read that smile all too well. It was a smile that said Jason knew exactly why Howard couldn’t answer, that said Jason was grateful to Howard for tactfully not saying the one thing they all knew was true.
“But he wouldn’t say those things, though,” Mark said slowly, his voice croaky. “And neither would you.” His lips twisted into a devastated little smile. “There could be photos, recordings, witnesses and a signed confession, but if one of you looked the other one in the face and told them there was some other sort of explanation, then it’s over. There’s no issue any more. You’ve always believed each other – you’ve always known each other, on some level. Right from the start, it’s always been the same.” Mark closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “But me and Gaz…”
“Marko-” Jason started, then cut himself off with a heavy sigh. “You don’t know Nigel, ok? You don’t know what it’s like to have him…” Jason swallowed hard, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling. His usually fluid body was suddenly rigid, his muscles tense, and he seemed to hold his breath for a moment, gathering himself. “Ok. So…to this day, I don’t know how he found out about my dad: I never told him, but somehow he knew the whole story within weeks of me joining the band. He knew all our weak spots – and when he thought one of us was about to step out of line, or when he wanted to remind all of us that he controlled our whole lives, he’d use whatever weapon he knew would hurt most.” Jason rolled his eyes dismissively, but his face was still unnaturally pale and solemn. “I was still dancing as often as I could, even after I joined the band – I still took any job I was offered because I needed the cash and…it was nice to go back to that environment where I knew for sure I belonged.” He shook his head. “It drove Nigel mad. Looking back I can see why: it was because it was giving me some sort of life away from him, it was taking away that little extra bit of control he had over the others where he was more or less at the centre of their whole world. I never told Nigel what jobs I was doing or where they were, but half the time he still found out. Sometimes he’d even show up, try and make a bit of a scene and piss off everyone I was working with in the hope they’d associate me with him and never book me again. But I had no contract locked in with Nigel at that time, and everyone knew it. So we got stuck this ugly pattern of him trying to piss off everyone around me and cut me off, failing, getting more pissed off at me and wanting even more to cut me off. God only knows how it didn’t send us both our separate ways much sooner, thinking about it.” Jason gave a rueful smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “One night I was at this club for a TV job – I’d done a couple of pieces for this program all about the break dancing scene in different cities up and down the country and they’d ask me back whenever they came to Manchester. I was looking forward to it, actually; they were great people and we always had a laugh on these night shoots, messing about, all us dancers posing and joking around with each other.” Jason pulled a face. “It had been a crap day with the band at rehearsals, to be honest. Nigel had just threatened to throw me out. Again. We’d spent a whole day trying to work out some upbeat number, and Gaz just could not get it right. Back then he used to hate trying to do anything upbeat – you think he prefers ballads now, but you should’ve heard him go on back then whenever Nigel begged him for ‘something you can dance to’ to liven up our set. Nigel was getting ratty over how bad this song was…but he couldn’t take it out on Gaz and risk losing the relationship he’d built with him, so instead the rest of us got it in the next. Especially me, of course: I was always the problem somehow.” Jason blew out a quick, sharp breath and leant his head back. “I was so glad to get out of there that night. And I think Nigel must’ve worked out there was something going on that I was looking forward to, although I still don’t know how he found the club. He had plenty of contacts though. I probably should’ve known he’d show.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mark could see Howard tensing, his fist clenching and unclenching a couple of times before he abruptly folded his arms, turning his eyes determinedly to a point on the kitchen wall. It told Mark that, not only did Howard know this story, but also that there was no way on earth it ended well. “Nigel walked in about half way through the shoot. Started going round telling everyone he was my manager and watching the filming from the bar, always making sure he knew I could see him. By the end of the night the whole crew hated him – none of them trusted him. The director even offered to stay when he saw him hanging around waiting for me after everyone else was going home…maybe I should’ve taken him up on the offer but…no one’s good at asking for help when they’re nineteen, I don’t think.” He smiled faintly. “I’m still crap at it now.” Mark smiled slightly too, flicking another glance at Howard, whose face was still fixed in a tense frown. “That night I told you about at the show, when Gaz walked in and Nigel had me up against the wall? It wasn’t the first night it had come that close; it was the first time he’d hurt me, but…Nigel found every excuse he could to put his hands on me.” Jason closed his eyes, swallowing hard. Mark could see the sheer effort it was taking him just to hold himself together without shuddering or breaking down. And yet, just as he had in the shop before, Howard kept his distance – still all-too aware there were some stories which Jason simply couldn’t tell when he could feel anyone, even Howard, touching his skin. “Once Nigel had got me alone he got me by the arm – just hard enough that he knew it’d hurt me more to try and struggle than to just stand there and take it.” Another pause. Jason took another breath, and this time Mark caught the slight tremor. “He leant in close and started whispering in my ear: he made it clear exactly what offer he was putting on the table in terms of what I could do to help convince him to make my place in the band more secure.” Mark felt bile in his throat and a cold chill went through him.
“God, Jay-”
“When I told him no his grip on my arm just got tighter. He got even closer in, to the point there was condensation forming on my neck from where he was breathing on me. He told me I had pretty lips, but that they were full of poison, that that was why people always left me. He told me it was hardly surprising no one stuck around in my life – told me everyone would always leave me in the end and that I should’ve made the most of the security he could offer in terms of the band. He told me ‘You should’ve made the most of me, Jay, because now you’ll always be alone. That’s what happens to kids whose own fathers don’t even want to know them’ and then he let me go so quickly I almost fell over. He walked off like nothing had happened and he never spoke to me about the offer again.” Jason shook his head slowly, squeezing his eyes tight shut. “But I know he knew those words didn’t stop going round in my head. He’d smile at me sometimes, in a way that just said he knew exactly what I was thinking…and he was so proud to have put that thought there, and even more proud that I couldn’t get it out.”
“Jay, that’s awful,” Mark breathed. Jason looked over at him with a sad whisper of a smile.
“No, the awful part is that last month, me and How were arguing over some daft last minute change to his work schedule, and I looked him dead in the eye and I told him to go.” Mark’s eyes widened slightly. “I said ‘I know you’re going to leave me anyway, so just get it over with already’ and I told him that I knew that’s what he wanted because everyone leaves me and he was no different.” Mark looked over at Howard in alarm, and Howard raised a small, wry smile, a strange mixture of sadness and fondness lighting his eyes as he shrugged and exchanged a glanced with Jason.
“He went to bed, assuming I’d done as I was told and was already gone – I thought he could use the rest so I just kept my head down and kipped on the sofa,” he put in. “Next thing I know it’s three in the morning and he’s dragging me up and telling me to come to bed.” Howard shrugged, an impish grin briefly crossing his features. “Sounded like an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he added, meeting Jason’s eyes. Jason shook his head, rolling his eyes and smothering a smile before looking back over at Mark.
“The point is: all these years later, that voice…there’s still an echo of it. I still remember all those things he told me and I still remember the way he looked at me that night, giving me this bizarre sermon on ‘pretty lips’ and how they poison everything. And some part of me believed him. Even though the logical part of my brain knows it’s ridiculous.” Jason sighed, shrugging again and looking across at Howard, his face no longer haunted and grey, a new tenderness coming into his eyes. “And I accused Howard. And I called him a liar and a sneak and I told him to go. And I haven’t spoken to Nigel in years, but I still let myself lose it anyway.” Howard reached across the small space between them, and instinctively Jason moved his hand, letting Howard take it and watching with a small smile as he leant over and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Then Jason’s eyes returned to Mark. “Gaz screwed up, Marko. There’s no getting round it. He should never have said those things, especially not to you. But like I said: I last spoke to Nigel years ago, and I lost it, and I said things I shouldn’t have said. For Gaz? It’s only been a matter of hours, you know? That’s as fresh as it gets.”
Mark nodded slowly, turning the idea over in his head. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t take a little of the edge off Gary’s words. He shivered slightly, the image of Nigel Jason had conjured up even more chillingly sinister the more he thought about it. This shadow of a figure from the past – sketched out to Mark in just a few short stories – seemed somehow to have seeped into his life without him even realising until the blackness was all around him. Struggling just made the grip of it tighter.
“You didn’t see the way Gaz looked at me though, Jay.” Mark traced a pattern on the side of his mug. “You didn’t see that look in his eyes,” he added in a murmur, his voice croaky and broken, like he hadn’t used it for a year. He didn’t want to admit any of this out loud, he didn’t want to say the words because that meant admitting the truth to himself. “He looked like he was afraid of me. Like the person I am scared him more than anything else and there was no getting past it.”
Mark brushed quickly at a rogue tear as it slid down his cheek. He heard the dull thud of Jason sliding down from the counter, and when he looked up he saw him come around to sit beside him at the breakfast bar, placing a gentle hand on his forearm.
“It’s ok,” Jason told him softly, brushing his thumb reassuringly against his arm. His mum used to do that, Mark recalled dimly – when he was little and was still scared of the dark.
“But it’s not, you know,” Mark said tightly, swallowing more tears. “It’s not ok.” He was still a little bit scared of the dark, he thought absently. He looked up into Jason’s face and gave him a watery smile. “I know no matter what, you would never look at Howard that way – you couldn’t even if you wanted to.” He shrugged helplessly, and he saw in Jason’s eyes that he couldn’t argue the point. “I almost thought we had that once. You know, that thing you and Howard have – where you just know it’s safe. Where you don’t have to hold everything in all the time.” He felt more tears escaping, and he was grateful for Jason’s hand still firm and kind on his arm, the repetitive stroke of his thumb soothing. “The thing is, you have a place, because of that. The place where it’s all ok. The person you are is just…ok, you don’t have to hold anything in – someone else has got your back no matter what you say or do, they know you too well to let you fall. And when you have that…it’s ok to push that boundary, you know? To say the stupid thing, to fall apart and screw up…to let go and be the person you are, even the bad bits.” Mark shook his head. “And the worst part is…I don’t think I’m built to cope without it, you know? I…I can’t cope. I just…”
Mark trailed off, unable to keep speaking without his tears cracking his voice. He tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling and trying to swallow down the lump in his throat. Beside him Jason didn’t say a word, but he kept his hand on Mark’s arm, kept stroking his thumb back and forth with perfect, steady rhythm. “I thought…I thought for a moment we’d found it, you know?” he whispered after a minute had passed. “God it sounds awful to say, but-” He glanced over at Jason somewhat sheepishly, and Jason raised his eyebrows expectantly. “When you were gone, Jay, we were so close…God, I can’t say that, it’s…it’s awful, but…” He moved his mouth but no words came, and Jason gave him a quiet, easy smile, tipping his head lazily to one side.
“It’s fine, I’m over it – I promise,” he said, like it was a phrase he was growing used to repeating. Mark glanced over at Howard, his eyebrows quirked in sceptical query, and Howard offered him a dry smirk in return.
“He’s telling the truth.” He shrugged. “As over it as anyone ever gets,” he added then. Mark smiled slightly and nodded, glancing down, still not sure he should be talking about it in front of Jason and Howard, as though their happiness was somehow to blame for his distraught state. Then he felt Jason give him a nudge, and he looked up in surprise.
“It’s ok, you know: to find some sort of comfort in the midst of a crisis,” he pointed out gently. “And who else was going to understand you better at that time? Howard?” Jason arched one eyebrow, the serious look in his eyes briefly replaced with something more mischievous. “He’s not your type – and anyway, he had other things on his mind,” he added. Mark let out a snuffly laugh, looking over at Howard, who grinned back at him kindly.
“He’s got a point,” he said brightly. Mark laughed again, brushing at the tear-tracks on his cheeks and blowing out a breath.
“I don’t know…I suppose that was it, you know? We were the only two people in the world who understood exactly what was going through our heads.” He smiled sadly. “We coped the same way. We thought the same way. We felt the same way. And when one of us couldn’t cope? It was ok: the other one knew what to say.”
“Four letter words,” Jason said quietly, knowingly, and Mark looked at him in confusion. Jason smiled.
“A Howard Donald Theory, but for once he might be on to something.” Off Mark’s expectant look he shrugged and nodded his head towards Howard, who was looking shyly down at the floor. “Sometimes, when something is really special? The only way to really explain it is with four letter words,” Jason elaborated. “Talk, know, stay, safe, hope, home. Life.” He shrugged. “Love.”
“Rain,” Howard put in softly. He and Jason looked at each other for a moment, and though Mark couldn’t quite judge the expressions on their faces, he still felt a slight shiver go down his spine.
“I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone like that,” he whispered. “Gaz, in moments. But not enough.” He licked his lips and found they tasted of salt. “I always fall down when it comes to the rain,” he said thoughtfully. He looked over at Howard. “I’m not brave like you.” Howard smiled dimly.
“Oh, I had my moments,” he sighed. “It’s a funny thing: knowing full well you’re capable of living without someone but not really wanting to. I love Jay so much – the way I feel about him, about being around him, just fills me up, to be honest. Like I can feel every single cell in my body kicking off. Trying to think about living without that: it’s like that moment at the end of a concert when the lights go up and you’re left stood there like a lemon, blinking and bewildered and gutted. Your ears are still ringing but you know it’s over.” Howard glanced at Jason, then Mark. “A part of you still hopes the band will come back out and play another song, you know?” He shrugged. “There’s probably a difference between being brave and being stubborn. I like the music too much. I like feeling it in every cell in my body; makes my world a more colourful place.”
As the three of them fell into silence, Mark tried to think how loving Gary made him feel. But all he could come up with at that moment was the fear: fear of not being enough, fear of being broken, fear that the real world wasn’t the place for a love-song romance. He tried to think of a moment when he’d felt lit up, felt his cells vibrating. Felt music. And suddenly, unbidden, an image of running down a steep, grassy bank, laughing and yelling at Robbie to slow down came into his mind. They hadn’t been drunk, for once – well, not entirely. Robbie hadn’t even been high on anything, Mark didn’t think. They’d snuck into the park at night for a midnight picnic – it had been Mark’s birthday and Robbie hadn’t been able to afford a proper present. What he’d come up with was better. He’d got a bottle of cheap fizz from somewhere, stolen no doubt but Mark had tried not to think about it; most of the contents had exploded over the two of them when Robbie opened it, and he’d proceeded to chase Mark around beneath the muzzy starlight of the city park, spraying him with what remained. And somehow, Mark couldn’t remember how, Robbie had stolen his coat from him, and it was a freezing night and all Mark could do was laugh and chase Robbie back, criss-crossing the park, laughing and yelling until finally Robbie jumped out at him, grabbing him up and swinging him around, both of them laughing like crazy. And Robbie had kissed him and in that moment – Mark knew – he had felt that every-cell-vibrating feeling. He even felt a ghost of it again now as he thought back to the taste of that kiss: cigarettes and cheap champagne.
“I think maybe I loved someone like that once,” he murmured into the quietness of the room, only dimly aware he was speaking the words out loud. “For a few weeks, before it all got out of control.” There was nostalgia in his smile. He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a long breath. “I don’t think I was built to cope with…that much all at once.” He scrunched up his face. “Maybe I was just too young, I don’t know.”
When he looked over at Jason he found that kindly, understanding look of his was on his face. In the dimness of the kitchen his blue eyes were dark, but they still glittered away like always, seeing everything.
“You and Rob?” he asked softly. Mark’s lips twitched up ever so slightly at the corners and Jason gave a small nod.
“I think maybe you only get one shot at that kind of love though,” Mark said then. He bit at his lip. “No one’s ever going to get more than one love of their life, you know?” He pulled a face and looked away. “Defeats the point a bit, that, I suppose…if it’s not once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever bought into that,” Jason replied. Mark looked over at him sceptically. “I don’t like the idea that fate has more say in what I do in life than me. If everything’s just fate, what’s the point of having an opinion on it in the first place?”
Jason shrugged, laughing slightly at Mark’s cynical expression. “What?” he laughed.
“You don’t believe in a ‘love of your life’ story designed by fate?” Mark said.
“So?”
“So: Howard is right there,” Mark pointed out. Jason’s eyes glimmered with amusement.
“And? I chose the bugger, not fate. I don’t go round cursing fate every time he makes a mess of my kitchen – I know it’s my own daft fault.” Mark looked over at Howard, wide-eyed. He was expecting to find outrage, hurt, or at least mild confusion on his face, but instead Howard was smirking.
“Don’t look at me: I don’t believe in that stuff either. Jay is the love of my life, but I still chose him. He’s the love of my life, but I don’t think he’s the only person on the planet who could’ve been, if I’d made some different choices here and there.” Off Mark’s surprised look Howard’s smile softened. “Hey, I loved Vic just as much as I love Jay, once, you know? That doesn’t make Jay my consolation prize – I swear on my life.”
Mark looked back over at Jason, concerned somehow that he might have trodden on some landmine in their relationship. But Jason smiled, unconcerned and content, and offered Mark a one-shouldered shrug.
“It’s not an issue, Marko,” he said softly. “I know all Howard Donald’s stories: I don’t think there’s anything he could come out with that would shock me.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“No,” Jason told him simply. “I’m not one for fate taking decisions out of my hands either so…why should I be pissed off with Howard for feeling the same?” Out of the corner of his eye, Mark caught Howard’s fond smile as the two looked at each other for a moment.
“Just because I loved someone else before, it doesn’t mean I have any less love left for Jay, you know?” Howard put in. “Me and Vic were a proper double act in our day, and I proper loved her like crazy – but the longer we were together the more mad we drove each other. We wanted different things out of life; the person I was and the person she was…it wouldn’t have mattered how much we loved each other, we never could’ve found what me and Jay have.”
“But how do you know?” Mark asked.
“Because the more time went on, the more we wanted to change each other – to keep that love a good thing, a happy thing, we knew we didn’t each other to be…different. I wanted her to stop trying to build some sort of tick-a-box life with all her ducks in a neat row in the suburbs. And she wanted me to grow up I suppose: get a proper job and stop daydreaming. We used to drive each other mad, arguing round in circles, never getting anywhere. Our lives were pulling away from each other the whole time.” Howard looked at Mark’s bewildered expression and smiled lopsidedly back at him. “It’s never been like that with Jay: we’ve always pulled the same direction overall, even when we’ve disagreed on some detail or other – we can figure things out, because there’s always enough natural give and take and growth and change that…it’s not as big of a deal, we don’t need each other to change in some big, fundamental way to cope. It’s the difference between enjoying yourself having a dance with someone, even though they’re getting the steps all wrong and treading on your toes…and then dancing with someone who knows the right next move and can flash you a smile when you hit you final pose in sync.” Mark looked at Howard blankly and he chuckled. “It’s like listening to a cover version of your favourite song, and you’re singing the wrong harmony part but it’s still fun, compared to listening to the original at full volume.” Mark grinned.
“Ok,” he nodded slowly, thoughtfully. Then he looked back at Jason once more. “And none of that bothers you? Not even a bit?” Jason smiled.
“Everyone’s got a story, you know? So I never loved anyone as much as How: that’s my own fault for never letting anyone close enough. Just because he’s loved that way before and I haven’t, it doesn’t make everything between us some do or die scenario. The choices I made in my life made me who I am, and some of those choices happened to lead me to Howard at the perfect moment. Howard made choices that led him away from Vic…and then to me. And I know the life we both want is enough to make that last.” Jason tilted his head to one side, making a point of meeting Mark’s eyes. “And your life led you to Rob, once upon a time. And then you grew up. And you became someone else. And your choices helped you find Gaz.” Mark looked down, trying to ignore Jason’s piercing stare but feeling it prickling his skin nonetheless. “What you have to do is work out the life you want, Marko. And if anything in that life is made better for having Gaz in it, for allowing enough give and take to make it the life you both want. Because everyone has a story that comes before the romance, but the romance only means something if it works in the story you both want to write afterwards.”
“After the three minute love-song’s over,” Howard put in, his tone both kind and firm.
Mark looked over his shoulder, through the vast windows, avoiding Howard and Jason’s concerned gazes and trying to clear his head. Outside the lights of Salford Quays were coming on, winking and shimmering into the inky blue sky, and the tears in his eyes made the glimmering lights crush into each other in kaleidoscopes of colour.
“I know you can’t miss something you never had…but that’s how I feel.” He sighed. “I feel like I’ve lost something I didn’t even have…or didn’t know I had ‘til it was already over. I feel like I miss Gaz, but I’m not sure he was ever the person I thought he was in the first place.” He blinked away the tears and looked back at Jason. “I feel like I just want to start over, Jay. I feel like I can’t cope with feeling this broken anymore.” He sniffed. “He makes me feel broken. And I need to get away.”
Jason regarded him for a moment, his blue eyes sharp and knowing. There was sympathy on his face, and understanding. But there was also very genuine worry; his forehead was creased into the slightest frown, and he studied Mark’s face in that intense way he had when he was juggling too many concepts at once in his brain.
“Ok,” he said softly after a while, giving a small, almost imperceptible nod. Mark caught the brief glance he shared with Howard, but he wasn’t sure what the look meant or if it mattered. “So take some time, make some space. Get out of Manchester for a while.” Jason laid his hand on Mark’s forearm again and met his eyes. His expression could’ve seemed stern to someone less used to the severe lines of his pretty, angular face, but Mark saw the kindness in it, saw that natural light Jason had always possessed. “But don’t make any decisions tonight. Sleep on it. Don’t base your feelings on your whole relationship on one awful night.” He smiled slightly. “I know you can’t stand awful, Marko. But sometimes it just happens. You just have to dust yourself off and keep going, you know? Maybe with Gaz, maybe not – but that’s a conversation for another day.” Mark managed a nod, but didn’t trust himself to speak. Jason seemed to understand, and he offered Mark another gentle smile, giving his arm a squeeze. “Ok,” he said decisively, sitting up and looking over at Howard. “You: clear your stuff off the sofa. I’ll go get some blankets and pillows.” He hopped down from the stool, then turned back to Mark. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in Grace’s room tonight, Marko?” he asked. Mark managed a slightly stronger smile at that, chuckling somewhat shakily.
“Oh no, no way am I falling into that trap: I’m not risking Grace’s wrath if I mess up her room somehow. I know that kid – she’ll definitely find out.” Jason laughed.
“Probably true, but I’d stick up for you,” he said.
“I wouldn’t,” Howard joked, sticking his tongue out. Jason smothered a smirk, giving a dismissive roll of his eyes instead and then heading off down the corridor to go and retrieve some bedding.
As Howard crossed over to the sofa, starting to gather up his computer and various tangles of cables, Mark slid down from his place at the breakfast bar.
“Did you ever doubt it? What the two of you have?” he asked, coming over to perch on the sofa’s arm. Howard didn’t answer at first; his brow was furrowed, and he looked down at the wire he was coiling up with an odd intensity.
“Honestly? Not really,” he sighed after a while, setting the wire down on the coffee table. He looked up slowly, his expression still clouded and thoughtful. “But there was this one time…” He sat himself down on the sofa’s opposite arm, blowing out a breath. “You love me, you have to know you’re going to need to be approved by Gracie – and Jay always has. And when you love Jay, you have to accept you’re going to have to find some sort of way of winning over his whole tribe, right down to the step-siblings and the third cousins and the kids who grew up in the house next door.” Howard smirked slightly, giving a roll of his eyes. “My family and his family are a lot alike, actually: messy and loud. It made it easier.” Then he sighed. “I didn’t really think Justin had a problem with me until about the third or fourth time we met. It was some big family thing – his mum’s birthday or Simon’s maybe. The point is, Jay and me had been going out a while by then so I didn’t think much of it. Jay and some of his old crew were up dancing at one point – Jay was on at me the whole rest of the night for not having the bottle to come up and dance with them, but the truth is I just was so desperate to watch him there was no way I was budging. And trust me: Jay knew it – you know that look he gets in his eyes when he feels someone watching him dance, like a challenge he can’t refuse? All over his face that night. And I told him as much. It was daft banter and it went on the whole night, him taking the piss out of me for not dancing and me joking about how much he loves an audience.” Howard rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know how me and Justin ended up outside, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to leave us both for too long without Jay around to buffer, coz he’s probably the only person on earth who can stop either one of us putting our foot in it with the other. Anyway, the point is, we were talking and we’d probably had a few too many and Justin decided to take the chance to finally actually tell me what he thought of me without risking Jay’s wrath. He started telling me all this stuff about how he knew me and Jay wouldn’t last, and I wasn’t really listening to start off with because everyone else in the family had basically told me the opposite and…I knew what I felt when I was with Jay and that was all that mattered. But then he told me ‘You’re in love with the person you let him be – but Jay can’t survive that way’ – and it threw me. I asked him what he was on about and he told me that I was a rough person: rough edges, scraggly personality, messy words, too gruff and stubborn. And he said that Jay wasn’t put together that way, Jay was all clean lines and ticked boxes, that he was crisp and fresh and honest and that left him open to being messed up by someone like me, because I spilled over and Jay just had to adapt to fit the new space. The way he saw it, I was all force and Jay was all stillness – I was a disruption.”
“Like skimming stones on water?” Mark suggested. Howard nodded.
“Something like that: the force of my personality was disrupting Jay’s, was his argument. And Justin didn’t think that was sustainable, he told me that he thought – sooner or later – Jay was just going to get exhausted by it and we’d be history.” Mark scrunched up his face.
“But Jay is all force! Force of will, force of nature, force of…good.” Howard smiled slightly.
“Oh I know.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, though, for a moment I thought…Justin is his twin brother, I just told myself he had to have more idea of what Jay was and wasn’t capable of.” Then Howard’s smile briefly returned, his crisp blue eyes suddenly sparkling. “That lasted about half an hour. Then Jay took me back here with him and we sat up ‘til dawn arguing about music and when he was starting to fall asleep in my lap he looked up and told me he loved loving me because I was maddening and it was giving his brain good exercise.” Howard shook his head fondly and Mark laughed.
“He’s got a point,” he teased and Howard grinned.
“He always does,” he shot back.
Then Howard’s expression sobered again and he let out a huff of breath. “I didn’t let myself doubt it again, no matter what Justin said. I think Justin just wanted to pretend Jay didn’t have that feisty side in him because when he’s not feisty he’ll go along with everything Justin wants just to keep the peace. I’m a troublemaker, I know that – but Jay needs to break the rules sometimes to keep him sane, you know? He spends so much time holding in, holding things together – but everyone needs to breathe out sometime. So, I encourage his instinct to pull away when he needs it instead of just going with the flow: what Justin doesn’t realise is that’s probably stepped a fair few arguments overall.” Mark nodded.
“He didn’t do that so much before you: give himself a break, I mean,” he said softly. Howard nodded slowly.
“I’ve never doubted what me and Jay have ever since.” Howard looked down then, a pained expression crossing his face. “Well, I don’t know…maybe when he was missing. Just for a moment. After the note…the police told me there was probably not much hope. Justin was absolutely fuming at me, thought it was all my fault and that he’d never see his brother again. He said the same thing he said that night: ‘I warned you, I told you you’d wear him down and you didn’t listen and now it’s over.’ And for a second I believed him. Then I remembered how that night he’d said it last had actually ended. Jay smiling up at me with his hair all mussed and his eyes all heavy and half-asleep. And…it was pure, unguarded, wonderful Jay, that night was. It was Jay without any defences. And there was no way I could believe the same bloke who mumbled to me that he loved loving me because it wasn’t easy would turn around one day and decide it was too hard.” Howard looked back over at Mark with a rueful smile. “You’re allowed the odd moment of doubt, I think. But it’s maths: do the moments of doubt outweigh the moments of love.”
“The four letter word moments?” Mark asked and Howard chuckled.
“Yeah, four letter word moments.”
“Ok, you pair, shift off that sofa so I can sort it” Jason’s voice made both Howard and Mark jump, and both men glanced at each other then back at him, trying to assess how much he might have heard. But Jason’s expression gave away nothing as he threw a pillow for each of them to catch and then began unfurling a duvet, covers and pillowcases “This room gets freezing at night, even in summer – I know because I’ve spent too many hours under Howard’s terrible influence, talking ‘til all hours,” he was saying, taking back one of the pillows and beginning to stuff in into a pillowcase. Mark raised his eyebrows, wondering if that was some hint, but Jason simply looked up at him with a soft smile. “Besides, I know what you’re like: I’ve put you up on my sofa enough times to know how deep you like to burrow.” Mark laughed softly, glancing over at Howard, who shrugged, then back to Jason with a fond smile.
“Thanks, Jay. I know I keep saying it but…you really are a good mate.”
“I’m mostly a pushover,” Jason replied with an airy smile. “But still, it’s nice of you to say.”
***
“How’s he doing?” Jason asked as Howard returned from the kitchen with a glass of water.
“Spark out,” Howard replied with a smile, setting the glass down and climbing back into bed. “You did the right thing, you know – not forcing him to go back. He’s exhausted. Let him think about it in the morning.” Jason nodded and Howard looked over at him with concern. “Seriously, Jay – don’t beat yourself up about it. They’re both our mates, but…they have to figure this one out, ok? You can’t keep yourself up fretting over it,” he said gently. Jason rolled over onto his side, smiling up at Howard quietly.
“I know.” Off Howard’s sceptical look he chuckled and shrugged. “I do. I know.” Howard looked down at him piercingly and Jason pushed himself up just long enough to press a kiss to his cheek. “I promise,” he said firmly.
“So what’s bothering you then?” Howard asked, sliding down so they were facing each other across the bed.
“What makes you think I’m worrying, Howard Donald?” Jason narrowed his eyes at him, a mischievous smile playing on his lips that made Howard grin despite himself. “This is just my natural face,” Jason added.
“Don’t try and trick me with the ‘natural face’ line: I know your natural face by heart. It’s gorgeous, smiling and looks me in the eye.”
“Are you saying I’m not gorgeous to you right now?” Jason questioned, arching an eyebrow. Howard leant in so their foreheads were touching, kissing the tip of Jason’s nose before pulling back to look him in the eye.
“You’re always gorgeous, Jason Orange. And right now you’re smiling. But the giveaway is you’re trying really hard not to look me in the eye and we both know it.” Jason laughed softly, nodding.
“Ok. Maybe that’s true. But I’m not fretting about Mark. Or Gaz.” He shrugged. “They’ll figure it out somehow: it might take a month, it might take a year, but I know those two…they’ll get there.” He rolled on to his back then, looking up at the patterns the city lights made across the bedroom ceiling. Howard saw the colours reflected in his eyes, which always looked so pale in the half-light of their room. Faint and fascinating. He propped himself up slightly, a frown furrowing his features.
“So what’s wrong then, darlin’?” he asked softly, reaching across to rest his hand on Jason’s stomach, stroking his thumb absently across the warmth of his skin.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Jason rested his hand over Howard’s, brushing the pad of his thumb against it thoughtfully. “Sometimes I just need to think, you know?”
“So what are you thinking about?” Howard asked in a whisper, twisting his hand to hold Jason’s, bringing it up to his lips to press a kiss to the back of it. “I want in your head. Always.” Jason looked back up at the ceiling, smothered a small smile. “I like it in there, you know: it’s beautiful and infuriating and it fascinates me.”
Jason was quiet for a moment, still looking up: Howard could see his eyes dancing with light, and when he finally looked back across at him there was a pink, delicate curve to his lips that made Howard’s breath catch. “Start talking, love,” Howard said, narrowing his eyes playfully, and Jason chuckled, pushing himself up and pressing a kiss to Howard’s lips. Howard felt the static prickle across his skin, the familiar sensation of every cell in his body coming to life at once; like something had burst inside him.
“I love you, you know that?” Jason told him, briefly cupping his face in his hands, keeping their lips close for a moment longer before he finally pulled back. Howard smiled softly, offering a shy shrug.
“Well, I was hoping,” he said and Jason laughed quietly, shaking his head and falling back against the pillow. He watched Howard for another moment, and Howard let him, reaching out to take his hand again and interlacing their fingers.
“Did my brother really tell you you weren’t in love with the real me?” Jason asked at last, looking up at Howard from the corner of his eye. Howard smiled sheepishly, glancing away.
“So you heard that then,” he mumbled. Jason smiled, narrowing his eyes at him.
“I hear everything,” he teased, giving Howard a nudge with their clasped hands. Howard laughed softly, nodding and rolling his eyes.
“Of course.” He sighed. “It doesn’t matter, you know.”
“It matters to me,” Jason told him gently, pushing himself up and meeting Howard’s eyes, his gaze intent and honest. “He’s my twin, not my spokesperson – and he needs to start realising there’s a difference.” Howard quirked an eyebrow.
“You really think he’s going to break the habit of a lifetime?”
“The habit of a lifetime is him not letting me have my own life – the spokesperson thing only started after I met you.” Jason gave their joined hands another tug, causing both of them to instinctively move their bodies closer together. “You should’ve told me, you know.”
“It was so long ago…and by the end of that night, I’d almost forgotten he’d even said it.”
“I meant that he brought it up again.” Howard looked down and Jason gave his hand a squeeze. “I chose you. And I will keep choosing you until everyone else in my life finally gets the message that this relationship is where I belong. And no, it wasn’t fate, or destiny, or whatever else could make it seem inevitable and indisputable. But it’s something better than any of that, ok? It’s a decision. A conscious decision that I made and that I will always make to be with you.” Howard felt the force of the smile before it reached his lips, and when he looked back into Jason’s face he could feel all the air in his body tightening into a ball in his chest. “Justin got one thing right: I find you exhausting and frustrating, and totally ridiculous. But Mark’s probably right – I didn’t laugh the same way before you. I didn’t feel the same way before you.” He shrugged. “That’s what’s important. Not whether or not my brother gets his own way at our birthday party that I don’t even want.” Howard chuckled, shaking his head slightly and pulling Jason to him, delighting in the sound of his laugh as he rolled against him.
“I love you,” Howard told him firmly, kissing the top of his head as their bodies crushed together. “And for the record, I’ve never needed anyone else’s approval except yours when it comes to the hows or the whys of it all. I love you, and I want you…and that’s all that matters at the end of the day.” He encircled Jason’s body in his arms, smiling as he felt Jason’s arms winding around his neck. “And I want it on record, for the daft romantics of this world, driving themselves to distraction: I don’t love you to pieces, or to the moon and back, or whatever other guff they want to put in greetings cards. I love you because my life was going just fine without you, but it’s so much better for knowing you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had…and you’re sexy as hell.” Jason laughed against him, pulling back enough to look into his face.
“Oh really?” he asked, eyes glinting, and Howard grinned back wolfishly, nodding.
“Really really,” he said, his voice gruff. And Jason smiled back at him, pushing himself up along Howard’s body.
“Back at you, Donald,” he murmured, burying his hands in Howard’s curls and drawing Howard into a deep kiss as the two of them rolled back across the bed.
***
Mark woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon and the feeling of sunlight on his face. For a moment he was disorientated, aware of the fact he was facing the wrong way to be lying in his own bed back at the flat and confused by the sound of quiet voices, bickering good-naturedly not far away. He squinted against the sunlight and rolled over, taking in his surroundings and slowly letting his brain catch up to him. He pulled the duvet cover more tightly round him as memories of the previous day pricked at the corner of his mind, twisting his stomach into uncomfortable knots. From inside his cocoon of freshly laundered fabric, Mark listened to the calming hum of homely activity going on around him: the sound of the fridge door opening and closing, the sizzle of cooking food, the sound of plates and mugs being moved around and the constant, low babble of Jason and Howard bickering.
“Stop laughing!”
“I’m not laughing. Go on, no – carry on with your completely ridiculous, unbelievable story.”
“It’s not unbelievable, it happened!”
“Then why have you never told me about it before?”
“Because I knew you couldn’t handle it – I knew you’d just mock me out of hand.”
“You married me, Donald.”
“You think that’s an excuse for everything.”
“You looked at every sceptical remark I had to offer and you still proposed: that makes one of us a sucker and the other one free to mock whatever daft story the other one comes out with.”
“That’s not how I saw it at the time you know.”
“Your problem is you don’t understand the true meaning of romance.”
“And your problem is you’re a sceptical bastard: I know what I saw.”
“You know what you think you saw.”
Mark chuckled slightly, burrowing down under the duvet a little further and closing his eyes. They were still going, he could hear the muffled sound of a scuffle and the unmistakable laugh Jason only reserved for Howard. He let the peace of it wash over him, taking the moment of unexpected calm to assess how he felt. Was he less devastated than last night? Perhaps. Was he any more certain about his future? He was sure the answer was no.
He peeked out from under the duvet, watching Jason attempt to keep Howard away from the bacon sandwich he’d just made and stifling a laugh.
“Is that for me?” he asked hopefully. He was aware a tuft of his hair was probably all Howard and Jason could really see of him, and he struggled for a moment to untangle himself from the duvet.
“No way. My husband, my home, my bacon,” Howard was declaring in the background.
“Did you put that in our vows?”
“It was between my demand for a new speaker system and your clause about me never making you that weird cocktail with the Campari in it ever again.”
“So glad we went for the traditional service,” Jason was nodding as Mark finally pushed himself up and came over to join them in the kitchen. “Morning, Marko,” Jason added then, turning to Mark with a bright smile. “Here you go: eat it before the human hoover gets his paws on it,” he said, handing Mark the plate and elbowing Howard jokingly in the ribs.
“Joke’s on you, Jay: I know for a fact there is more bacon and I’m not going to stop pestering you ‘til you let me have it,” Howard put in. Jason smirked, rolling his eyes but obligingly heading back towards the fridge.
“So, any thoughts on what your next step is?” Jason asked Mark over his shoulder.
“Some. I don’t know. I didn’t really get all that far…all I know is…I need to get out of Manchester. I need to get away from Gaz for a while, just clear my head and…think.” Mark sighed, setting down his sandwich. “Actually, I was talking to Jamie the other day and…he’s going to New York in a couple of weeks. He’s staying with our friend Emma.”
“Emma ‘Human Sunshine’ Emma? The girl who came over last year for your birthday and got Gary to dance? In public?” Howard asked. Mark grinned.
“One and the same. She’s amazing.”
“She still trying to make it on Broadway?” Jason asked. Mark nodded.
“She’s going places, I know it,” he said. Jason smiled.
“I don’t doubt it – she’s something else,” he said.
“I thought I might tag along…stay out there for a while, just ‘til I can get my head sorted.” Mark looked down, playing with some crumbs on his plate. “What do you think?” he asked. There was a pause, in which Mark caught Howard and Jason sharing a glance. Howard shrugged and Jason bit his lip, and for a moment Mark thought they were going to tell him he was crazy. Some tiny part of him wanted them to tell him he was crazy. Because picking up and going off to New York – with Jamie, one of the very people in his life Gary was so suspicious of – seemed strangely final, even if it was supposed to be anything but. Then, Jason sighed, matching Howard shrug and looking over at Mark with a small, lopsided smile.
“I can’t say we won’t miss you,” he said gently. “But…I think, maybe it’s exactly what you need.” Then his smile widened and he rolled his eyes jokingly. “I mean, I probably would’ve gone with the Lake District or some quiet bit of Scotland – but you’ve always been better at sweeping gestures than me,” he added then, and Mark couldn’t help but laugh. Howard chuckled too, shaking his head.
“Oh no you don’t, Jason Orange – not even the Lake District, do you hear me? You don’t get to go anywhere ‘til I get my bacon sarnie!”
It was one of those crisp, last-weeks-of-term days where the sky was brilliantly blue and dotted with ridiculously fluffy white clouds, delighted shrieks filling the air as the school bell rang out across the playground. Summer was here and Grace practically hummed with the anticipation of the fast-approaching holidays as she linked her arm through her best friend Izzy’s. She was beaming and bouncing and Izzy couldn’t help but laugh, even as she rolled her eyes despairingly at her, shaking her head slightly. Grace’s good mood had been positively unstoppable for the past week as the summer holidays grew ever-closer, and the prospect of an entire summer spent with her dad and Jason loomed large; her mum had taken an age to relent to the plan but Grace had been adamant and, as Izzy knew all too well – having known Grace since the two of them were in nursery – there was little that could be done to stop her when she made up her mind.
“You do realise it’s not natural for anyone to be this happy after maths with Mrs. Griffiths, right?” Izzy sighed as Grace all but skipped towards the school gates, her wild curls bouncing out behind her. She flashed her friend an unashamed grin, shrugging idly.
“Like I care about maths – it’s over now and I’m off to spend a whole weekend with my dad and Jay: no Tim, bonus guitar lessons from Jay, cookies and shopping on Saturday morning and only a tiny bit of nagging to do my homework tonight.” Her eyes danced with delight as she spoke and Izzy pulled a face at her.
“Lucky,” she muttered, though she still shared a smile with Grace as they walked. “I need to get your dad and Jason to adopt me,” she added with a pout and Grace elbowed her lightly.
“No chance. I love you, Iz, but not enough to share,” she grinned impishly. But Izzy’s eyes were no longer on Grace; she nodded across the playground towards where parents were waiting to collect their children and Grace frowned slightly, confused.
“Why don’t we ask Jay what he thinks?” Izzy said softly and Grace turned, following her friend’s eyeline before suddenly letting out an excited gasp as she spotted what Izzy was looking at: Jason Orange stood out a mile in the late June sunshine – relaxing coolly against his car, leaning back on his hands with idle grace, a casual smile on his lips as he turned his face into the warmth of the sun, his eyes shielded by a pair of aviator sunglasses. His shirt ruffled in the light breeze and he glanced up at the sky briefly, the sunlight catching his profile; several of the waiting mums were watching him, though he didn’t seem to notice, instead busying himself by glancing down at his watch and playing absently with his car keys.
“Seriously, Grace, you have to tell me what planet your stepdad came from,” Izzy sighed. “And then find out if they do stepmums too,” she added. Grace simply laughed.
“Sorry, Iz: Jay is one of a kind. I know because my dad told me,” she said with an almost-proud smile, before suddenly grabbing a hold of Izzy’s hand.
“Jay!” she called out. Jason looked up immediately at the sound of his name being hollered into the peaceful summer air, and his smile widened as he spotted Grace, who instantly broke into a sprint, pulling Izzy with her as she hurtled in Jason’s direction.
A few of their classmates had turned to look at the sound of Grace’s shriek, but the sight was hardly rare these days; Jason was one of Grace’s registered guardians as far as the school were concerned and as time had gone on he had become an increasingly common sight at the school gates. Grace had plenty of friends at school and got along with almost everyone in her class, but Izzy had been the only one to really know anything about her family until recently – the arrival of Jason in her life had somehow managed to draw more attention to her, as events conspired to make him into something of a playground celebrity. It had all started one Monday morning when Grace had forgotten her PE kit: unable to reach her mum or her dad, it was Jason who had finally picked up the phone and made the save-the-day dash to the school at break-time, sneaking the PE kit to her across the playground fence with mere seconds to go before the bell, all without any suggestion of irritation and no threats to tell her off later. The event had drawn attention and questions, her entire class’ envy and admiration fuelling their collective curiosity. Grace had been cagey, oddly protective – or was that possessive? – of Jason, but Izzy, on the other hand, had been quick to start telling every Jason story she knew, coaxing Grace to join in eventually, when her pride had finally gotten the better of her. Of course, it helped that Jason was reasonably stylish and that he drove a car deemed to be cool, but it was the way he so often seemed to be Grace’s rescuer that her classmates most envied; the fact he doted on her was common knowledge, and, these days, so was the fact that he’d help her evade trouble whenever he could – there was just something about the way he withheld harsh judgment and listened to her problems without jumping to conclusions, no matter what the rights and wrongs may.
“I can’t believe you’re going to be riding home in style with Jason when I’m catching the world’s grottiest bus back to my stupid stepmum’s,” Izzy huffed lightly as Grace continued to drag her across the playground, but Grace wasn’t listening, all of her attention focused instead on Jason as they made it through the school gates and out onto the pavement.
Jason pushed himself up off his car as the girls flew towards him, laughing softly when he noticed the gleeful look on Grace’s face.
“It’s you!” Grace exclaimed as she finally let go of Izzy’s hand and closed the gap between herself and Jason, launching herself at him ecstatically.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he chuckled, catching her just in time and pulling her into an easy hug, lifting her off the ground briefly and giving her a squeeze. “Hi, kiddo,” he murmured into her hair, kissing the top of her head before setting her back down. He took off his shades, tucking them into the neck of his shirt and glancing at Izzy with a warm smile. “Hey, Izzy – you and Grace survived Mrs. Griffiths’ maths lesson I see,” he remarked and Izzy grinned.
“Barely,” she replied, rolling her eyes and making Jason laugh softly.
“From what I remember of my maths lessons at school, I don’t think putting maths as the last lesson on a Friday afternoon is a good plan – but don’t tell your teachers I said that,” he smiled and Izzy smirked. At Jason’s side, Grace wound her arms around his waist, beaming up at him as he wrapped his own arm affectionately around her shoulders, leaning back enough to meet her eyes. “Ready to go, sweetheart?” he asked and Grace nodded enthusiastically.
“More than,” she told him sincerely before her face suddenly creased into a frown. “Ok, so…not that I’m not really happy to see you, but I thought dad was picking me up today.”
“Your dad got a last minute call; there’s a bloke with a chain of clubs in Manchester who’s interested in some sort of regular gig. It’s well-paid and it’d mean he could be home more, so he thought he should keep the guy onside by dropping everything for him. We do have rent to pay, you know – assuming you want to keep that room of yours,” Jason shrugged, honest as ever, and Grace smiled, giving him a quick nod.
“It’s fine. He sent you, that makes up for it.” She paused and tilted her head to one side. “But if he asks, could you tell him he owes me ice cream?” she added impishly and Jason laughed.
“Whatever you say, kiddo.”
“Thank you,” Grace grinned and Jason rolled his eyes fondly.
“Don’t think I don’t know that you’re playing me,” he muttered with a slight shake of his head.
“Ok, I’m going to go before I get anymore jealous,” Izzy put in then, pulling a face at Grace and rolling her eyes. “Not all of us have dads with good taste in second marriages, and that means I have a bus to catch.”
“Sorry, Iz,” Grace laughed fondly, stepping over to wrap her best friend in a quick hug. When the two of them broke apart, Izzy gave a small wave in Jason’s direction before turning sharply and rushing off in the direction of the bus stop.
“You do realise you’re spoilt, don’t you, Gracie?” Jason remarked, not a hint of unkindness in his tone. Grace looked up at him with a bright smile, seeing the amusement in his eyes, and she gave him a mischievous shrug.
“You know you love me, Jay,” she told him gleefully and Jason chuckled.
“Come on, trouble, get in the car before that pretty head of yours gets any bigger,” he replied, turning artfully on his heel and opening the passenger door in one quick move.
“On one condition: you have to drive me past Posh Sophie – she’s been sending everyone crazy today and I think she could really use the reminder that I get to go home in your amazing convertible whilst her mum makes her walk.” Grace looked up hopefully at Jason, who simply rolled his eyes.
“In the car, kiddo,” he said, his smile fondly despairing, and without another word he moved around to the driver’s side, climbing in and starting the engine, sliding his sunglasses back over his eyes.
“But just to be clear: you are driving me past Posh Sophie, right?” Grace asked as she too climbed into the car. Jason’s lips curved up at the corners and he didn’t bother to hide his amusement.
“Seatbelt on and point me in the right direction,” he told her and Grace squealed.
“Jay, you’re the best.” Grace could see the way his eyes danced, even from behind his shades. It was nice to see Jason like this again, Grace thought; he was himself, his eyes cobalt blue and alive and his smile unreserved and genuine.
“And don’t you forget it, kiddo,” he laughed softly as they pulled out.
***
Mark was sitting in his favourite spot in the shop: cross-legged atop the baby grand, putting more strain on the old thing than Gary was entirely comfortable with. Mark was pouting slightly, bored and frustrated at being inside on such a sunny day, and he rested his chin on his hand, regarding Gary – who was attempting to dust around him – with round, twinkly eyes that were somehow both reproving and sad at the same time.
“Are you going to stop sulking and help me clean up at some point, Marko? Or are you just going to continue to look at me like a kicked puppy?” Gary sighed after the silence had dragged on too long. He put his hands on his hips and raised one eyebrow enquiringly, and Mark continued to regard him steadily, his pink little mouth turned down at the corners even as the vaguest hint of stubborn mischief stirred in his blue-grey eyes. If you looked hard enough there were flecks of green to be found in those eyes – when you looked at them in sunlight anyway; the thought made Gary feel a pang of guilt for cooping him up in the darkness of the shop’s back room for so long. “Look, the sooner we tidy up, the sooner we can get out of here. You, me, Cadbury? The park? Ice cream?” Gary waved his fingers jokingly in an attempt at jazz hands, a smile on his lips and his green eyes bright and teasing. He could see Mark trying to suppress a smile of his own. “Any of this bribery working for you, or do I need to up the stakes?” A slight sweat glistened on his brow and he blew out a tired breath – the air in the shop was stuffy and still today and he had to admit he could understand Mark’s objections to it. Mark tilted his head to one side, his lips twisting into a lopsided smile as he narrowed his eyes at Gary mischievously.
“I think you need to up the stakes, Barlow,” he declared at last and Gary laughed softly, flopping down onto the piano stool with a fondly despairing shake of his head.
“You’re a nightmare, you know that?” he questioned, but Mark simply beamed at him, eyes wide and delighted as he feigned innocence. Gary gave a defeated nod. “Of course you know that – you’ve traded on that whole ‘cute as a button’ thing too long to not know,” he remarked, trying and failing to conceal the affection in his voice. “Look, I know it’s no fun being cooped up in here when the sun’s shining – believe me, I know. But I’m a man short with Jay on the school run…he’d got most of the job done, actually. But Howard’s got a knack for distracting him that I can’t rival…and I couldn’t really tell him to leave Grace standing at the school gates on her own, could I?”
“Well then Jay and Grace owe me some sunshine; they’ll be driving along, top-down in Jay’s car right now whilst I’m inside of Barlow’s Music Shop, drowning in dust,” Mark huffed, pulling a face at Gary that made him smile. “I’m not made for being inside in summer, you know – and since you’ve had us rehearsing in almost all our free time lately, I’m more than ready for a weekend off.”
“I offered you the park, what more do you want?” Gary chuckled and Mark let out a dreamy sigh, leaning back slightly and fixing Gary with a bright smile that shone in his eyes.
“I’m talking wining and dining, Barlow; Howard shows you up, you know? He’s always sweeping Jay off his feet – and Jay doesn’t even thrive on the romance like me, Jay’s just happy in Howard’s company.”
“If only everyone in the world could be so easily pleased,” Gary shot back wryly, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he fixed his gaze on Mark, who shrugged idly and tried to smother his mischievous grin.
“Oh I don’t know, can’t have the whole world lowering its standards now, can we? No one would care about love-songs anymore then – all that music going to waste would be a terrible shame.” Mark’s grin was impish and Gary shook his head at him, smiling despite himself and letting out a soft chuckle.
“You do realise Howard and Jay’s idea of romance is when Jay joins him in the DJ booth and they dance like nobody’s watching, right? That’s not wining and dining, that’s exhibitionism. And I don’t do dancing. Besides, the two of them have good reason to stick close – after everything they’ve been through. Me and you on the other hand? We’re better just being cosy and quiet; you’ll get a walk in the park and like it, Marko.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you fully appreciate what a catch I am, Barlow,” Mark pouted playfully and Gary laughed, shaking his head and turning his eyes skywards, assuming his most put-upon expression and coaxing a grin out of Mark as he did so.
“You’re a high maintenance catch, I’ll give you that.”
“I’m adorable,” Mark countered, attempting to keep his face serious as he adjusted his position on the piano so that he was lying on his stomach. Gary fixed him with a steady stare, quirking his eyebrows sceptically, and Mark shrugged. “Beauty has its price, you know,” he informed Gary as solemnly as he could manage, and Gary smiled back at him quietly, leaning forwards so that their faces were suddenly very close.
“And what price might that be today?” Mark smiled at him silently for a moment, eyes twinkly and dazzling, before edging forwards just enough to capture Gary’s lips in a lingering kiss. It was a kiss which should have been sticky and uncomfortable in the stuffy heat of the shop’s back room, but Mark’s lips tasted of summer berries and sugar and the sensation was oddly cooling, even as Mark’s hair tickled against Gary’s skin.
As the two of them drew apart, Gary opened his eyes into Mark’s with a rueful smile, sitting back slowly and letting out a long, heavy sigh. “What do you want from me, Mark Owen?” he asked, looking up into Mark’s sparkling gaze with resigned affection.
“Romance, Barlow,” Mark told him simply, shrugging. “Romance.” He waggled his eyebrows and Gary let out a half-laugh-half-groan, letting his head drop back as he looked up at the ceiling.
“You know I can’t this weekend, Marko,” he protested weakly. Mark’s eyebrows knitted together in mild confusion and he scrunched up his face slightly.
“I don’t remember you telling me that.” He pushed himself up a little, still frowning, his eyes now scrutinizing Gary more intently. “What are you doing that I don’t know about?”
Gary had stiffened slightly, his eyes now downturned as he fiddled awkwardly with his hands; it didn’t take a genius to know he was hiding something, and Mark knew that Gary tended to tie himself in knots whenever he tried to keep a secret. He narrowed his eyes at him, but Gary refused to look up. “You’re up to something, Barlow.”
“It’s just an old friend, Marko. Someone I used to know a long time ago who finally got back in touch.” Gary looked up finally, shrugging one shoulder and trying to look casual. “It’s not a big deal. But I will be interested to see him again…see what he’s doing now. You know the stuff.”
“I know the stuff but I don’t know the friend – who is he?”
“No one important.”
“He’s important enough for you to be giving over a part of your weekend for him,” Mark pointed out, head on one side and a thoughtful expression gracing the soft, rounded features of his face. Gary sighed.
“It was a complicated end to the friendship, that’s all. Cross words were exchanged, no one ever really apologized to anyone else…he showed up at the shop the other day and offered an olive branch.”
“How old of a friend? Does Jay know him?”
“What’s with all the questions?” Gary laughed, hoping Mark didn’t notice the nervous edge to his voice.
“It’s just funny, that’s all; I know your friends from back in the day, you know? Dawn and Jay, Kim, your brother and his mate…what’s his name? Ash or Andrew or something?”
“Andy,” Gary put in, but Mark wasn’t really listening, pushing himself fully upright instead, his frown deepening.
“So: does Jay know this bloke?” he asked again, somehow sensing the question was important but not really knowing why. Gary squirmed, still avoiding his gaze.
“Marko, it’s not important – I’m just going out of curiosity more than anything, ok? I promise that as soon as I’ve got caught up on his life and cleared the air with him, I’ll be out of there and right back to you.” Gary looked up at Mark hopefully, and was relieved to see him wavering slightly, a smile dancing lightly across his lips as he jumped down from the piano and came to sit beside Gary on the stool.
“On one condition.” Gary raised one eyebrow.
“Go on,” he smirked, amused, and Mark bit back a grin, leaning in close and pressing a small, chaste kiss to Gary’s lips.
“You knock off work early and we have an afternoon of sunshine and romance and no more piano-dusting.” Mark widened his eyes mischievously, eyebrows raised, and Gary couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sound like a deal?”
“You’re a cheeky mare, Mark Owen.” He sighed, shaking his head. “But that being said: I do love you, you know that? I’m just really crap at showing it.” Mark grinned and Gary winked at him, leaning in to give him a quick peck on his cheek. “So teach me in the ways of sunshine and romance; come on – I’m listening.”
***
Grace couldn’t help but smile at the feeling of the sunshine on her face and she closed her eyes, leaning back and letting out a happy sigh. As Jason negotiated his way through the Manchester traffic, the breeze occasionally whipped Grace’s wild curls against her cheeks – it was one of those perfect summer afternoons with just the right ratio of sunshine and shade and it felt strangely exhilarating to be drifting through it. Grace couldn’t remember the last time everything had felt this peaceful. She briefly lifted her head and cast a sidelong glance across at Jason, whose fingers tapped out an absent beat on the steering wheel. Shadows flittered across his face as they drove along, but it was still possible to detect the almost-smile on his lips. Grace smiled too as she watched him, her mind wandering back across the past few months. A thrill of gratitude ran through her to see Jason like this; you wouldn’t know it to look at him now, but Grace knew first hand that it had been a struggle for Jason to be this person again, to re-find that calmness and reclaim some sort of control and peace of mind.
She was young but she was sharp, and her dad had never been able to hide much from her – Jason and her dad didn’t let the strain show too easily in front of her, but she still knew enough. It had never frightened her – she had an unshakeable faith that her dad and Jason belonged together – but she had allowed herself some small moments of worry, the odd doubt over whether anything could ever be the same again after all that had happened and its messy aftermath. She didn’t know exactly what Jason had gone through, but she knew it had shaken him, subdued him in a way which was different to his usual thoughtful, quiet nature. Emily Chappell had unsettled him, dislodged some of his surety and patience, making him edgier and less open – at first, anyway. All the legal saga which had followed had done nothing to calm him, and her dad – usually so relaxed and easy, so good at reading Jason – had been tense and terse for days at a time, seeming to look too closely at Jason’s re-opened wounds, bristling at what he saw. They had been just as in love as ever – more, if anything – but there was some strange, unspoken tension for a while, some lingering fear and doubt that had been stirred up and that they mistakenly took out on each other. But these past few weeks it seemed to have dissipated, the swirl of dust which had been thrown up suddenly beginning to resettle on the ground, leaving the air clear and brighter than ever. And today – well, today Jason reminded Grace of the day she’d first met him. He hummed and glowed like no one else and it made her smile. This was the man who’d let her talk to him endlessly about penguins, coloured with her on rainy Saturdays, danced with her on her birthday and picked her up from school the day she was sick in the playground, looking after her and telling her stories to make her smile until her mum was able to make it out of work to collect her. He was Jason again, and the sight was so beautiful it ached in her chest. She’d always known she adored him, but it hadn’t really occurred to her just how important he was to her until she’d had him taken away and barely returned intact. But now here he was again. Her Jason.
“Jay?” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask until the question was already on her lips, and it took her by surprise slightly. If Jason sensed the tentative curiosity in her tone, he didn’t seem to mind, flicking a brief glance across at her, his smile kind.
“Yes, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice genuine and tender, that tone of his the one he always tended to draw out her secrets with. His fingers had stilled on the wheel and, even though his eyes were on the road, Grace knew she had his attention. It was one of those wonderful things about Jason: his ability to sense when he ought to listen more carefully. Grace smiled and looked down at her hands, suddenly shy.
“I’m really glad you’re back,” she said quietly, stealing a look at him out of the very corner of her eye. “Really back, I mean,” she added, hoping he caught the meaningful inflection in her voice. For a moment he was quiet, but when she looked up she caught his eye and he flashed her a small, soft smile that she couldn’t help but return. Of course he caught the inflection: he was Jason, and insight was his thing.
“I’m glad I’m back too, kiddo,” he told her gently, before turning his eyes back to the road. “Really back, that is,” he added in a murmur, his smile lightly playful, though no less sincere. He licked his lips, his concentration seemingly back on the road, and for a moment the two of them were quiet. “You know you can ask, Grace – I don’t mind.” Jason’s voice was even and soft, and Grace looked at him somewhat sceptically; his face creased into a smile. “Me and your dad are under no illusions about how much you pick up on,” he shrugged, honest as ever. His voice was so open and kind that Grace wanted desperately to launch herself at him right there, to hug him fiercely without letting go – she probably would have done if he hadn’t been driving.
“I really missed you, that’s all,” she admitted quietly, glancing down and giving a one-shouldered shrug. “I missed this,” she added. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jason nod in understanding and she felt another overwhelming pang of gratitude for him. “Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings were the worst. And it’s weird because you didn’t used to be there Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings and I didn’t think it would matter so much. But this is nice. Today, I mean. It’s like nothing ever happened.” She looked back over at Jason, whose lips curved up at the corners as he cast her another quick sidelong glance. “I like you like this,” she told him honestly and Jason chuckled slightly, giving her a wink.
“I like me like this too – and so does your dad, I think,” he said brightly, coaxing a laugh out of Grace.
“Dad likes you any way, he’s in love with you,” she pointed out mischievously and Jason laughed, nodding slowly.
“So you’ve noticed that?” he joked. “Clever girl.” Grace rolled her eyes, though she was still smiling, and Jason grinned over at her fondly. “So if I’m ok, and your dad’s ok, that just leaves you, kiddo. You’ve had a lot to cope with for someone your age…between everything with me and your dad and things at your mum’s place…” Grace looked up at him in surprise and he shrugged. “See, I listen – even when I’m not entirely myself, I listen,” he explained and Grace couldn’t help but let out a small, shy laugh, looking back down at her hands. “I know it’s been rough, but if you do want to talk, just remember: messy families are my forte, so I promise not to judge. Or sell you out to your mum.” Grace smiled, a warm, grateful smile, but she kept her eyes down, chewing the inside of her cheek and thinking over his words for a moment.
“So I can ask anything?” She looked up at him from the corner of her eye. “Even things you don’t like answering?” she pressed. There was a smirk on his lips at that.
“Like father, like daughter,” he remarked ruefully. He flicked her another quick glance. “Special dispensations are always made for you and your dad, Gracie, you ought to know that by now,” he reminded her. Grace’s lips twisted in a grin that was part amusement and part pride. She blew out a breath.
“Just…are you sure you’re ok?” She regarded him carefully, trying to assess him more critically just in case she had previously been letting her weekend-sunshine-induced excitement get in the way. “Like, really really?” she pressed, and Jason laughed, the sound warm and rough, an honesty in it that she’d never known in any other person’s laugh but his – it was almost an answer on its own, she couldn’t help but think.
“I’m ok, Gracie. Really really; I promise.” He paused, then looked across at her with one of those secretive smiles of his, candid and knowing, light dancing in his eyes. “And for the record? I missed you too.” He shrugged, his eyes back on the road in a beat. “And not even just on Saturday mornings and Friday afternoons,” he added with a mischievous wink.
***
“God, who knew sunshine and romance was so tiring?” Gary yawned as he all but fell through the door of the flat, getting a light smack to his arm from Mark in return.
“You really know how to make a person feel special, you know that, Barlow?” The reprimand was light and affectionate and offset entirely by the brilliant grin which splintered his face.
“Now, Marko, we both know you are already fully aware of how special you are – you’ve never needed me for that,” Gary countered with a chuckle, catching Mark around the waist before he could duck past him into the room. He pulled him abruptly back towards him so as to place an affectionate kiss to his cheek, and Mark laughed lightly, twisting in the embrace before settling his arms around Gary’s neck, looking up into his eyes.
“I doesn’t hurt to be told,” he twinkled, making Gary laugh. He leant their foreheads together.
“You say that now, but when we have to sell Cadbury to make room in here for your ego, then you might change your tune,” Gary teased. Seeming to react to his name, Cadbury chose that moment to butt at Mark’s leg, making his knees buckle slightly. Gary caught his weight and the two of them exchanged a brief glance before dissolving into laughter. “I don’t think Cadbury likes the idea of being turfed out into the cold,” Gary chuckled, letting go of Mark in order to bend and scratch the dog behind his ears.
“Well maybe Cadbury thinks you’re the one who should sleep on the pavement,” Mark suggested with an impish grin, also bending to fuss over the dog, who wagged his tail in delight at suddenly finding himself as the centre of attention.
“Oh would he now?” Gary raised an eyebrow. “And does Cadbury know what that would do to my back?” he questioned, his eyes meeting Mark’s, which sparkled with childlike glee.
“I’m the master of the massage me, Gaz – I’d see you right in no time,” he replied, and Gary simply laughed, shaking his head in a show of despair.
“You’re a terror, Mark Owen. Now go stick the kettle on whilst I check the answer phone.”
Mark was still chuckling to himself as he headed towards the kitchen – Cadbury trotting loyally after him – and Gary shook his head, rolling his eyes as he turned his attention to the flashing ‘New Messages’ light on their flat’s phone.
“Mark Owen, you skiver – where are you? As if I don’t know; it wouldn’t be the first time you saw a sunny day and got me to cover your shift for you. Just don’t forget John and Stella are back from their holiday on Monday so you’d better be there, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to convince them you actually deserve a wage this month. You’re gonna need the money too – unless you’ve forgotten that we all agreed to put in a fiver towards Laura’s birthday present? Anyway, see you on Monday – money in hand – ok? Oh; it’s Gareth, by the way – I should probably remind you since there’s a 50% chance you’ve completely forgotten what I sound like, since you’re never at work anymore! My love to Gaz and Cadbury – don’t have too much fun this weekend!”
The answering machine beeped to indicate the end of Gareth’s messages, and Gary smirked, shaking his head slightly.
“Did you hear that, Marko?” he called. Mark appeared in the kitchen doorway, smiling only a little sheepishly, and Gary looked back at him over his shoulder, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Anything to say for yourself?” he pressed, trying to stifle the amusement in his voice, and Mark shrugged slightly.
“Just that John and Stella love me?” he suggested and Gary chuckled.
“They must do, because I’m pretty sure no one at that caff buys your ‘sick days’ for one moment,” he pointed out. Mark pulled a face.
“I’m good with the customers…when I’m in, anyway,” he countered, bringing a smile to Gary’s face.
“Oh, that you are, my dear. You’re a delight with the customers; I seem to remember spending a good two months having my lunch breaks in that cafe after Jay first helped get you the job – I was always hoping you’d stop and join me on your break but you never did. Not until Jay finally came with me; I was ready to slap him that day! I thought you’d just fall for him like everyone else he meets.”
“You never told me that!” Mark laughed fondly. “You should’ve said something – coz I could’ve told you it was all pure chance, you know. I only got sent over to stop the girls all fighting over Jay – which we all know is the only reason I got that job in the first place.”
“Ah yes, those girls can and will do anything for Jay – including convincing their bosses that you were the only person who applied who they could actually work with.”
“It wasn’t a total lie; they adore me, Barlow.”
“Well how could they not?” Gary smiled back winningly and Mark grinned, his face lighting up at the genuine note in Gary’s voice.
As Mark disappeared back into the kitchen, Gary turned back to the phone, moving onto the next message.
“Gary Barlow, have you cut out early to enjoy the sunshine?” Jason Orange’s voice crackled warmly from the phone’s small speaker and Gary couldn’t help but be amused by the teasing reprimand in that tone – he must have tried the shop before he called the flat, Gary supposed, and drawn an unnervingly accurate conclusion from the lack of an answer. “I’m assuming Mark’s to blame for you not answering on any of your phones? Always been a bad influence on you. And speaking of bad influences…” There was a laugh in Jason’s tone. “Sorry about leaving you high and dry earlier – for once it’s not all Howard’s fault though; Vicky’s out of town and Grace is very clear on the whole ‘not being abandoned at After School Club’ rule so I had to go or not hear the last of it for the next few months. Anyway, I wanted to get a hold of you to let you know that that bloke’s coming to pick up the saxophone you ordered in for him? One of our regulars, you’ll know the bloke I mean: Mike something. He’s stopping round tomorrow at three and I’ve got the day off so it’s up to you to make sure someone’s got the situation under control. Sorry to dump it on you but I owe Grace and Howard a weekend not spent mostly at the shop, you know? It’s been a rough few months for them and they need a break, honestly – all three of us probably do.” Mark reappeared with the teas then and Gary looked across at him, both of them mustering soft, sad little smiles. They knew what Jason meant about it having been tough and neither one of them begrudged him his want to find a way to counterbalance all the stress which had gone before. “Still, I’ll talk to you soon, ok? Both of you. And Markie, if you’re there: don’t get him in too much trouble – you know how he moans when he has too much fun.” Gary looked mildly affronted at Jason’s tease and Mark couldn’t help but laugh, lifting up on tiptoe to press a kiss to Gary’s cheek by way of compensation.
“You know he’s right, Barlow,” he pointed out with a cheeky grin. “I think your exact words were: who knew sunshine and romance could be so tiring,” he added and Gary pouted slightly.
“Shush you – you’ll notice he had you down as the one causing trouble,” he shot back, his eyes twinkling playfully as he looked down into Mark’s soft, rounded face.
The moment was broken as the next message suddenly erupted into the space, a sharp, all-business voice cutting through the quiet.
“Gary Barlow, you were supposed to call me!” Gary physically flinched at the sound, his hand shooting out instinctively to silence the message before it could continue. Mark looked at him in confusion, a frown suddenly coming over his face, and Gary held very still, as though somehow by not moving he could avoid any questions from Mark about his odd behaviour.
“I can listen to that later,” he said awkwardly and Mark raised an eyebrow, sceptical and not entirely impressed that Gary was so obviously keeping something from him.
“Gaz, come on. It’s me you’re talking to.” He looked up at Gary steadily for a moment before lightly bumping a shoulder against his, tipping his head to try and meet his eyes. Gary let out a heavy sigh and reluctantly looked over at him, sadness and guilt both clear on his face.
“Mark, it’s nothing. It’s just that mate I told you about.”
“You know, from the tone of that message, I’d say he doesn’t sound like the kind of mate you want to be reconnecting with,” Mark pointed out archly, the corners of his lips suddenly downturned. Gary swallowed, glancing down into his tea, a frown creasing his forehead.
“He’s just got a one-track mind, you know? When he’s at work he gets focused on stuff and he forgets who he’s talking to. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.” Mark studied his face thoughtfully before sighing and giving a sad little shrug.
“If you say so, Gaz. But you don’t need to hide stuff from me, you know. And…if this bloke is someone important to you-”
“He’s not, Marko. And it’s nothing, really. He’ll probably be long gone by this time next week.”
***
Howard looked up at the sound of a key in the apartment door’s lock, a smile already on his lips before the door had even opened. It was glorious to see Jason stroll in, all easy elegance and smiling eyes, tossing his keys up in the air and catching them gracefully. Like nothing had ever happened, like there had never been a question about whether or not he would ever come home. Jason flashed Howard a casual smile, arching one eyebrow as though he could hear his thoughts, and Howard let out a soft laugh, shaking his head slightly, his expression almost bashful. Grace appeared behind Jason then, rummaging in her schoolbag for something, a small frown of concentration on her face. Jason dodged skilfully out of her way before she could crash into him, pulling a face and making Howard laugh softly.
“Afternoon, love,” Howard said at last, and Jason smiled back at him winningly, crossing over to the breakfast bar and dipping his head to press a brief kiss to his lips.
“Hello, you.” Jason’s voice was low and coarse and his eyes shone as he pulled back from the kiss. “One daughter safely delivered by the way,” he remarked, gesturing in Grace’s direction, and Howard nodded absently, sliding down from his place at the breakfast bar and placing his hands on Jason’s hips, holding him close.
“So I see,” he replied, stealing another brief kiss. “Thank you,” Howard murmured against Jason’s lips, the tickle of his breath against his skin making him laugh softly.
“Ok, ew. One daughter going to her room now,” Grace called over her shoulder as she disappeared down the corridor, and briefly Howard and Jason twisted round to watch her go, amusement in their faces.
“Oops,” Howard commented simply, turning back to look at Jason, his smile betraying no hint of shame. Jason chuckled at him, shaking his head slightly even as he let Howard slip his fingers beneath the hem of his shirt.
“I think that’s a new record, love – even for us,” he said with an amused little smile that Howard wanted desperately to kiss. Jason seemed to sense the impulse and leaned back mischievously in the embrace, tilting his head to one side. “So it looks like the father-daughter bonding will have to wait,” he commented, arching an eyebrow, and Howard smiled down at him, leaning in a little closer as he gave a casual shrug.
“I’ll just have to bond with you instead then,” Howard whispered, dipping his head and stealing a lingering kiss. Jason laughed against him, pushing him away half-heartedly and giving him a gentle smack on the arm.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” he said with a groan, his head tipping back in a mix of amusement and despair that made Howard smile. His blue eyes were piecing – intent and mischievous all at once as he touched a hand to Jason’s chin, leaning their foreheads together.
“It’s like you don’t know me at all, Jay,” he said, his voice earnest even as a smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and Jason smirked fondly.
“Howard Donald, you are so lucky I love you,” he murmured, looking up into Howard’s wolf-like eyes with placid trust, his own eyes sparkling as they caught the sunlight.
“I know I’m lucky,” Howard said gently, slowly, brushing his knuckles tenderly down the side of Jason’s face. The very corner of Jason’s lips twitched up and Howard pressed a quick kiss there. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he whispered, drawing back just enough to look into Jason’s eyes, which he narrowed at him as though in protest. Howard could sense some counter-point was about to be made, but he didn’t want Jason to deny it, so he leant in once again and silenced him with another, longer kiss. “Don’t argue. Just this once, accept that you are gorgeous to me and nothing will ever change that,” he murmured against Jason’s lips, and he felt the curve of one of Jason’s rare, shy smiles; it made his heart grow bigger inside his chest.
“Ok,” Jason answered simply, looping his arms around Howard’s neck, and Howard smiled, holding him flush against him.
“Thank you,” he said softly, because for some reason it had felt important to him to make that point, and Jason leant back just enough to meet his gaze.
“And thank you too,” he told him, giving him a quick wink. Howard laughed self-consciously, reluctantly stepping back in order to sit back down on his stool, one hand still resting loosely on Jason’s hip, just beneath his shirt. Jason’s eyes stayed fixed on Howard’s face and he stepped closer almost instinctively. Howard’s thumb continued to trace a semi-circle across Jason’s skin.
For a moment they stayed that way: silent and basking in the June sunlight, which filled every corner of the apartment. Dust motes swirled in the shafts of light that poured in through the windows and the light caught Jason’s eyes, illuminating flecks of grey and silver. There was a peace in the moment that Howard found soothing and he relished it, savouring the feel of Jason’s skin, the steady sound of his breathing. Jason touched a hand to his cheek, kissing his forehead tenderly. “Ok?” Jason asked, love, concern and understanding somehow easily conveyed beautifully in that simple one-word question. Howard smiled back at him, grateful and genuine.
“Ok.” He blew out a breath and drew himself up a little, looking back into Jason’s eyes. “So, how is that daughter of mine anyway? Other than being grossed out by you and me, I mean,” Howard asked after a beat, and Jason laughed at the abrupt change of tone, leaning against the breakfast bar slightly and tilting his head to one side as he considered the question.
“I think she’s doing ok, all things considered,” he said, shrugging. “It’s a lot for a kid, you know? I think she’s taken about as long to get over it all as we have.” Howard smiled slightly, understanding, and a shiver of memories danced briefly across his skin – when he glanced up he could see the same mix of emotions in Jason’s face; his eyes were cast down, a slight crease forming across his forehead as he looked off into the middle-distance, seeming to see something there that, though it didn’t trouble him so much anymore, still couldn’t quite be shaken away.
Howard’s hand stilled on Jason’s hip and he pressed his fingertips lightly against his skin. The slight change of pressure made Jason look up at him immediately, his whole face changing as once more it caught the sunlight fully, the bright blue of his eyes suddenly alive and his lips curving into a small, wry smile. “What?” he asked, almost teasing, and Howard rewarded him with an impish grin.
“Nothin’.” He lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I just wanted to see your face, darlin’ – you know I love your face in the sunshine,” he added in a lower voice, leaning in to press a single, chaste kiss to Jason’s lips. Jason laughed slightly, narrowing his eyes at Howard in a show of reprimand before reaching across to capture his other hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing reassuringly.
“Sharp edges and all?” he asked lightly, raising his eyebrows, and Howard nodded slowly, leaning in for another kiss, which Jason allowed for a moment before laughing again and pushing him away. “Hey, Donald – I was trying to talk to you about your daughter remember? And how she’s coping with all the drama of her short, young life?” he pointed out, smacking Howard lightly on the arm when he caught the unashamed look on his face. He offered him an amused smile even as he rolled his eyes and Howard pulled him a little closer, kissing his forehead.
“Sorry,” Howard said softly after a beat, leaning back just slightly so as to meet Jason’s eyes again. “So…you think she’s there yet? The ‘Ok’ phase I mean? The ‘normal’ bit – whatever ‘normal’ even is around here?” he asked then, his voice gentle and genuine, and Jason’s eyes grew thoughtful as he let out a small sigh. Howard sighed. “You know me: I think she is. But she tells you more things sometimes – you’re neutral ground when me and Vick aren’t.” Jason smiled slightly, looking back at him with a small nod.
“Yeah, she’s there…I think. The same way I am. And you.” He pulled a face then, glancing away. “Although she still won’t talk about things at her mum’s, of course. Which is a whole other problem that is probably getting to her more than she’s willing to admit.”
“Vicky says she’s practically mute these days,” Howard put in, wincing slightly and feeling a pang of vaguely irrational guilt – sometimes he couldn’t help but think it was slightly unfair just how easy a time he’d had getting Grace to accept Jason into her life, and how much it had made Grace start to push to spend as much time as possible with the two of them rather than with her mum. He huffed out a breath. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her we have trouble shutting her up when she’s here,” he added with a rueful smile, and Jason let out a soft, sympathetic chuckle, giving Howard’s hand another comforting squeeze.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” he said gently, and Howard mustered a lopsided smile.
“No. I know it’s not – it’s yours,” he shot back teasingly, and Jason laughed, giving him a harmless shove.
“It’s no one’s fault,” he corrected through his smile, and Howard stuck his tongue out at him. Jason’s smile didn’t falter, even as he rolled his eyes and let out a heavy, thoughtful sigh. “For whatever reason, Tim bugs her. And these past few weeks he’s been bothering her more than usual, though she won’t say why that is.” Jason shrugged and looked over at Howard with another heavy sigh. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders, How. She’ll work through it in her own time, with or without our help.”
“I know. I’m just running out of things I can think of to tell Vicky to make her feel better about it all,” Howard admitted quietly. “Sometimes I think she’s convinced Grace’s only problem with the bloke is that he’s not you. But I know my daughter, Jay; she adores you, but she’s not going to hold that against every other guy she gets introduced to, you know? She probably doesn’t try hard enough to get on with him, but…she’s a kid, of course she’s going to find it tough. I don’t know. I think the thing Vicky doesn’t realise is…she didn’t really try with you either – she just didn’t have to.” Howard looked into Jason’s face, appreciation and love clear in his eyes, and Jason smiled back at him sympathetically.
“Well maybe it’ll just take a bit of work,” he said gently. “But Grace will figure it out eventually. If Tim is worth the hassle, he’ll know that Grace is worth the effort,” he added, and Howard realised it had really always been that simple for Jason; to his mind he had no right to any of the happiness of their relationship if he didn’t accept that Grace would always be a part of it in some way. Jason shrugged like it was nothing but Howard tugged him closer, making him chuckle softly. “It’s just the way it is, How. Always has been. And, when she’s ready to say what it is that’s really bothering her about the whole thing with Tim, then maybe her and him and her mum can come to some sort of compromise. Like I said; if Tim’s a guy worth keeping around, he’ll be as determined to make something work as Vicky is. And Grace is pretty easy to win over really – all you have to do is listen, treat her like she matters and not like she’s just some kid. She’s not trying to make her life into a Disney movie by driving off her mum’s dates; she just doesn’t like to be ignored either. Or talked down to, for that matter.” Jason kissed Howard’s temple and gave his arm a squeeze. “Now come on, talk to me about other problems: like where our rent money is going to come from next month.” Howard laughed and shook his head.
“This is the last time I let you pick conversation topics on a Friday afternoon,” he joked, getting an elbow in the ribs and an exasperated-but-fond smile out of Jason for his troubles. “You’ll be pleased to know I was pretty much hired on the spot – I was just trying to work out my schedule when you got back actually,” Howard said, nodding to his laptop which was still open on the breakfast bar. “I don’t think it’s going to be one of my favourite jobs, though,” he added with a slight grimace, and off Jason’s intrigued look he let out a heavy sigh. “That guy seriously gave me the creeps when I was meeting with him – there was just something not genuine about him, like he had some agenda to everything he said and he didn’t mind me knowing it. He’s obviously good at what he does but I’m not sure he’s got where he is by being a nice guy.” Howard had scrunched up his face in distaste and Jason touched a gentle hand to his cheek, tilting his head and meeting his eyes.
“He really rattled you, didn’t he?” he said tenderly and Howard looked down, his lip curling slightly as he thought back on the meeting.
“I’ve met plenty of sleazy club owners, Jay – but there was something different about him…like he was playing mind-games and power-tripping with everything he said. And when he started asking about you…” Howard trailed off, shuddering, and Jason raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“About me?”
“Yeah…it was strange, actually. He asked if my husband would be coming to any of the gigs – just out the blue, no reason for it at all. When I pointed out I never told him I was married he gave me some bullshit excuse about seeing my wedding ring and having noticed us together at one of my gigs a few weeks back.” Howard looked up, and to Jason just how unsettled he was by the man was clear in his eyes.
He stepped a little closer and brushed his thumb across his cheek – Howard closed his eyes and leant into the touch gratefully. “It was weird, Jay. And he was way too interested in you – and I don’t mean in that ‘He seems charming and beautiful, lucky you, how long have you been married?’ kind of a way. I mean in that ‘I don’t want him anywhere near you ever’ kind of a way.” He opened his eyes again then, looking into Jason’s intently and reaching up to take Jason’s hand in his, holding it there against his cheek. “Jay; I know you’re your own person, I know I don’t have any say in what you can and can’t do, who you can and can’t see…I know you can look after yourself. But-”
“Hey,” Jason interrupted softly, leaning a little closer and offering him a smile that was all love. “I trust you, How. And I know you wouldn’t even be asking if something about the guy wasn’t seriously off – I know you, I know you’re not saying it to try and run my life, you’re saying it because it matters. So…if you want me to stay away, I’ll stay away. But you be careful too, ok? Guys like that need watching; get your pay cheques up front and get out of there as fast as you can – deal?”
“Deal. And…thank you.”
“What for?”
“Just…for always believing in me.”
Chapter 2
From his place on the bed Mark was watching Gary, who was fussing with one of his keyboards – he’d been muttering something about a sticking key earlier but Mark was fairly sure he was just looking for an excuse to be distracted, determined not to discuss the strange phone call from his old friend or the edgy mood it had put him in, no matter how much Mark pressed. So Mark had put his headphones on and feigned disinterest, well aware he probably had no right to complain. He sighed frustratedly to himself, glancing down at his iPod briefly before resting his chin on his hand. He’d stopped the music at least ten minutes ago – he had hardly been taking it in anyway – and now he was stuck in his own circling thoughts, exasperated with himself as much as he was with Gary. After all, Gary wasn’t the only one to guard his past so closely; if anything, Gary was more open than he was. Really, he supposed, he was the one who was a master of finding ways of not talking about his past or the people from it, wasn’t he? And Gary had allowed him to stay that way, never pushing him for too much more of an explanation, not even when Mark’s past had come spilling out into the present. But there was still something that unsettled Mark about the whole situation, about his and Gary’s willingness to bury huge chunks of their lives and keep them from each other. His mind briefly wandered to Jason and Howard; if Jason asked, Howard told and – what was possibly even more impressive – if Howard asked, Jason told. It wasn’t black and white, Mark knew, because sometimes the information was given in slivers and other times it was withheld for a time on the shared understanding that the right moment was needed. But the point was that there were no outright secrets. Mark suspected that Howard knew things about Jason’s past that even his own family didn’t know; after all, wasn’t Howard the one who always picked up his late night phone calls, who sat with him in the dark and knew the difference between every one of his sighs? And if someone as guarded as Jason was prepared to leave himself so exposed for the sake of his relationship, then why was it that he and Gary weren’t able to surrender a few long-ago chapters of their lives to each other, to explain the characters and the influence they had had on the story as it was today.
Mark swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment – his own history momentarily invaded his thoughts and all the pain that came along with it briefly bubbled up inside his chest. He could sympathise with Gary not wanting to let his past and his present collide. But what bothered him was how that past was making Gary behave; some sharper, colder side of him seemed to have been brought to the surface and it unsettled Mark enough to stop him caring about his own hypocrisy so much. He thought he knew Gary, knew what he was capable of; but this person in his bedroom tonight – twitching and cross – was someone he didn’t know at all.
Silently he set his headphones aside and pushed himself along the bed, placing a gentle hand on Gary’s back. Gary jumped at the touch, turning round to look at him with an almost panicked expression on his face. Mark looked back at him sadly and Gary sighed, his shoulders suddenly sagging. He looked so tired in that moment and Mark crept a little closer to him, rubbing his back soothingly.
“You can talk to me, you know,” he murmured as Gary turned away from him, looking down at his hands dejectedly.
“I’m just not feeling myself tonight, Marko, that’s all.” Gary glanced up at him and offered him a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You shouldn’t worry so much – that’s what I keep Jay around for.” Mark frowned slightly.
“I’m not completely blind, Gaz. I know this all started since you talked to this old friend of yours,” he said softly. When Gary looked into Mark’s face he saw the hurt there and he felt terrible, but this was a conversation he was desperate not to have. “Who is he, Gaz? How do you know him?” Mark asked, his voice forlorn and his expression stung. “Can’t you even tell me his name?” Gary winced at Mark’s pleas, looking away once more and biting down on his lip.
“Marko, please don’t make me talk about it. I’m going to meet him, get some answers to some questions, and then it’ll all be over, ok?” He shrugged lamely, risking a glance back at Mark, his eyes sad but hopeful. “Can you not just trust me?”
It was Mark’s turn to wince, looking down at his hands, his eyes desolate and the corners of his lips downturned.
“No,” he whispered, his voice scratchy and nervous. It was clear he didn’t want to admit it, but even seeing the reluctance on Mark’s face Gary still found that the confession wounded him. “Gaz, have you ever noticed how Jay and Howard know everything about each other? Like…have you seen how sometimes Jay will mention some guy or some place, something to do with his brothers or his dancing days…and him and Howard will share this look: no explanation it’s just there. The sentence stops halfway through and they just know and everything makes sense for them. Well, I don’t know how to be that way with you, Gaz. Especially if you’re able to just turn around with one word from this mysterious bloke and become this guy who is so…so closed. It makes it hard to trust you, it makes me question you more, you know?”
“I’m sure there are some secrets of Jay’s even Howard doesn’t know…some things just need to stay in the past for a reason, Marko, that’s all. You of all people should know that.” Mark pretended not to catch the meaning of that statement, instead edging a little closer to Gary and letting out another sigh, looking intently down at the bedspread.
“So then why are you talking to this bloke at all?” he pressed.
“Because I have to, ok?” Gary said, more sharply than he intended. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face, suddenly feeling a great weight of exhaustion coming down on him. He could feel Mark withdraw his hand, could feel him shrinking back from him, and he felt terrible for it. He blew out a breath and slowly dropped his hands back to his lap, opening his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just…I would’ve thought that you, of all people, would be able to understand the need to get some answers out of your past, to try and make sense of the way you are now by getting a real grip on what has gone before, you know?” He risked looking back over his shoulder at Mark and saw the crease of a frown on his forehead, could see the way he was chewing on the inside of his cheek and staring off into the middle-distance as though he could see some ghost from his own past standing there.
“Ok,” Mark managed at last, his voice low and tentative. “Ok. Maybe I do know. And maybe I know what it’s like to have spent time with someone who messed me up and broke my heart…but is that what this bloke did? Break your heart?”
“Not exactly.”
“Didn’t think so.” Mark sighed and looked back up at Gary then, edging ever so slightly closer and resting his head on his shoulder dejectedly. “I’m not saying you have to tell me everything, Gaz. I just don’t understand why this bloke has made you so jumpy – you’ve hardly looked me in the eye all night, you know? Every time he’s mentioned you go cold. I feel like you’re on the defensive and I don’t know why…you didn’t even tell me about him showing up until today.”
Gary closed his eyes, wrapping an arm around Mark’s waist and drawing in a deep breath.
“Honestly?” He squeezed Mark tighter, finding comfort in the feeling of his weight against him. “Jay knew this bloke too. A long time ago. And he’s someone that Jay would be more than happy to never know again.” Mark lifted his head and the movement made Gary open his eyes, looking back at him nervously. He seemed more confused than angry, his head on one side and his brows knitted together.
“So if Jay doesn’t want to know him, what makes you so bothered?” he asked. Gary gave a one-shouldered shrug, looking up at the ceiling and trying hard to unpick the mess of thoughts swirling around in his head.
“Because…because I had a different experience with this guy to what Jay had, and because I was close with Jay, it cost me my friendship with a bloke who always saw people as being either for him or against him, no in-between. If I was with Jay, I was against him; I didn’t get a say in the matter. And Jay had done more than enough to deserve my loyalty then, so I picked a side even though I didn’t want it to come to that. I was Team Jason, I probably still am, if it comes down to having to make a decision again. But it’s not really that simple, you know?” Gary looked back at Mark then, helpless and desperate, and Mark couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He reached up and cupped his cheek with his hand, looking into his eyes silently and offering him a sad smile.
“Call me crazy, but that doesn’t sound like a bloke worth knowing; he was against Jay and wanted you to be too? Real friends don’t make you pick sides that way, Gaz. And who would even be against Jay anyway?!”
“I know, Marko. I know that. But I have to at least find out why he treated Jay the way he did…why it was that important to him that he was willing to turn his back on me over it. I just want to know why things were so bad between those two, why I had to get caught in the fallout – because even Jay is vague about that sometimes, and I just want to know for my own peace of mind. It’s not supposed to be a big deal…but it’s just…I feel like I’m going behind Jay’s back, that’s all. And it’s got me on edge, you know?”
“You are going behind Jay’s back,” Mark pointed out, though his voice was gentle all the same. He gave Gary a lopsided smile. “I won’t lie, Gaz. You’re going behind Jay’s back whether you like it or not. But maybe it’s for the best right now…him and Howard have been through enough this year already, you know? So go. Get your answers and make sure it’s not a big thing so that Jay doesn’t even need to know. But just…please don’t let him down. If this bloke is back for good, then you have to let Jay know. Even if it’s just to warn him that a ghost from his past is going to come back around to haunt him.”
***
Grace rolled onto her back and threw the covers off of herself with a huffy growl of frustration. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been trying to sleep for now without success, but she was getting agitated, no longer able to even find a comfortable position to curl up in. She rubbed tiredly at her eyes, brushing some stray strands of hair out of her face and sighing heavily, letting her mind wander for a moment or two, her eyes scanning her bedroom absently. It was slightly smaller than her bedroom at her mum’s, but it was still her favourite of the two – it was her own little hideaway, every detail in it chosen by her, and she usually had no trouble getting to sleep when she was there. The walls were an unusual shade of purple – somewhere between lilac and amethyst – and strings of warm white fairylights were wrapped around her bedhead and hung above the window, giving the room a peaceful glow at night. The window was covered by a roller blind, semi-see-through and patterned with a dreamy, stylized cityscape picked out in a misty grey. The view behind the blind wasn’t quite as impressive as the one from her dad and Jason’s bedroom window – which looked out towards the Quays – but Grace thought there was still something magical about the collection of glass and metal which lay beyond all the same, something about being so high up over the city that was exciting to her.
The room itself was simply furnished: her bed pushed against one wall, a small desk beneath the window, whilst the wall opposite her bed was taken up by the room’s built-in storage, which consisted of a mixture of shelves and drawers with a wardrobe space at the end – just visible behind one of the larger box-like shelving spaces was a letter G, painted in a dusky grey, whilst the other spaces had the patterns of musical notes behind them in similarly subtle shades. Most of the decoration in the room, however, came in the form of photographs; Grace loved photographs, and despite her young age she was already pretty good with a camera, often sneaking her dad’s away from him whenever she got the chance – her favourites were candid shots, and she had developed something of a knack for sneaking the best ones in moments when people least expected there to be a camera around at all. On her desk were two photograph frames. The small frame was lined with subtle, iridescent sparkles and a twinkling, bejewelled flower at its top corner, housing a picture of her and her best friend Izzy laughing wildly into the camera, glitter-paint decorating their faces as they sat on the grass, bathed in summer sunshine, the remnants of Izzy’s birthday presents’ wrapping paper scattered all around them. The other, slightly larger, frame stood by its side, all-glass with a very fine silver picking out the edges, it contained a picture from when her school’s choir had won first place at a prestigious national competition the previous year; Grace stood in the centre, beaming, holding her participation certificate, her school choir badge on her blazer’s lapel glinting in the sunlight and her first place medal around her neck as her mother stood with her, arms wrapped around her shoulders in a suitably proud pose, though both of them were laughing as her father stood to Grace’s other side, his expression an exaggerated grin, his eyebrows raised as he gave two thumbs up to the camera, and, just visible on either side of the trio were Mark, Gary and, of course, Jason, all smiling, eyes shining, Mark having to get down on one knee and lean at an awkward angle to make it into the shot, his hands splayed into a ridiculous jazz-hand pose that had Gary struggling to bite back a laugh.
These weren’t the only photographs in the room of course; directly above her bedhead were zigzagging photograph strings, lots of pictures printed out to look like Polaroids all clipped to it with tiny wooden pegs, some of the photographs with handwritten captions beneath, others with stickers and drawings adorning their corners. Izzy, her mum, her dad and Jason featured the most, but there were plenty of pictures with Mark and Gary, extended family and her group of friends at school, lots of group shots, landscapes and random scenes interspersed for good measure, the odd singer making the cut and even a few stolen-moment shots she had taken at the apartment rounded out the quirky mix. On the wall by her bed, a growing collection of cards and postcards had been stuck up in neat rows; pretty scenes, patterns and slogans all mixed and matched with pop-stars, penguins and reprints of famous paintings – as well as less famous ones too. Above these there were two posters: one depicted an artistic impression of a flock of birds taking flight into a dappled grey-pink sky, the words ‘Dream On’ written beneath, whilst the other was simply a blush-coloured background, an elegant outline of a face barely picked out, the only details of it being two closed eyes, complete with long lashes and winged eyeliner, and a pair of lush red lips in a cryptic smiling pout. The overall look was eclectic and perhaps ramshackle in places, but Grace always kept it tidy and perfect, unfailingly delighted by it every time she returned to it, and still grateful even now that Jason had let her take over what had been his spare room once upon a time.
She wasn’t sure what time it was; there was a clock on her desk but in the semi-darkness it was difficult to make out much beyond the outline of it, shaped, as it was, like a musical note. It felt like hours since she’d gone to bed, the night rolling on endlessly as she had tossed and turned. It wasn’t like her to not be able to sleep, especially not when she was here; there was nowhere where she felt more at home than in this apartment, with her dad and Jason just across the hallway. For as long as she could remember, she had been closer to her dad than her mum, the two of them always as thick as thieves, some understanding forged between them that couldn’t quite be placed but had been there since the day she was born – even her mum acknowledged that, if a little wistfully. It wasn’t that she didn’t get along with her mum – she was close to both of her parents and the two of them had both always been adept at making her feel she was included and equal, never talking down to her and always asking her opinions on big decisions. Still, she’d always gravitated towards her dad, the problem in the past had simply been that her dad wasn’t really an option; the life he led as a DJ was unpredictable and unstable, he could have her some nights and not others, sometimes he’d even had to change plans at the last minute, and for a while he’d lived relatively far away, that was when he’d been in one place anyway. Grace could just about remember when she was really little and her dad was constantly moving from small, temporary place to small, temporary place, often having to come to her rather than her being able to go to him. She had always been his priority, but there was only so much he could do, and he needed the money that lifestyle brought him, for her sake as much as his own. At the time she hadn’t really understood, though she had always trusted him when he had told her he was sorry and that he had good reasons. It had been tough sometimes and there was no question that – as much as she loved him – she couldn’t have stayed with him as much as she did with her mum. But he’d established his reputation as a DJ since then, begun to get more say in what jobs he did and didn’t take and when those jobs would be. And, of course, he’d met Jason.
His relationship with Jason had been the thing that tipped the balance; an anchor that brought a new sort of peace to her dad’s life. With Jason had come a new surety and stability, a safety net for when plans had to change and a home that had a sense of security and permanence to it, unlike anywhere Grace had known her dad to live before. There was a new constancy to her dad’s existence, something which was backed up by Jason’s kindness and calmness, his easy friendship and his lack of hesitation in offering her his time. Grace might be young but she was quick enough, easily able to see the difference all this made to the arrangements her parents had previously set in place when she was younger, and now she longed more than ever to be able to take advantage of it.
And there it was, she supposed – the reason she couldn’t sleep, why her brain refused to shut down: what-ifs and wishes, all of them getting stronger by the day. It had played on her mind for a while, in passing, but since Tim had become more of a presence in her mum’s life, Grace’s thoughts had been forced to wander over it more and more in recent months. She’d never liked her mum’s boyfriend, but when he’d been at a distance she hadn’t really been able to find much reason to object to him – it was the past year that her active dislike of him had started. He wasn’t like Jason; he preferred to avoid acknowledging her existence, to keep out of any activity she was involved with and to keep quiet during conversations about school or her friends or even her interests. Where Jason knew her favourite colour, helped teach her to play guitar, asked her if she wanted anything when he went to the shops and played mediator when she disagreed with her parents, Tim offered little more than muttered, biting jokes and questions about why her dad couldn’t take her for the day so he could whisk her mum off somewhere where kids weren’t allowed. When he did talk to her, he talked to her like she was a baby, and certainly never seemed to actually listen when she replied – she found it easier to follow his lead and just avoid conversation altogether.
None of it would have mattered so much if he wasn’t slowly becoming more and more a part of life when she was at her mum’s; he’d practically moved in, though he refused to get rid of his own place, and Grace was starting to seriously worry that things at her mum’s would never be the same again. But she didn’t dare speak a word about it to her mum, who she could already tell was starting to take out some of her frustration at the situation on Jason, vaguely jealous of Howard for being able to find someone Grace had such natural ease with and increasingly disappointed in what she saw as Grace’s lack of effort with Tim. Asking to spend an uninterrupted summer with her dad and Jason had been battle enough, she couldn’t imagine how asking to live with them would go down. But it still played on her mind, more and more as time went on; she was usually included in big decisions, but she had never been given the chance to choose where her primary home was, even though she couldn’t think of any decision that affected her more.
Grace rolled onto her side, a frown on her face as she tried once more to relax and close her eyes. But it was no use, she was wide awake and still unsettled by changes longed for and changes dreaded – she needed to either talk it out or find some distraction to pass the time until she was too tired to keep her eyes open any longer. She hugged at her pillow, sad and frustrated in equal measure, and her eyes briefly landed on where her school bag lay abandoned by her desk. For a moment she toyed with the idea of retrieving her phone and calling Izzy, but she knew her best friend wouldn’t thank her for interrupting her sleep at whatever time of night – or morning – it was, and besides, as much as she loved her, she knew the girl could give some downright awful advice sometimes.
At that moment, a dull thud sounded from somewhere in the apartment, and Grace jumped slightly, lifting her head from the pillow. Kitchen cupboard? She strained to try and hear another sound, sitting up in the bed slowly. It was hardly rare to hear sounds in the apartment late at night; her dad’s job meant he could come and go at all times of night, and Jason was a night owl and an insomniac, often up and about in the early hours. Grace climbed out of bed and tiptoed across her room, carefully opening the bedroom door and peering out into the hallway. A dim glow came from the apartment’s kitchen and the faint sound of a kettle boiling was just about audible. Grace felt a small smile come to her lips; there was only one person it could be and he was exactly the person she knew she needed.
She padded down the corridor, her smile widening when she saw Jason, who was standing at one of the kitchen cupboards. He was stretching to set something back on the top shelf, and once he had succeeded he turned swiftly away, his face appearing from behind the cupboard door and his eyes catching on Grace immediately. His hair was a little mussed but his eyes were bright and startlingly blue, even though he was backlit by the fuzzy glow of the kitchen light. He closed the cupboard door and tilted his head to one side, folding his arms as he regarded Grace for a moment.
“Hello, you,” he said softly and Grace smiled up at him, crossing over to the breakfast bar and climbing up onto one of the stools.
“What are you doing up?” she asked him, resting her chin on her hand, and Jason let out a low chuckle, shaking his head slightly.
“I’m pretty sure I should be asking you that question, actually,” he pointed out, though his eyes sparkled kindly, and Grace shrugged.
“You and me are always different, though – we don’t talk to each other the way people expect,” she told him quietly, and Jason laughed, nodding in acknowledgment.
“I suppose so,” he agreed, stepping back towards the kettle and reaching over to where the mugs were kept. He plucked Grace’s mug from the mug tree – a rich, royal purple in colour, dotted with shiny, gold musical notes – and arched an enquiring eyebrow at her. “Hot chocolate?” he asked, and Grace beamed at him, nodding enthusiastically. Jason winked at her, then set about getting together the things he needed, simultaneously seeing to his own drink as he did so.
The two of them lapsed into an easy silence as Jason poured his drink and worked on hers, and Grace watched him with a strange sort of fascination, noticing, not for the first time, that there was something musical about the way Jason twisted and stretched as he moved around the small kitchen space. He caught her staring and flashed her a gentle smile that she returned sleepily before he looked away once more. It was only as he was setting down her hot chocolate in front of her that Jason finally broke the peace.
“So,” he said softly, picking up his own drink and leaning back against the kitchen counter. Grace looked up at him and met his eyes as he regarded her thoughtfully. “Can’t sleep?” he asked her, arching an eyebrow, and Grace pulled a face at him.
“How do you know you’re not dreaming?” she countered a little petulantly, though she couldn’t help but smile when Jason let out a soft laugh.
“You’re definitely a Donald,” he remarked archly, his smile amused but affectionate. “Grumpiness is something your dad has trained me for, kiddo, so if you think being stroppy will stop me asking what the matter is then you’ve got another thing coming.” Grace pouted but Jason’s smile didn’t falter and she let out a sigh, a tiny smile of her own briefly coming to her lips. “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” Jason asked her then, his voice earnest and tender, and Grace slumped across the breakfast bar a little, staring down disconsolately into her hot chocolate. She knew she would end up telling him everything, and a part of her was glad to have him to confide in, but another part of her was afraid of putting Jason in the middle of the mess.
“Do you think I only don’t like Tim because he’s not you?” she asked after a beat, looking up at Jason cautiously and holding her breath as she regarded him out of the corner of her eye. His expression was open and kind, his smile reassuring, and it relaxed her a little.
“No,” he said simply, pausing a moment to take a sip of his drink. “For a start: I’m not that special. And for seconds? You’re not that mean,” he offered then, shrugging slightly. Grace laughed a shy little laugh and Jason smiled back at her quietly. “Is that really all that’s on your mind or is there something else going on?” he pressed, and Grace chewed at her lip thoughtfully, her eyes downturned once more.
“He wishes I didn’t exist,” she said at last, her voice a terse whisper.
“He said that?” Jason asked with genuine concern, coming over to the breakfast bar and leaning on it, dipping his head in such a way that she was forced to meet his gaze. There was a protective sort of worry there that Grace was surprised to see, a fierceness that Jason didn’t often show so unguardedly. Whilst she knew he thought of her as family, it was somehow still a surprise for her to see it so plainly in his face.
“No, he didn’t say it,” Grace admitted slowly. “But that’s only because he hardly ever says anything to me.” She scrunched up her face in distaste. “He makes mum choose between us – like, she can only spend time with me on my own, and with him on his own, and if she makes him eat with us he just sits there in silence, reading or watching TV.” Grace sighed sadly, taking a sip of her drink and slouching a little further across the breakfast bar. “It hasn’t changed the entire time he’s known me – and him and mum have been dating almost as long as you’ve been with dad, so it’s not like he’s not had chance. But now it’s different…”
“How come?” Grace looked up into Jason’s face, encouraged by his sympathetic tone.
“Because I think he’s going to move in properly,” she told him, before quickly looking down again. “And I think mum’s going to marry him,” she added in a mumble.
“And that’s what’s been bothering you these past few weeks? You think you’re going to be stuck in this weird place with him and your mum forever if they get married?” Jason’s voice was sleep-rough in the quiet of the apartment, but it was tender too, full of warmth and patience. When Grace looked up and met his eyes she could how open and kind his expression was and was relieved to not find the dismissiveness she had feared. She should have trusted he wouldn’t judge her, of course; Jason had a way of listening like no one else Grace knew, always intent and concerned. Jason never saw a problem as too trivial for his time, his view usually being that if it mattered to someone he cared about then it was important enough for him to take it seriously. She had never been more grateful for it than in that moment. Slowly, Grace nodded at him, and he reached out a hand, touching her cheek fondly and dipping his head so that their faces were level. “You really think your mum would let that happen, sweetheart?” he asked her, pointed but gentle. “You know she’s worried about things between you and him – she wouldn’t let it get to that before smoothing things out one way or another.” Grace barely took a second to consider his words, her lips forming a pout.
“Well then why is she going away with him this weekend? She’s taken Monday off, you know – that’s why I’m staying an extra night this week.” Jason narrowed his eyes slightly, his brows knitting together in vague confusion.
“I don’t see how that means she’s going to marry him,” he said slowly and Grace rolled her eyes.
“Well we all know what happened when you had a day off and dad sent me off to stay with someone else,” she muttered. Jason chuckled slightly, giving her arm a half-hearted smack as he shook his head with a curious mixture of fondness and despair that somehow brought a smile to Grace’s lips. He looked at her dad like that sometimes, she knew.
“Gracie, I’ve had this afternoon off too but I’ve not got any proposals yet,” Jason told her, his tone light and amused but not unkind, and Grace stuck her tongue out at him.
“You don’t count anymore, you have dad already and you’re not allowed to change your mind.”
“Oh, I’m not planning on it, sweetheart. Besides, I know you’d never forgive me if I did that – and we don’t want that to happen, do we?” Jason smiled, his eyes glittering brightly, and Grace beamed at him, her face suddenly alive as she shook her head emphatically.
“Definitely not.” They shared a smile for a moment before Grace’s mind wandered back to the reason she was awake and she felt her shoulders slump slightly.
She let out a sigh and looked back down, biting her lip. “I wouldn’t have liked you either if you acted like Tim does with me. Even if you were the same in every other way, I swear,” she told Jason softly, tracing the pattern of her mug with her little finger. “Mum doesn’t believe me when I tell her that, but it’s true. You talked to me – and not like I was just some silly little kid either. You actually listened and stuff. It was just…easy. You never minded when I was around – if I was there and you weren’t expecting it, you didn’t care, you always just accepted it, like I was part of the plan all along and you actually wanted me there.” She squirmed slightly, looking at Jason out of the corner of her eye and feeling calmed when she saw the understanding smile he offered her – it was pale and quiet on his lips, just the faintest, watercolour curve, but it was still infinitely comforting somehow. “I don’t want to be stuck with Tim forever, Jay. I couldn’t deal with it; when he’s around mum’s different, and all they do is argue – and not like you and dad, because I know you don’t mean it. They properly argue and no one ever laughs because Tim’s got no sense of humour.”
“And have you told your mum all this?” Jason questioned, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear caringly, his fingers gentle and that look of concern back in his eyes.
“She just says it’s hard for him. Or she says how it’s all because I’m close to dad and because I like you…and I don’t want her to blame you and dad so then I just stop talking.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to protect me and your dad, you know. And your mum knows, deep down, that she didn’t raise the sort of kid who’d let it go this far just because she liked the guy her dad married more than her mum’s boyfriend.” Jason brushed his knuckles across her cheek and she smiled up at him, sad and grateful as his bright blue eyes met her own. “Look, kiddo, I don’t think your mum would go off and marry the bloke with things as they are, you know? You shouldn’t be worrying yourself about being stuck with him all of a sudden – your mum wouldn’t make any big decisions without talking to you about it, and she definitely wouldn’t do anything to make you unhappy, not if you explained it to her.”
“But how can you be sure?” Grace asked plaintively, and Jason smiled, knowing and calm.
“Hey, I seem to remember your dad asking your permission before he married me,” he pointed out, and Grace couldn’t help but let out a soft, fond little laugh, glancing away in an effort to hide her smile but knowing Jason wasn’t fooled. “Your dad didn’t have to tell me, you know: it was just understood, you were the most important person, and if I didn’t feel the same way then, no matter what went on between us, it couldn’t last. For me, it wasn’t a problem – but not everyone in the world is as used to messy families as I am.”
She’d never really questioned Jason’s motives, never asked him how he’d felt about dating a man with a kid who occasionally tagged along unexpectedly on their dates. Jason shrugged, seeming to read her thoughts, and he offered her another easy smile. “Sweetheart, your dad wouldn’t care about however good of a relationship we had, he wouldn’t have cared if I was the love of his life, his best friend, his favourite person: if you weren’t ok with it, if I wasn’t someone you could ever be comfortable with…he would’ve walked away. He never told me in as many words – I don’t think we ever had a conversation about it at all, to be honest. But I didn’t need to be told. He adores you and makes a point of showing it. Everyone knows you mean the world to him – so, you’ll always come first, and rightly so.” Jason tipped his head to one side, meeting her gaze. “If it wasn’t ok with you, Gracie, no matter how bad your reasons might have been, none of it would’ve got beyond a handful of dates. Your dad would’ve walked away and it would’ve been over, and I probably wouldn’t be standing here right now.” He stopped, scrunching up his face slightly. “Well, maybe I would, since this was my apartment…but, I’d be here on my own. No ring on my finger, and definitely no sign of your dad asleep down the hall.” Jason offered her a wry smile that coaxed a small laugh out of her.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a small voice. Jason arched an eyebrow.
“Of course I’m sure – do you know anyone who knows your dad as well as I know your dad?” he shot back at her in a level, even tone, and she couldn’t help but smile at the truth in that. His eyes glittered at her with amusement and affection. “You are a part of who your mum and dad are; you can’t say you love them if you don’t also love you. And maybe Tim is awkward, or shy, or just doesn’t know what to say…but whatever it is? Your mum will make him – and you – figure it out before she lets him become any more a part of your life than he already is. I promise.”
Jason pushed himself up then, taking a final gulp of his drink before placing the empty mug into the sink. When he turned back to look at her there was concern in his eyes once more and he folded his arms, leaning back against the kitchen counter and watching her carefully. “You’re pretty easy to love, Gracie – if Tim is someone your mum is going to keep in her life for good, then he’ll need to realise that; I know it. Your mum and dad adore you, and no matter what you might say, I know you know that’s true.”
“I know,” Grace admitted quietly, looking away. “I still wish sometimes that…that I lived here instead.” She shrugged awkwardly, aware of Jason’s eyes scrutinizing her and suddenly nervous that she had admitted too much, worried he might not understand that it wasn’t simply the situation with Tim that was causing this particular stirring of unrest. “I was too little to choose when they decided I’d live with mum, and dad was always moving anyway.”
“But now it’s different and you want to choose,” Jason surmised quietly, thoughtfully, and Grace nodded, a timid little nod but she knew Jason saw.
“I don’t want mum to be upset.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Jason said kindly, coming back across to the breakfast bar and placing a gentle hand on her arm, giving it a squeeze. “You’ve been thinking about this a long time, right?” he asked and Grace nodded once more.
“It’s not just about Tim, I promise.”
“Ok,” Jason sighed, taking a moment to think before meeting her eyes determinedly. “How about I promise to talk about it with your dad, but only on the condition you talk to your mum about things with Tim and at least try to make things work out there first – does that sound fair?” Grace looked at him for a moment, her gaze steady and thoughtful, her expression giving nothing away as she studied Jason’s face. Then, slowly, a soft smile began to form, her lips twisting up into the faintest of curves.
“I’m really glad dad met you,” she murmured at last and Jason’s expression softened, his smile mirroring hers and his eyes shining.
“Me too, sweetheart,” he replied in an unguardedly soft whisper. Then a smile cracked across his face. “Not least coz he brought you with him,” he added with a wink that made Grace laugh. “So, have we got a deal?” he asked her, and Grace drew in a deep breath before nodding slowly.
“Deal,” she agreed and Jason smiled.
“Good,” he replied, leaning in to kiss her forehead affectionately. “Now come on, drink up and I’ll come play my guitar. We can talk about nothing for a bit – it might help you sleep, ok?” Grace grinned up at him gratefully, nodding.
“Ok.”
It was hardly a new tradition between the two of them; they’d been doing it since before Jason and her dad had got married, Jason always sitting at the end of Grace’s bed whilst Grace curled around her pillows, looking over at him as he played and talked until eventually her eyelids would grow heavy and she’d drift off to sleep. And tonight was no different: Grace was asleep within a half-hour, though Jason lingered for a little while, playing to the end of his song, lost inside his own thoughts. When his fingers finally stilled on the frets, he glanced up, and smiled softly as he spotted a figure standing in the partially open doorway, two glinting blue eyes watching him silently. There was a quiet half-smile on Howard’s lips as Jason met his gaze; he was resting against the doorframe, had been for the past ten minutes, enjoying catching Jason unawares. Now he watched as Jason quietly set his guitar down by the foot of Grace’s bed and climbed to his feet, moving towards him.
“Hey, you,” Howard whispered as Jason approached and Jason shot him a look which was part-reprimand and part-amusement, gently pushing him back out of the doorway and pulling Grace’s bedroom door closed behind him.
“Shh,” he warned him in a soft laugh. Unconcerned, Howard wrapped an arm around Jason’s waist before the door was even fully closed, and he placed a kiss to the crook of his neck. Jason twisted in the embrace, turning just enough to look up into Howard’s face, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“I woke up and you were gone,” Howard pointed out in a murmur, kissing Jason’s nose and pulling a rough, low laugh from him that sent a thrill through his bones. “So I came and found you,” he added, punctuating the sentiment with another chaste kiss, this time placed against Jason’s forehead as he laughed again, giving Howard a half-hearted shove.
“Your powers of observation are clearly second to none, love,” Jason whispered, looking up into Howard’s face with a fondly despairing smile. “I couldn’t sleep, then Grace couldn’t sleep…you know how it is round here, there’s usually at least one light on in this place at three in the morning,” he added then, chuckling, and Howard nodded, his grin knowing.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, love,” he said, bringing a hand up to Jason’s cheek and brushing the pad of his thumb tenderly across his skin. “You ok?” he asked and Jason’s smile softened as he relaxed his weight against Howard’s solid frame.
“Golden – sometimes I just can’t sleep because I can’t sleep, there’s not always trouble on the horizon,” he reassured Howard honestly, giving him a half-shrug. Howard nodded.
“And what about Grace?” He arched an eyebrow, expectant and curious, and Jason tipped his head to one side in thought. His eyes looked almost silver in the shadows of the corridor and Howard briefly found himself counting the flecks of pale blue still visible there as they caught the light.
“Grace will be ok. I think she’s just been worrying about things at her mum’s more than she was letting anyone know.” Jason gave a lopsided smile. “I think she’s scared to tell her mum any of the reasons her and Tim don’t get on in case it makes her feel bad. She doesn’t want her mum taking it out on you and me – especially me, apparently. She’s too smart for her own good sometimes, that kid.”
“Vicky would never blame you, Jay, you know that,” Howard protested softly and Jason smirked up at him, knowing and amused, his eyebrows quirked slightly. Howard let out a half laugh, resting his forehead against Jason’s. “Ok, fine – maybe she would, maybe she has a little bit already. But she doesn’t mean it, Jay, not really.”
“I know. And I wouldn’t blame her even if she did, How: it’s a difficult situation. For everyone.” Jason lifted one shoulder in an idle shrug, looking up into Howard’s eyes. “Grace just needs to find a way to talk to her mum and not worry about you and me, that’s all – and she’ll get there, she just needs a bit of gentle persuasion from her dad, I suspect.” His grin was mischievous and it made Howard chuckle slightly, but there was a genuine note in his voice, a tenderness to it that spoke to just how much Jason cared about Grace and always had done. Howard moved his fingers lightly down Jason’s jawline to his chin, tipping his face up just enough so he could dip his head and steal a slow, lingering kiss from Jason’s lips.
When they broke apart once more, Howard rested their foreheads together again, looking down into Jason’s eyes intently.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” he breathed and Jason smiled at him ruefully, rolling his eyes as if to dismiss the admission. Howard sighed softly and brought both his hands up to cup Jason’s face. “No, don’t do that – don’t pretend that just any bloke would look out for her the way you do, or that just any bloke would know how to talk to her the way you do,” Howard told him firmly.
For a moment Jason looked up at Howard thoughtfully, sensing the rough honesty that edged his voice and giving due consideration to the very raw flash of love the moment had exposed. Slowly he brought his hands up, placing them flat against Howard’s chest; he could feel his heartbeat behind his warm skin and it made him smile faintly.
“Howard, when are you going to work out that it’s just not as big a deal as you think?” he asked gently. Howard frowned and was about to protest when Jason suddenly rose up to press a quick kiss to his lips. “It’s easy for me, ok? That girl is fifty per cent your DNA, Donald – talking to her comes naturally because half the time it’s no different to talking to you. Stubborn, wilful, still strangely sweet underneath it all…funny, when she wants to be. Fiercely protective of people she loves.” Jason shrugged. “There’s only one other person in the whole world I know who’s so quietly bright, Howard Donald. So give yourself some credit every once in a while.” For a moment they stood in silence, each looking back at the other raptly, blue eyes intent upon blue eyes. Howard reached up to brush some of Jason’s hair from his forehead, searching his face for a moment with a smile that seemed to shine in the shadows.
“I still think you’re amazing, Jay,” he said at last, his voice low and firm. “It’s three in the morning, you care about my daughter, you’re looking at me that way and you’re beautiful.” He shrugged. “That will always qualify as amazing to me.”
***
Jason glanced up from his newspaper as Grace shuffled into the room, her eyes barely open and her hair a tangled mass that fell across her face, sticking up at awkward angles here and there. He smothered an amused smile as she pulled herself up onto a stool at the breakfast bar with a sound that was part-yawn, part-groan.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he teased lightly, letting out a fond laugh as she scowled sleepily at him from across the kitchen. He set down his cereal bowl and pushed himself up off the kitchen counter, moving towards the breakfast bar. “You really are your father’s daughter aren’t you,” he sighed, mischief and affection dancing in his eyes, and despite her just-woken-up bad mood, Grace found it hard to muster much annoyance when she saw the kindness in his smile.
“It’s not my fault it’s so stupidly bright in this apartment,” she shot back through a yawn.
“It’s called sunlight, sweetheart – it’s good for you,” Jason replied wryly, resting his elbows against the breakfast bar and stretching out idly. “So – is there anything you’d like for breakfast which might make you a little bit less grumpy?” he asked her, quirking his eyebrows, and Grace couldn’t help but grin back at him.
“Does that mean you’re taking requests?” she asked hopefully, making Jason laugh.
“Yes – but only within reason, princess! I know what you’re like for picking the most difficult thing possible,” he warned her jokingly, pointing one of his long, thin fingers at her and narrowing his eyes. The effect was offset almost entirely by the way the morning sunlight danced across his face, exposing the smile there, and Grace beamed back at him undeterred.
“You only call me ‘princess’ when you know you’re going to say yes,” she told him brightly and Jason stuck his tongue out at her.
“Excellent, another smart-mouth in the Donald family,” he teased. “I’m guessing you’re going to ask for something involving way too much sugar?”
“French toast?” Grace ventured hopefully and Jason laughed.
“Of course.”
It was at that moment that Howard came bumbling into the room, announcing his presence with a loud yawn. He was running a hand through his sleep-mussed curls as he dragged himself groggily up to sit on the stool beside Grace’s.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he mumbled through another yawn, stretching lazily before slumping across the breakfast bar, squinting his eyes against the sunshine and scrunching his face up in distaste. Grace and Jason exchanged amused glances.
“Is he talking to me or you?” Grace asked cheekily, flashing Jason a grin that he returned in kind, standing up straight and folding his arms.
“Well, it’s Saturday morning and he’s made it as far as the kitchen,” he stated, regarding Howard mock-thoughtfully. “Bearing in mind he’s not had his coffee yet, I think we should just be grateful he’s forming words at all,” he added then, laughing when Howard scowled up at him half-heartedly and flashing him a shameless smile in response. “This time on Sunday you’ll be lucky to get a grunt out of him,” he concluded, his eyes still on Howard, who pulled a face at him and attempted to smother a smile.
“You’re very lucky I love you,” he muttered and Jason laughed.
“Duly noted,” he smiled. “Now, if you can keep your eyes open long enough, I’m taking breakfast orders. Any preference?” Howard’s eyes lit up at the mention of food, and he sat up a little straighter, more awake almost immediately, much to Jason’s amusement.
“Any chance of an omelette? I’m starving.” Jason’s smile was knowing, even as he rolled his eyes in a show of despair.
“I bet you are,” he remarked dryly, meeting Howard’s eyes and suppressing a laugh as their minds both drifted back to the previous night. When Howard waggled his eyebrows at him suggestively, Jason narrowed his eyes in response, grabbing up a tea-towel from the counter and throwing it in Howard’s face. “Behave, Donald,” he warned jokingly, before glancing over at Grace with a grin. “That goes for you too, sweetheart – you pair should be a lot nicer to the bloke offering to cook your breakfasts,” he reminded them, winking at Howard, who was plucking the tea-towel from his face, still grinning unashamedly.
Grace let her dad and Jason carry on their good-natured bickering, the two of them interspersing secret, knowing smiles between their teases whilst Jason cooked and Howard got up to make himself a coffee. She slumped sleepily over the breakfast bar and listened to them bantering and laughing, a small smile on her lips as she enjoyed their jokes and nonsense. Mornings with her dad and Jason were always like this: lazy, bright and dancing, her dad and Jason usually starting their affectionate tug of war exactly where it had left off the night before. Even weekdays and grey days and miserable days – Grace had seen her dad and Jason make something positive out of them all. The contrast to life at her mum’s was startling; mornings with her mum were rushed and tense because of how far they lived from her mum’s work and her school. When Tim was added into the mix as well, stress and arguments almost always followed. The problem with Tim and her mum was that they were both highly strung – nothing was easy, there was no such thing as ‘Never mind’ or ‘Oh well’ and mixing their perfectionism with their hectic schedules and demanding jobs meant they had a tendency to get in each other’s way, taking their stress out on anyone in their path as they went. Grace found it best to try and stay under the radar, getting her cereal and scurrying off to the lounge to watch TV whilst her mum and Tim slowly drove each other crazy as they rushed in and out of rooms, trying to find keys and important files and laptop leads. Strangely, the perfectionist streak was one of the biggest things Grace had in common with her mum, but it was balanced out by a mellowness she’d inherited from her dad, and she supposed that was the reason that the early-morning tension always made her feel so uncomfortable; some mornings she wished she could just disappear, get swallowed whole by the sofa so that she felt less like everything was out of control, less like she was in the way all the time.
She glanced up just in time to see Jason snatching up Howard’s mug, holding it just out of his reach, the two of them performing their own intricate choreography as they laughed, each ducking out of the way of the other just in time before Jason finally allowed himself to be caught, Howard’s arms wrapping around his waist from behind and pulling him close. Jason surrendered the empty mug in exchange for a quick, chaste kiss, and the two moved on as if nothing had happened, Jason returning to his cooking and Howard pouring his coffee. Grace rolled her eyes but she couldn’t help but smile all the same; as much as she moaned and complained to them about their open affection, she realised that a part of her relished it. Besides, to see Jason so easy and calm again made a nice change after the past weeks – to see him at all still held a certain magic, in fact. The scene had a safety and a light to it and Grace wanted to be sure she made the most of it before having to return to the manic-edged air of her mum’s during the week.
It wasn’t long before Jason was setting breakfast down in front of Grace; his head was turned slightly to listen to something her dad was telling him, but he flashed her a quick smile before he moved away and Grace watched him thoughtfully, once again finding herself wondering how it was that things with Jason always seemed so simple.
“Why do you always cook breakfast for us?” Grace asked suddenly, surprising herself slightly as she let the question escape her head. Jason and Howard both turned to look at her, eyebrows raised in mild confusion, and she shrugged awkwardly under the scrutiny. She caught them exchanging a glance, Jason biting back a laugh at something he saw dancing in her dad’s eyes before he looked back over at her, his expression softening into something understanding and fond.
“Because I don’t mind?” he suggested at last, shrugging somewhat helplessly before coming over to the breakfast bar and leaning across to tuck a strand of Grace’s hair behind her ear, dipping his head so he could meet her gaze. “Still thinking too much, kiddo?” he asked, his voice gentle, and Grace gave him a small smile in return.
“Why do you have to know everything?” she asked.
“He can’t help himself, sweetheart; it just happens every time he opens his mouth,” Howard remarked as he passed behind Jason, who shot him a playful glare. Howard stuck his tongue out before sliding onto the stool next to Grace and leaning in to join her and Jason’s little huddle. “So, out of interest, since when do you care why Jay does what Jay does?” he asked in a gentler voice. Grace played with a strand of her hair, looking down and avoiding Jason and Howard’s searching gazes.
“I don’t know. I was just asking,” she mumbled. Jason’s lips twitched up at the corners and he touched her chin gently, forcing her to look up and meet his eyes.
“Come on, kiddo, you know how things work around here by now: you ever heard the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’?” Jason arched an eyebrow and Grace smiled slightly. “I care about you and your dad, so I go out of my way to make sure you’re both happy. And at the end of the day, your dad does the same for me too.” He shrugged, leaning in just a little, his smile turning conspiratorial. “Good things don’t always have to start with words, sweetheart, sometimes gestures are enough,” he told her softy. Her smile widened and she gave him a small nod, and with that Jason seemed to see the issue as settled, giving her a quick wink before pushing himself up off the breakfast bar and turning back to his cooking.
Grace glanced over at her dad, who winked at her too, kissing the top of her head.
“He’s telling the truth, you know. It’s just how things go around this place; we do what we can and we give what we can in return – number one house rule, kiddo,” he told her, glancing over at Jason briefly before looking back at her. “It’s a good cure-all – but sometimes you have to be the one to make the first gesture,” he added, and Grace gave him a small, understanding smile. He arched an eyebrow at her. “So…better?” he asked her gently and she smiled up at him.
“Much,” she agreed with a quick nod, an easy calm settling back around her that Howard seemed to sense, and he rewarded her with a smile of his own.
“Good. Now go on, trouble, run off and watch TV like I know you’re dying to,” he said, laughing as she scrambled quickly to grab up her plate and cutlery, manoeuvring awkwardly down from the high stool she was sitting on and making a swift beeline for the sofa.
As soon as Grace was settled in front of the TV, Howard climbed down from his stool and made his way over to Jason, wrapping an arm around him from behind and kissing the crook of his neck. “I love you,” he murmured against Jason’s skin. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeated, making Jason laugh softly as he leant back against him. “I love you and I will always love you, and you need to know that, right now.” Howard briefly closed his eyes as he held Jason close. The scent of coconut was on Jason’s skin and he smiled lazily, reluctantly releasing his hold just enough to allow Jason to twist in his arms, letting him turn his head to look up into his face.
“Howard Donald, you aren’t half a sappy bastard – especially on Saturday mornings,” Jason said quietly, no malice in the words and his eyes dancing a hundred hues of blue. Howard simply leant in to press a kiss to the crook of his neck.
“God, Saturday mornings…you have no idea how much I love you on Saturday mornings,” he mumbled against Jason’s skin, and Jason’s lips curved at the corners, forming the palest of smiles. “Do you have any idea how quiet this place was on Saturday mornings without you? Late at night and first thing in the morning…I did the dishes at 3a.m. one time, just so I could bang some pots around.”
“And did it help?” Jason asked gently.
“No. But then you came home.” Howard leant back and smiled at Jason quietly, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “So, do I have your permission to be a sappy bastard on Saturday mornings?” he asked and Jason chuckled.
“I never said you couldn’t be, actually. It was just an observation,” he told him, his tone quiet and matter-of-face. “I did marry you, after all – so maybe, just maybe, I have a thing for sappy bastards.” Jason rolled his eyes then. “And come on, our first kiss was in the rain – you should know by now I love a good cliché every now and then.” His eyes danced mischievously and Howard grinned, kissing his temple.
“Oh Jay, I am so glad I found you,” Howard said with a small smile, kissing Jason on the lips before turning him around to face him properly. “You know….it’s you and her, Jay; that’s all I really care about in the end.” Jason’s lips twisted into a soft, knowing smile as he looked up into Howard’s eyes, and Howard rested their foreheads together, cupping his face in his hand, the pad of his thumb brushing Jason’s cheek. He could see the answer there, without words, and he smiled back at Jason quietly. “Of course you know that,” he said with a half-chuckle, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Jason was studying his face thoughtfully, and he offered him another small, shy smile. “And that’s the point,” he added more softly, leaning back just enough to fix his bright blue eyes on Jason more clearly. “Thank you for my Saturday mornings, Jason Orange.”
“Please. I live for your Saturday mornings, Howard Donald. And that’s never going to change,” Jason murmured back, allowing Howard to pull him into a slow, lazy kiss, his hands curling into his hair and his smile soft against his lips.
***
Gary cast a wary eye around the cavernous room, taking in the stainless steel and cut-glass surroundings and shifting uncomfortably on the style-before-substance barstool. A few staff were milling around, all young and bored-looking, and over in the DJ booth a moody-eyed man with a complicated array of piercings along the curve of his ear was assessing the equipment, muttering something into his phone. It was one of those places which was trying just that little bit too hard to be cutting-edge, the sort of venue that anyone with any real experience of exclusivity would cringe at, but that your average punter was happy to play pretend in, allowing the façade of class to trick them for an hour or so. Gary supposed that, once the lights went down, it was a lot easier to ignore the desperation that crept in at the edges and to focus instead on the good looks and charm of the bar staff and the up-to-the-minute beats of Manchester’s finest DJs, who regularly graced the place with their presence; it was a popular spot, and Gary wondered idly if Howard had ever played here, given his ever-growing profile in the business.
Gary sighed, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the sparkling bar-top and wincing slightly. He looked every bit as uncomfortable and out of place as he felt, and – not for the first time since he’d arrived – he wondered what on earth he was doing here. He’d been ushered in a good twenty minutes ago and had been told he would have no longer than ten minutes to wait; it didn’t surprise him too much – he remembered these power-games from back in the day, and he felt a fool for still allowing them to make him feel so small. He should’ve outgrown this, should’ve come to be more comfortable and confident in his own skin. He should’ve had the backbone to not even come here in the first place, some snipped, sad voice in the back of his head reminded him. He rubbed a hand over his face, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to take stock and gather himself. He was in no fit state to deal with this – he’d built it up too much in his head and now the past was threatening to swallow him whole, restore him back to the person he used to be. Some part of him recognised that he had changed, grown, since then, yet he still couldn’t snap out of it.
For what seemed like the thousandth time since he’d woken up, his thoughts drifted to the past – more specifically to his and Jason’s shared past, to those days when their friendship was new and they were little more than two strangers thrown together by circumstance. Gary remembered being in awe of Jason back then, could still remember watching him dance for the first time, dazed and a little mesmerized by his power and confidence. There was something captivating about Jason when he danced, as though that quiet intensity of his had suddenly been unleashed and set on fire. There had been a fierceness in his eyes that day that Gary had never known in anyone else, and the memory of that sharp blue stare first meeting his was vivid in his mind to this day. Charming, handsome and intelligent, Jason had fascinated Gary before they had even exchanged hellos – his curious blend of charisma and earnestness had made Gary idolise him somewhat at first, but it had been Jason’s kindness and humour which had fostered a friendship that had seen them quickly become like brothers. They had both grown up a lot since then, had both been changed by life and circumstances and even by each other. But sitting here now in the soulless air of the city-centre club, Gary hardly felt he’d changed at all. That awed, hapless kid was still there – there was still a weakness right in his core, a spinelessness he hated to own up to.
And that was why he was here, Gary supposed. Why he was here without talking it over with Mark or Howard or even Jason himself. He wasn’t brave enough to admit his own doubts and regrets, he didn’t have the courage to face their disappointment. And Jason…he didn’t want to see the haunted look in his eyes he’d seen all those years ago, didn’t want to be the one who brought it back again after all this time. Gary shuddered. A part of him knew that that memory alone should’ve been enough to stop him coming here. But there were still answers he didn’t have and it bothered him, unsettled him. He and Jason had been in each other’s lives for so long now it was almost hard to count up the years – so much had been shared in that time, so many secrets, hopes and fears exchanged, but there were questions Gary never asked and answers Jason never gave. They never really spoke about any of it; there was a silent acknowledgement between the two of them that things had happened which neither one of them was in a rush to relive, an understanding that the truth of their history should forever be repainted in order to avoid certain conversations. They’d been playing pretend so long that Gary sometimes wondered if Howard even knew the truth, or if it was one guard Jason Orange was simply never going to let down for anyone.
Gary was shaken from his thoughts by a hand clapping down on his back, and he jolted up a little, startled. Some voice in the back of his head pointed out that he could’ve snuck away if he’d been a little quicker, but now the chance was lost and the point was moot. Over his shoulder, smiling plastically back at him, was a barely-recognisable face from his past; the skin was unnaturally taught, its pallor unsettlingly orange, but those eyes were every bit as shockingly blue as he remembered, and that too-bright smile every bit as forced and insincere as it had always been.
“Gary!” The friendliness at least was, perhaps, genuine, though Gary couldn’t be sure. “So sorry to keep you waiting – a lot of VIPs in tonight, you know how it is.” It was clearly not a sincere apology – more a subtle boast than anything – and Gary smiled tightly as he remembered all the reasons he’d found it easy to trade this man’s friendship in for Jason’s all those years ago. “Well look at you, Gary Barlow! I can’t believe we’ve let it go so long.” He’d pulled himself up to sit on the barstool next to Gary’s, turning himself to face him better, and when he spoke it was with a flash of alarmingly white teeth and a glint of icy blue eyes that seemed to see a little bit too much for Gary’s liking. “I’m still on the club scene, as you can see. Moved up in the world since then though – you’ve probably heard all about that, of course, I’m sure; I’ve been in all the papers round here, always promoting things. I run a whole chain of these places now, a few gay-bars up and down the North West too. There’s a piano bar I run not far from here that’s probably more your scene, but it’s closed for renovations at the moment; have to stay on the edge of all the trends in this business.” Gary nodded vaguely. “And what about you? Any news I should know about? It’s a quaint little shop you’re running – I didn’t realise when I stopped in that it was yours, I just thought you worked there.” Gary raised his eyebrows sceptically. “Messy break-ups can force you into a rebound business like that, I suppose – but you’re making the best of it, I’m sure.” Gary blinked in surprise at that comment, not sure exactly how he could have come by the information about the circumstances of his buying the shop honestly, but he decided to let it slide.
“The name of the place is the giveaway that it’s mine, for most people anyway,” he remarked archly, before letting out a sigh. “I wouldn’t say it’s something I went into blind, though. Everyone who knows me knows it’s just an excuse to be around music all day. Write a lot of songs that way,” he shrugged, glancing down at the bar-top and tracing an absent pattern along the sleek, black surface.
He knew from past experience that there would probably be some agenda to this meeting, to the sudden return of this man to his life after so many years of silence, and that knowledge made him shy away from saying too much, cautious and unsure of where the landmines might be buried and not willing to give away too much in case he was stumbling into a trap. “It’s all going well though, muddling along, you know,” he added with an awkward shrug, forcing himself to avoid eye-contact.
“Of course, of course.” The tone was dismissive and clipped and it provoked a peculiar mix of annoyance and uneasiness in Gary’s chest. He glanced up and found those piercing blue eyes were fixed upon him, seeming to assess him and judge him and know too much. He made Gary feel like a teenager again, with his mind games and his idle power-plays. So much the man did was designed to make people feel small – he felt foolish for allowing those tricks to work even now he was older. Gary remembered how that calculating way of his had always ensured he’d got his way, though. That was until he’d come up against Jason Orange’s quiet steel and self-belief, of course, Gary mused absently.
“I know all about your little band, you know, Gary. Listened to some stuff a friend of mine recorded.” Gary blinked in surprise at the sudden subject change, looking into the other man’s face with trepidation and confusion. He smiled thinly back at Gary and made a dismissive gesture with his hands. “It’s a small world in my business. The Manchester night scene’s been talking about you and your little songs – they say you don’t put on a bad show, for an amateur club and pub scene group, that is” He arched an eyebrow at Gary, barely bothering to pretend his enquiry was simply casual any more. “Four of you, is there?” he added, looking Gary up and down. Gary shifted in his seat and looked away, uncomfortable with how much he seemed to know about his life and feeling as though he were betraying the band if he allowed himself to say too much about them to this man.
“That’s right,” he said stiffly, giving a small little nod. “Me and the boys from the shop.”
“And that Jason Orange is one of your boys from the shop then?” He sounded as though he were sucking on lemons when he said Jason’s name and Gary winced.
“Jay’s been a good mate to me – it wasn’t his idea to be in the band, but when me and Mark begged he couldn’t bring himself to say no,” he replied, hoping his voice conveyed the determination he felt not to let Jason’s name be dragged through the mud during what was supposed to be an innocent catch-up between old friends. Nothing was ever innocent with this man, though, Gary reminded himself.
“Done alright for himself, I’ve noticed. I’ve met his husband – he’s supposed to be working here for me for a few nights soon. Good DJ. Got cagey when I asked after Jason, though. Trouble in paradise?”
“As if,” Gary scoffed, his smile turning fond as he thought of Jason and Howard, cluttering up his shop near-constantly with their affectionate bickering. “Howard’s protective, that’s all,” he added, looking down.
“Suppose you have to be when you marry a man with that sort of a face.” Gary bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, a defensive anger forming in the pit of his stomach. “I’m just amazed he’s settled down at all. Didn’t think he was capable.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Gary asked sharply, looking up with a frown. His scowl only deepened when he was given a placid, reptilian smile and an idle shrug in reply.
“He was always a piece work. Very full of himself. Cocky. Knew he could have his pick of the boys.”
“Jay’s not like that,” Gary said coolly. Even the old Jason, the one with that youthful fearlessness and boundless energy, hadn’t been like that. Bold, perhaps. But never arrogant. Loyal, quiet and smart – they were the qualities at the heart of Jason Orange and they always had been. And he had been the only person in the group who’d seen past the fact that Gary was ‘uncool’. Jason had listened and given him his time, had treated him like a brother but also like a leader, shown him respect and not asked for much of anything in return besides his attention when he explained choreography and his seriousness when he danced with him, or tried to. “Jay’s never been like that,” Gary added more quietly, another wave of guilt for even being here suddenly hitting him.
“Well you didn’t have to try to manage him. He was in my ear more than you know, Gary. There was always something. You know, if he’d had half as much talent – or half as big a brain – as he thought he did, then maybe things would have worked out a different way. But he thought he was too good for me and you, Gary. Thought he was better than what we were trying to do, and never seemed to realise how hard he would have to work for any of us to get anywhere in that industry.” Another lie, Gary knew; there was no one who grafted harder than Jason – he was a determined, honest soul if ever there was one. “I needed a pretty face, though – I knew the dangers of finding one as handsome as him, but I took the risk, because success in that industry is built on risk, you know. I would’ve made a lot of money for a lot of people if he’d let me.”
“You chose him for his face and underestimated his mind. Underestimated his talent too – though even Jay himself is guilty of that sometimes.” Gary knew he was mumbling like some scolded schoolboy trying to defend himself to the headmaster, but he drew himself up a little, hoping to portray the confidence he was lacking. “You definitely underestimated his heart,” he added warningly, but his glare was dismissed with a huffy laugh.
“You only have one side of the story, you know. I’m sure he’s twisted it to suit his own ends – he was always selfish, Gary. It’s just a shame he had to bring you down with him.”
“Selfish? Jay?! Can you even hear yourself?! He’s just Jay! And he’s one of the most genuine blokes I know. He won’t kick up a fuss unless something really matters. So whatever you want to tell me about what I saw back then and how it’s all a big misunderstanding? Don’t bother.”
Gary looked up, hoping his firm tone was enough to cover the tiny sliver of doubt that he’d always been ashamed to admit lingered in his chest over how exactly things had turned out. What he did know was that there had always been a light in Jason. A light that had dwindled and stuttered because of this man. Jason had rapidly lost that quiet self-belief he’d had when Gary had first met him, lost pieces of himself on a daily basis as something – someone – had chipped away at his smooth edges, uncovering fault lines beneath his surface that he tried his best to hide, but could never quite fully keep out of sight. Insecurity, doubt and something – something Gary couldn’t place – had fractured him. He’d spent the years since putting himself back together, picking up the pieces and attempting to reassemble them into something whole. And the result had become the beautiful, jagged mosaic that Gary knew today; flawed but bright. His edges were sharp and his colours mismatched, but he was glorious again – and perhaps, with Howard’s help, his light had become brighter than ever, his lost strength restored. And after all that, Jason deserved more than for his pain to be dismissed as a misunderstanding, more than for whatever exactly had happened all those years ago to be labelled a lie. “You were always hardest on him,” Gary murmured, shaking his head slightly as if to try and quell the onslaught of memories the conversation was bringing to his mind.
“Because he needed it,” came the sharp, swift reply. “When you have an attention seeker it disrupts the group. He needed reminding why he was there, so I gave him that reminder. I hurt his pride and his ego but no harm was done. Maybe I pushed him harder than I would’ve done anyone else, but I had to, it was the only way to keep him in check.” Gary let out a barked, humourless laugh and shook his head – if anyone had been an attention seeker back then, he wasn’t proud to admit it, but it had probably been him.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this with you – you’ve always been the same when it comes to Jay, and if you’re still singing the same tune even now, then I’ve got a life I’d like to get back to, and some real friends who I could be spending my time with instead.”
Gary shook his head once more, angry with himself, and he pushed himself down off the stool, but stopped abruptly when a bony hand grabbed his bicep.
“Gary, don’t rush off.” Gary was alarmed to find how easily the plea stopped him in his tracks. Why did he find it so hard to shake off the past? “Listen, I’m sorry we don’t see eye to eye on this, but don’t spoil our afternoon by storming off.” Gary risked a glance back then. His whole body had stiffened, instinctively distrustful, but some traitorous, nostalgic part of his brain was curious and wouldn’t allow him to shake off the other man’s vice-grip.
“Look, if you only called me to slag off my best mate then I don’t think-”
“Gary, don’t be like that. We’ve never seen eye-to-eye on Jason, but that’s no excuse for falling out, not anymore.” A cold smile played on the man’s lips. “And don’t forget who it was that first believed in your music, Gary. Remember who it was that was willing to risk it all just to build a band around your talent – your talent no one else would recognise.” Gary felt his resolve weakening further and he let out a sharp, frustrated sigh. “Look around you, Gary. I know how to build success, and I certainly know how to get the press’ attention. I know we both had to leave the industry behind us for a while, after everything that happened…but we made a great team, while it lasted. And maybe now the time could be right again – you’ve thinned out, grown into your looks, and your sound might be just the thing that would strike a chord right now.” Gary turned slowly, looking back at him with a mixture of confusion and disgust. He spluttered out a breath, shaking his head slightly.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that? Is this why you got back in touch with me?” He dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand and drew in a steady breath. “Do you really think I need your help to achieve anything with my life?” He could hardly bear to look at him, angered by the pitying, condescending smile his defiance was being met with. “Look, I’ve got a perfectly good team around me already, and I don’t have any plans to stab any of them in the back by coming in on one of your schemes – so if you want back in the music business? Go right ahead. But don’t use me to do it.” Gary was about to turn away once more when that calm, smug voice cut in again, stopping him in his tracks.
“And yet you came to see me.” So simple. So composed. And he was right, wasn’t he? Gary was claiming contentment with his life, but he’d still felt the need to come to this meeting today. Gary clenched his jaw. He could feel every muscle in his body had tensed – guilt coiled in his stomach but he tried to keep his expression guarded, not wanting to show the thread of doubt those words had sewn.
“I came to see if there was anything left in this friendship worth salvaging. I guess I should’ve known better after all; walking away from you was the best thing I ever did – now I’m in a band with my boyfriend and two of my best mates in the world, we’ve got a manager who’s ready to take us on and we’re all of us involved, equally, no dictators trying to play politics and pissing people off left, right and centre. I’m here for curiosity’s sake. Nothing more.”
“Boyfriend?” Gary stilled, suddenly feeling a chill; he hadn’t meant to reveal quite so much.
He should never have come here, he thought yet again. He should never have let himself walk into what was almost certainly a trap, designed to gather information for who-knew-what purpose. There was always a scheme with him – always. How had he forgotten that? He wished Jason were there now, though at the same time he was powerfully glad that Jason had gotten so far away from this particular ghoul from their past, that he’d found his way to move on without regret or doubt playing on his mind. Gary looked back up into those cool blue eyes and swallowed nervously. He was offered yet another empty smile. “Congratulations, Gary. I’m sure he’s working wonders for your love songs.” Gary bristled slightly at the idea of Mark as some simple tool to be used and discarded as needed – at the idea that Mark himself wasn’t gifted in music in his own right. But most people were simply tools to this man. “Will you at least let me know if there are there any contracts involved in all this?” Gary faltered.
“Contracts?”
“Deals. Things set in stone. Signatures on paper to protect all parties.” He paused and raised his eyebrows leadingly, his expression somehow knowing. “Or maybe even any marriage proposals in the near future?”
“I don’t-”
“Security, Gary. It’s hard enough to come by in the industry, never mind if you don’t have some kind of insurance. These people could walk away from you, they could let you go tomorrow.”
“The way you did, you mean?”
“The way Jason did.”
“Don’t start that again.”
“Just how important can they be to you, Gary? This manager and these friends and that boyfriend of yours – you don’t seem to be rushing to tie them down.”
“And that’s how you think friendship works, is it? How relationships work? I trust them, it’s enough.”
“They’re holding you back, Gary. You know it as well as I do. Where is Jason Orange ever going to get you in life?”
“I said don’t start that again.”
“This boyfriend, then? What about him? What makes you think he would treat you any differently than every other guy in your life, Gary Barlow? How much do you even know about him? His past, his motives. People in this industry use people, Gary. And these people you’ve surrounded yourself with are just using you without giving anything back.”
“Funny, that’s what I thought you were offering.”
“I’m offering you a second chance, Gary. Money, fame, recognition. I’m offering you a shot at living out your dreams, there’s no need make accusations when all I want to do is help. You should at least take my card; that way you can call me when you see sense.” He shrugged and smiled icily, producing his card as if from nowhere and holding it out towards Gary. “I always put everything in writing, Gary, you can’t deny that.” He tilted his head to one side. “So…call me?” One of his eyebrows arched and the expression fell somewhere between malicious and playful as the corner of his lips curled up slightly into a cold smile. “Or you could just marry that boyfriend of yours and live anonymously ever after. See if I care when he doesn’t even bother sticking around.”
Chapter 3
Grace smiled as she felt the early afternoon sunshine hit her face; as the three of them stepped outside onto the pavement she noticed Jason and her dad slipping their sunglasses on in effortless unison, not missing a beat in their conversation. It was one of those early summer days where the air was crisp and cool, but the weekend sunshine had still drawn quite a crowd of shoppers out onto the Manchester streets, and snatches of laughter and conversation danced on the light breeze, which lifted flyaway wisps of Grace’s hair and blew them into her eyes. The street was one of the main shopping streets in the city, the Arndale Shopping Centre dominating much of the area, and the sleek signage and brightly coloured brand names which lined the road were a far cry from Oldham Street’s eclectic mix of small, quirky businesses which were just a ten minute walk away; it was almost strange to see her dad and Jason amidst the bright lights and branding of Blackfriars Road and St. Mary’s Gate, as though somehow they belonged to a different world and were better for it. But then she glanced up at them and the thought was quickly gone from her head: with their shades on and their hair ruffled by the breeze, both Jason and her dad looked the epitome of Mancunian-cool, and Grace knew from listening to them talk that they were more than capable of belonging anywhere in the city, both knowing it by heart, and of course neither man’s accent had been remotely dented by past years of traveling and living away.
The day had been the perfect antidote to Grace’s sleepless night before; French toast, cartoons and a brief session showing her dad what new songs she could play on the guitar had been followed by a walk along the canal and the suggestion from Jason that they drive into town. He wasn’t oblivious to the way Grace’s eyes had lit up at the prospect of shopping, and though he’d mentioned in passing some Orange family birthday he needed to shop for, Grace had still been the one to dictate most of their itinerary, with their most recent stop – the large, Manchester branch of Paperchase which sat, big, bright and pink at St. Mary’s Gate – being the stop she had deliberately saved ‘til last. She grinned slightly as she swung her large Paperchase bag delightedly, the goodies inside rattling as she did so. It was her favourite place to go and her spirits were always lifted by a trip there; notebooks, coloured pens, sparkly and brightly patterned biros, small, quirky photo frames, various scrapbooking goodies, pen pots, pencil cases and eclectic and beautiful postcards for her collection all fought for her attention, and the thrill of picking out her favourites and watching the staff at the tills carefully wrap them in tissue paper was one of her favourite things. Jason and her dad were more than aware of the dangers of letting her loose in the store, but they seemed to have decided she deserved to be spoilt today, and a large array of items filled her bag, though her pocket money had only stretched to the selection of postcards which were carefully tucked in their own separate, smaller bag, pressed flat against a notebook to keep them safe.
Ahead of her, her dad and Jason were still engrossed in their conversation – which seemed to have moved on from the light-hearted bickering she had tuned out earlier – and Grace performed a quick hop-skip step to draw level with them, bouncing up to her dad, who glanced back, flashing a brief smile at her over his shoulder before turning back towards Jason.
“I don’t know – sometimes it feels like mum will never forgive me for turning it down. She understood but…I think she thinks sometimes I should’ve gone for it,” Jason was saying with a shrug, and Howard’s expression turned quizzical.
“So how come you never told me about it before?” he asked, though he didn’t seem to be hurt by whatever the admission had been, simply confused. Jason smiled ruefully.
“I got a lot of offers – you know that.”
“Love, I know you were like the sun: the rest of us just orbited round you,” Howard countered, his tone tender and full of admiration. “And I also know no one looking at the dance crews in Manchester back then ever left without giving you an offer of work,” he added with a smirk. Then he shrugged and raised his eyebrows, regarding Jason carefully. “But a gig like that? We’re talking serious stuff. That would’ve been a regular thing. A big regular thing. You could’ve been a household name overnight if it had taken off. And it would have taken off – I know what you’re like: ‘all in’ is in your DNA, you would’ve put the work in to get it there.”
“The sun? Really?!” Jason asked with a laugh, one eyebrow quirked up, and Howard shrugged unapologetically, his smile soft but his eyes intent upon Jason’s face.
“I mean it, you know. I don’t need to see your mum’s photo collection and old VHS back-catalogue to know that; I was there, remember? I didn’t know your name back then but I remember your crew and I remember the bloke in it who all of us wished we could be, the one who worked at everything and who booked every job going because of it. You lit up when you performed – you always do.”
“I’ve never had the flexibility of some of the guys. You have all that – the flexibility, the jump-height, the backflips. I’m not up there on any of that stuff and never have been.”
“Maybe not, but you’ve got the lines. And the rhythm. Besides, Jay, there’s something about you – when you move, when you perform…put you on a stage and it’s like every cell in your body is on fire and the rest of us just have to watch, or try to keep up with you. Everyone knows it, Jay – you’re the only one who’s never believed it, you know that? That’s why you got all those other TV jobs. And if this producer saw it in you…”
“What, he actually would’ve built a show round me? Now you sound like mum.”
“Well, maybe she’s right.”
“If I’d have taken that job I might not even be in Manchester right now. Is that what you want, love?”
“Don’t you give me that,” Howard shot back with a grin, leaning over to kiss Jason’s temple. Jason smiled up at him in amusement, elbowing him off of him and shaking his head slightly.
“Don’t give you what, Howard Donald? It’s true.”
“No. Even if you weren’t in Manchester any more, you and me? Meant to be. So stop arguing with me.” Howard’s smile was mischievous, but his shy glance down gave away how much he meant the statement, so Jason simply nodded and let it slide.
“Even so, I don’t know if that was me. I don’t know if I could’ve done it then – it was right after everything with-” Jason cut himself off sharply and glanced away.
“So it was bad timing,” Howard murmured, nodding slightly, his smile sympathetic and gentle, as though he understood whatever it was Jason wouldn’t say aloud. “And everything probably happens for a reason, even the drama with You Know Who. Your mum will get over it eventually. And you know I wouldn’t change you – or your history – for the world.” Jason looked over at him, smiling gratefully and reaching over to take his hand, bringing it to his lips and placing a kiss to it, before quickly dropping it again.
He looked over his shoulder and caught Grace’s eye, noticing her curious expression and flashing her a smile. “You ok, Gracie?” he asked. Grace nodded, tossing one of her messy plaits back over her shoulder and skipping around to walk between her dad and Jason, slipping her bag onto her wrist so that she could grab a hold of their hands.
“I’m good,” she said happily, a giddy grin taking over her face as Jason and Howard both caught her hands and instinctively lifted their arms in unison, swinging her effortlessly along between them. She let out a giggling squeal of delight as her feet swung up in front of her before thunking down to the ground again.
“Ok then, princess, in that case I say we top off the indulgence with some cake at Stella’s – sound like a plan?” Jason suggested, looking enquiringly between Howard and Grace.
“As in Stella’s where Mark works?” Grace asked hopefully. Howard smirked.
“Where Mark says he works. I’ve never seen it with my own eyes though,” he remarked, and Jason suppressed a laugh.
“Mark’s not in the caff today anyway – he’s minding the shop for Gaz…don’t know where Gaz was off to mind, he was vague when I asked him.”
“But if we go to Stella’s, then we would be just down the road from the shop. So we could go and see Mark. And maybe check if Gary bought any new guitar picks since last week?” Grace interrupted and Howard and Jason both laughed.
“And the real reason she’s so happy is revealed,” Jason said archly, winking at Grace, who stuck her tongue out at him. “Well, you’re in luck – I know Gaz got a load of random band and album-cover picks in on Wednesday, coz muggins here had to go and find a bigger box to put ‘em all in. We can stop by on the way back to the car.”
“Do you get a staff discount?” Howard asked, and Jason rolled his eyes, which glittered playfully behind his shades.
“And the real reason you married me is revealed,” he said with feigned disappointment, and Howard grinned at him impudently.
“Shush, you – I know you only married me to get into the best clubs,” he countered, and Jason sighed airily, nodding in a slow, thoughtful way, as though he was considering the idea carefully.
“But I had other offers, you know. You just had the prettiest face,” he said casually, giving Howard a sly smile that was returned in kind.
“Awww,” Howard said jokily, leaning across to kiss the side of Jason’s face. “You old romantic,” he mumbled against Jason’s skin. Grace wrinkled her nose, elbowing her dad’s hip in protest.
“You two are seriously weird,” she complained sulkily, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her lips despite herself.
“Fine by me,” her dad smiled, unashamed. “As long as you don’t mind not getting any cake,” he added playfully and Grace gasped.
“That’s not fair!”
“Well me not being allowed to kiss Jay’s not fair either, but you said-”
“I take it back!”
“Ok, ok, come on children; let’s get some sugar down your pair’s necks before it’s all-out war round here,” Jason interjected with a chuckle, shaking his head in a show of despair even as he caught Howard’s eye and flashed him another affectionate smile.
Stella’s Café was surprisingly popular considering its location; the chain coffee shops and cafes which were just around the corner at St. Mary’s Gate no doubt pulled in the weekend shoppers and visitors, even area-newcomers, but hardened locals knew the secret to searching out a good sugary treat in the city, and they had clearly done a good job of spreading the word amongst themselves. It wasn’t a huge space, but even when crowded it never felt cramped, and today almost all its customers had chosen to either sit outside or close to the windows, enjoying the sunshine whilst it lasted as they relished their homemade sweet treats. The place was eclectically decorated, its seating ranging from squashy sofas in unusual fabrics to quirky-looking dining chairs and autumn-coloured booths, whilst the counter stood at the back of the space, picked out in a rich dark wood with a top of black marble that glittered slightly when the sun hit it. The ceiling was painted to look like a stylised, dark blue night’s sky, with stars and constellations picked out in gold, whilst the mural of ships sailing on moonlit ocean waters on the back wall was an addition from last year, which Mark and Grace had both helped to paint. The most beautiful things in Stella’s Café, however, remained the cakes, which were displayed in a glass cabinet just beside the till; there was a vast array of types, flavours and decorations which changed from week to week, though certain house specials remained firm favourites with the cafe’s regular customers.
As the three of them came in through the door, Laura – who was manning the till – spotted them immediately, offering them a bright, wide smile, her green eyes sparkling and her pretty face suddenly all lit up. All the girls who worked at the shop were familiar with the Barlow’s Music Shop family, not least because they so often found themselves having to come and physically drag Mark away from them in order to get him to come in on time for his shifts, and they always looked forward to having a chance to catch up with them.
Howard was despatched to the till to place their order, whilst Grace and Jason picked out a quiet table in the back corner which had four low, striped armchairs clustered around it.
“It feels like summer already,” Grace said with a contented sigh as she threw herself down into one of the chairs. Jason smiled down at her, mild amusement dancing in his eyes as he slid his satchel off his shoulder, before sitting down in the armchair which was pushed up against Grace’s.
“You won’t be so excited for summer when you find out how many times a member of the Orange family thinks a family barbeque would be a great idea and drags us all along to join the madness,” he warned her jokingly and Grace shrugged.
“I don’t mind. As long as your mum is there; she tells me all the stories you never do,” she beamed, giggling as Jason stuck his tongue out at her.
“Oh, mum has plenty of stories – you just have to know which ones are true and which ones she’s telling for the sole purpose of winding me up.”
“Your whole family winds you up though,” Grace reminded him brightly, and Jason pulled a face, narrowing his eyes at her in a show of irritation that didn’t entirely convince.
“Alright, Gracie, no need to remind me – I grew up with ‘em, remember? It was a madhouse.”
“It still is a madhouse,” Grace deadpanned and it was only when she glanced up to meet Jason’s eyes that she broke into a giggle. “I like your family. They treat me like I’m family.”
“You are family,” Jason told her softly, giving her a slight nudge with his elbow, and Grace scrunched her face up, tilting her head to one side.
“Not really though,” she sighed.
“Gracie, you know what my family is like. Trust me, you are every bit as much a part of it as the rest of us, ok? That’s one of the good things about having a big, messy family, you know: all waifs and strays are accepted, no DNA tests required. Half-siblings, step-siblings, children, ex-wives, boyfriends, neighbours, childhood teachers…if someone in the family thinks of you as family, the whole family thinks of you as family. That’s why mum still comes to dad’s birthday party. And why dad’s rabble all show up every time mum has a barbeque.” Jason smiled fondly, shrugging before meeting Grace’s eyes again. “It can be awkward sometimes, other times it goes off smoothly, but whatever happens, no one really tends to hold it against anyone else for long.”
“They hold stuff against dad,” Grace murmured, looking down sadly, and Jason gave her arm a squeeze, smiling at her lopsidedly when she looked back up at him.
“I’m working on that. And honestly, Justin is just being stubborn. He doesn’t like admitting he was wrong…it’ll pass.” Jason’s smile brightened then. “Besides, you know they adore you. Even if your dad left me tomorrow, you’d still always be welcome at ours.” Grace grinned then, eyes sparkling playfully.
“Well that’s good, because if dad left you then I’m never speaking to him again,” she told Jason matter-of-factly, giving a little shrug. “So then I can come and live with you.”
“Cheeky,” Jason chuckled, rolling his eyes, but Grace’s grin only widened.
For a moment they fell into an amicable silence, Grace staring up at the painted constellations on the ceiling, lost inside her own thoughts as Jason fished out his phone and sent Mark a text to let him know they’d be by soon. Over by the counter, Howard was engrossed in a conversation with Laura, and Grace thought she heard Mark’s name briefly rise out of the melee of chatter which filled the air. In the peace of the moment, for the first time since the previous night, Grace’s thoughts turned back towards her mum and Tim.
It was another of Tim’s odd quirks that he never talked about his family in any great detail, and Grace was fairly certain that, despite the length of time he and her mum had been dating, his family knew little to nothing about Grace herself; she was never invited to his family’s gatherings, but then, her mum wasn’t invited all that often either. The only thing she knew about Tim’s life beyond his relationship with her mother was that he had a lot of friends he didn’t like very much and an older brother who he couldn’t stand because he was more successful than him. These weren’t details Tim had shared with her, of course, simply pieces of information she had picked up from eavesdropping when he started talking to her mother as though she wasn’t even in the room. The whole situation was a sharp contrast to her knowledge of Jason’s family; Jason offered up plenty of stories from his childhood for himself, and when Jason’s supply of stories ended, his mother’s began, and she was always all-too-willing for an excuse to share her photograph collection, much to her sons’ despair. Her dad’s family were like that too. Her mum’s family were quieter, more reserved than the Donalds and Oranges but every bit as warm and kind. Her mum always invited Tim to the few gatherings they had, and he was always welcomed like one of their own – if he bothered to show up, anyway.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, sweetheart?” Jason’s voice was low and gentle as it interrupted her thoughts, and Grace blinked slightly, looking over at him in surprise. His expression was kind, his eyes bright and shining in the golden haze that the cafe was bathed in, and Grace knew from past experience that, when Jason Orange looked into your face that way, there was no hiding anything from him. “I know overthinking when I see it,” Jason added then, with a self-deprecating little smile that raised a smile out of Grace in return. She nodded slightly, looking down at her hands for a moment. She took a second to decide whether or not to admit to dwelling on the issue of Tim and her mum once more, but in the end she realised Jason probably knew anyway, so she blew out a breath and shrugged awkwardly.
“I was just thinking about Tim again. I’ve never even met his family…it’s weird,” she admitted stiltedly. Jason nodded, pausing for a moment and studying her face. Grace flicked him a quick, sidelong glance and he caught the look, smiling slightly and offering her a lazy shrug before replying.
“Some people don’t get on with their families, Gracie. Some people just like to keep their different worlds separate. You can’t blame him for everything, you know?” he told her then, firm but sweet at the same time. Grace tried to pout but a smile was visible on her face as she continued to look up at him from the corner of her eye.
“I can try though,” she shot back faux-sulkily, and Jason laughed, the sound rough and soothing, and the sunlight danced in his eyes as he leant across to press a fond kiss to the top of Grace’s head.
“You wouldn’t be a Donald if you didn’t like a challenge, sweetheart,” he said into her hair, before leaning back just enough to meet her eyes. “But make me one promise, ok? Maybe try to set a different challenge. Maybe something along the lines of…actually trying to find a way to get along with Tim, at least a little bit. I’m sure that would make your mum smile, you know.” Grace nodded reluctantly.
“You’ll always be my favourite though,” she told him quietly, an earnestness to her tone that softened Jason’s smile, even as he gave her a playfully sly little wink.
“Obviously,” he intoned, eyes twinkling, and Grace couldn’t help but laugh.
There was so much joy in being able to joke and laugh and talk to Jason like this again, to have him nudge and wink at her and laugh at her pouts. The gratitude for it bubbled up so irrepressibly that for a moment Grace was able to forget the lingering feeling of sadness left from a particularly bad week at her mum’s. But the problem was she was still all-too-aware that she had to return to it on Tuesday, and it somehow made her time in the sunshine with Jason a little bittersweet; there was always a time limit on this life. Even the summer holidays, which would feel so endless and exciting when they started, only lasted for a few weeks, and then it would be back to what had become her reality. Silence, arguments, stillness. Grace let out a sigh and wished, as she had so many times before, that she didn’t have to choose at all.
“So can I ask you something…and maybe you can pretend you don’t know why I’m asking?” Grace said slowly, risking another look up at Jason, whose lips curved into a half-smile-half-grimace as he regarded her warily.
“Go on,” he sighed after a beat, leaning back in his chair but keeping his eyes fixed thoughtfully on her face.
“You and dad…you always bicker and disagree and call each other names, right?” Grace quirked her eyebrows at Jason and he let out a soft chuckle, tipping his head in acknowledgement.
“Right,” he conceded. Grace nodded, crossing her arms and shifting positions slightly to place them on the arm of her chair, resting her chin on them as she looked up at Jason.
“So…do you ever really fight? And mean it? I mean with shouting and all of it where you both just end up sad and quiet and storming off?” she asked, and Jason’s expression crumpled into thoughtful confusion.
“And why do you want to know, Gracie?”
“Because Tim and mum do. And me and mum do sometimes too. But I’ve never seen you and dad do that. And me and dad fight sometimes but we always say sorry really quickly and then it’s over.” Grace shrugged, looking up at Jason sadly. “I promised to try with Tim, but you didn’t say I couldn’t have a back-up plan,” she mumbled. Jason smiled at her tenderly, leaning forwards and matching her pose so that the two of them were eye to eye.
“You’ve really been thinking about living with your dad instead, haven’t you?” he murmured. Grace nodded slowly.
“So in that case, I’ll tell you the truth, and not the version of it that your mum or dad might prefer…just what actually happens, and not what might convince you to pick a side, ok?” He met Grace’s eyes and she nodded yet again. He smiled slightly. “Nobody’s perfect, Gracie. Your dad and me are both stubborn, and we both like to think we’re right, even when we do fall out and it’s obvious at least one of us must be in the wrong. But we do always fix it. And we don’t really shout. And at the end of it we’re usually a lot happier than we were before, because we know the air is clear at least – no one’s storing up any anger to take out on anyone else later. Does that answer your question?”
“I think so,” Grace replied with a timid little smile that Jason returned in kind.
“Good. Now come on, stop thinking and enjoy your weekend; the sun is shining and we’re all here – plenty of reason to be happy if you ask me.”
Just as Grace and Jason sat back, Howard appeared, and he narrowed his eyes at them suspiciously as he approached.
“You’re huddling,” he told the two of them slowly as he slid the tray he was carrying onto the table and sat down heavily in the chair opposite Jason, who smirked at him fondly.
“And if you’ve done nothing wrong then you’ve got nothing to worry about, love,” he pointed out, mischievous and sweet at the same time, and Howard rolled his eyes in mock-despair.
“Oh I’ve always got something to worry about – you pair can moan for England,” he muttered, setting down a raspberry ice drink and a cupcake decorated with little gold stars in front of Grace. He looked up at Jason out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll give you this though, you don’t moan as much as Barlow,” he added, winking. “That’s why I married you and not him.”
“I was wondering,” Jason remarked casually, taking his tea from the tray and letting Howard take his coffee, before sliding the tray off the table and setting it aside. “Mark and me don’t mind, we know all about you pair and your forbidden love,” he added, arching an eyebrow and meeting Howard’s gaze, his eyes glittering with barely-contained laughter. Howard grinned back at him knowingly. “We’re going to run away with Cadbury one day, when we’ve had enough of you both,” Jason assured him, his tone matter-of-fact but his smile playful. Grace looked from him to her dad and back carefully before shaking her head slightly.
“No. Don’t even joke. If you go with Mark and Cadbury, I’m coming too,” she protested with the smallest of pouts, her forehead slightly creased into a half-frown. Howard and Jason both laughed, raising their eyebrows at her sceptically, and after a moment she relented. “But then we’ll bring dad too. And Gary….and mum…and Izzy…”
“We’d better hire a bus,” Jason remarked dryly, taking a sip of his tea and exchanging smiles with Howard over the rim of the cup.
“Doesn’t it defeat the point of running away if you bring everyone from home with you?” Howard pointed out, looking meaningfully at Grace, who pulled a face at him.
“That settles it then I suppose; looks like you and me are stuck with each other, love,” Jason shrugged and Howard grinned at him, his blue eyes fierce and happy.
“Just the way I like it,” he said, his voice low and soft, an honesty to his tone that made Jason smile back at him quietly as he gave him a little nod, as though accepting the offer.
Howard sat back a little in his chair, looking between Grace and Jason, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“So come on, what were you two whispering about before?” he sighed after a moment, waiting patiently for Jason to look over at Grace and get her tiny, timid nod of approval before he gave Howard an answer on her behalf. As soon as permission was granted, Jason sat up a little, resting his elbows on his knees and giving Howard a lopsided smile.
“Gracie’s getting a little tired of living only for the weekend,” he said softly, a kindness and concern in his tone that touched Howard deeply. He looked over at Grace, who was suddenly studying her cake intently, and then looked back at Jason, who shrugged somewhat helplessly in response. “Speaking from personal experience? If something’s on your mind, it tends to stay there.”
“It’s ok though,” Grace interjected softly, and Howard and Jason both looked over at her expectantly. She smiled back at them; a wide, genuine smile that shone in her eyes. “I have summer,” she explained with a shrug, offering Jason a sly grin that made him laugh.
“Of course. You’re after Jenny Orange’s treasure trove of old videos and family secrets,” he remarked, rolling his eyes as though in irritation, though his smile didn’t falter. “Should’ve known any daughter of yours would be able to take all her troubles away by embarrassing me,” he added, narrowing his eyes at Howard, who grinned back unashamedly.
“Sorry, love: it’s in the DNA,” he replied.
***
Gary huffed, tapping agitatedly at his phone and biting on his lip. Why was it that Jason’s phone was never on when he most wanted it to be? Karma, he supposed – he’d hadn’t really been the best friend he could be today, after all. Flinching slightly at his own thoughts, Gary looked off into the distance, watching people milling about in the afternoon sunshine. The park was busier than usual, families and dog-walkers scattered across the open spaces, but in his shaded corner there was hardly anyone at all and he had the luxury of a bench all to himself.
Truth be told, he wasn’t even sure what it was he wanted to say to Jason; was he seeking advice or about to impart some sort of confession? Jason had always had a way of bringing out the whole story – no hiding, no lying, if something was on your mind he’d find it out one way or another, subtly extracting the truth out of Gary before he even realised it was happening. But this was one truth Gary decided he would rather keep to himself. It had been a weak moment, nothing more – and he’d regretted it from the moment he’d set foot in that club, realising his attempts at understanding the past were misguided at best and quickly doing his damndest to put as much distance between himself and that awful man as he possibly could. Yet he couldn’t deny it, he’d managed to get under his skin, to put ideas in his head and unsettle him; he wished he’d remembered that man’s uncanny ability to plant seeds of doubt before he had agreed to meet. Gary sighed and shook his head, as though the action might somehow dislodge the nervous feeling he’d been trying to squash ever since he’d made it out of the club and back to his car. How much do you really know about Mark Owen? It was a surprisingly tricky question to answer, that was the problem. Because in many ways, Gary knew everything about Mark Owen, knew the difference between his laugh when he was laughing at himself and his laugh when he was simply just delighted, knew his favourite songs, knew every different fleck of colour in his eyes and all the stories from his childhood. But in many ways, Mark Owen was a mystery; there was a sadness in him sometimes, a loneliness that Gary never dared encroach on, because, if he was honest, he feared it, feared the darkness and the sharpness that seemed to lurk somewhere deep below the surface, well-concealed by laughter and sugar, but still there, if you listened too closely to the lyrics he wrote or the gaps he left in some of his wilder stories. But if a part of him didn’t trust Mark’s darkness, and a part of him evidently didn’t trust Jason’s version of events in their past…then who did he trust, really? And was it his fault or theirs?
He was startled out of his spiralling melancholy by the sound of his phone, chirping brashly as a call came in. Gary squinted down at the screen and smiled somewhat dejectedly as he saw Jason’s name flashing there; a bubble of guilt popped in his chest and he drew in a deep breath, trying to push the sensation out of his mind before answering the phone. I’m such a bad friend. He blew the breath out and brought his phone to his ear.
“Alright, Jay?” he asked, his voice tight, and he hoped Jason didn’t sense the tension in his tone. But of course, he knew that was probably asking too much. “Not bothering you am I?” he pressed on quickly, not sure what he wanted the answer to be. Jason simply chuckled warmly down the line.
“I wouldn’t have returned the call if it wasn’t a good time, mate, you know that. So, what’s the problem?”
“Who said there was a problem?” Gary ventured, and Jason laughed again, soft exasperation creeping in at the edges of it.
“Come on, Barlow, we’ve known each other too long for messing about. What’s bothering you?” Jason’s voice was absent of annoyance, sounding instead every bit as warm and genuine as it always was. Gary felt a pang of guilt again. What was bothering him was a ghost from their shared past, and the last thing Jason needed after everything he had been through this year was for any reminders of another dark time he had thought long-banished.
Gary knew he was letting the pause drag on, but Jason didn’t press or hurry him, and for that he was grateful. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, trying to clear his head sufficiently to hone in on what exactly it was that was bothering him the most.
“Has someone ever said something to you that…that struck a little bit too close to home? And you just…you know that, no matter what you do, for the rest of that day, maybe the rest of that week, you’re going to keep coming back to what they said and…dreading the possibility that maybe – no matter how much you don’t want them to be – they might be right?” He was aware that his voice had become somehow distant and detached; he could hear himself speaking, but it was as though he was standing very far away. The sensation was peculiar and unsettling, and he sat up a little straighter, as though somehow it might help him pull himself together.
“Ok…so who’ve you been talking to?” Jason asked slowly, and Gary winced.
“No one important,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and squeezing them tightly shut. He hated lying to Jason, but this was one truth he just couldn’t bring himself to share. “It’s just something someone said in passing, you know…and I just…” He sighed and tipped his head back, staring up at the clouds for a moment. “Am I boring?” he asked suddenly, and Jason let out a confused half-laugh.
“What?”
“Do I…do I try so hard to be logical and sensible and rational and…pragmatic about everything that…that I don’t really live? Do I try so hard not to get hurt that I end up just not feeling anything at all? And is that normal?”
“Gaz, what is this about? Because I don’t know what whoever it is has been saying but…being sensible and being boring are worlds apart,” Jason told him gently. A vague smile coloured Gary’s lips and he let out a slow, calming breath.
“Yeah?”
“Gaz, come on. Look, we both know you’re the only real grown-up out of all of us at that shop; that doesn’t make you less though, mate, not in any way. You’ve lived, you’ve just lived in different ways to the rest of us – within the boundaries a bit more, which is no bad thing, you know? And anyway: no one who is as determined as you, or who’s fought so hard to pursue something as you have with your songwriting, could ever be dull or missing out on life. You have to know that.”
“Maybe,” Gary murmured, scuffing at the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “But Mark’s not built that way, is he. Marko is built to feel everything, even when it nearly kills him – and sometimes I think it does. Sometimes it’s like we live in different worlds entirely.”
“And Howard still doesn’t worry about the little things and I still worry about everything – you’re in a relationship, not trying to become the same person,” Jason scoffed, the reprimand kind somehow, and Gary couldn’t help but smile slightly at the sentiment.
“No. I suppose not.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I just think sometimes…what if I’m letting him down?” He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. “There’s no…there’s no guarantee there, you know? No promise, no contract, no…nothing. No security. And seeking that out seems like taking the biggest risk in the world – because it might not work. But not having it there is terrifying too – because it’d just be so easy for either one of us to walk away.”
There was a pause on the other end, and for a moment Gary wondered if Jason was even still there. But then he heard a sympathetic, yet world-weary, sigh come down the line and he quickly braced himself for whatever truth it was he was about to hear, even if it wasn’t going to be easy.
“Gaz – you know me, you know who I am, right? You know how hard I used to find it to even let you and Mark know what was really going on in my head. I used to analyse every little interaction, always waiting for the catch, always waiting for the goodbye or the favour to be called in – I still do, sometimes, you know?”
“I know. When Howard started coming around me and Mark used fall over ourselves in the rush to hide in the back room or upstairs. We were hoping you’d keep talking to him, because he’d come around and for the rest of the day you’d be so calm and happy…when you started trying to take the relationship down before it’d had even begun and were talking yourself out of starting anything more with him, we couldn’t believe it.” Jason laughed, nostalgia clear in his tone, and Gary could almost hear the fond smile he knew was on his friend’s lips.
“Lucky for us all, Howard Donald knows me better than I know myself sometimes,” he replied in a murmur. “Look, the point is, Gaz: I don’t do sure, as a rule. I don’t do immediate, uncertain, risk-it-all, no questions asked.” Jason paused. “But if Howard turns round tomorrow and says ‘Drop everything, take my hand, we’re going’ then…I’m gone. There’s nothing more I need to know; I can ask questions later, but if he says ‘Go now’ then we’re gone – no doubts, just out the door. I trust him, with or without it being in writing.” He sighed again. “And you know…even when I was worrying about starting something with him, I was never thinking it would be so easy as just walking away. When you have someone like that? It’s never going to be easy for either one of you to walk away – that was actually the part I was afraid of back then.”
Gary nodded to himself, thinking over Jason’s words and staring down at the ground, his forehead creased into a frown.
“If Howard hadn’t asked you to marry him, would it have bothered you? Would you feel like he was letting you down? Holding back from you somehow?”
“Gaz,” Jason protested with a good-natured half-grumble that almost made Gary laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I would have felt and I don’t know if it would have mattered, all I know is I have no regrets. It happened the way the way it did and…as soon as he asked I realised I already knew the answer anyway. We’d already made most of those promises though, when it came down to it; maybe it wasn’t legally binding and my mum didn’t have photos to prove it, but the important stuff? It wasn’t changed because we decided to make it official. All I can tell you, Gaz, is I’m happy with the way it did happen and I wouldn’t want to change it…but I probably would’ve coped, even if it had happened differently.” He blew out an almost-frustrated breath, pausing for a moment. “Me and Mark are different people, though, Gaz. I can’t know what goes on inside his head for sure and I can’t answer for him. All you can do is try talking to him yourself.” It was almost a plea, but at the heart of it was genuine advice that Gary knew he should just take with gratitude and have done.
“You do realise talking about it with him has the potential to turn into the most un-romantic proposal ever, don’t you?” Gary remarked dryly after a moment, and Jason chuckled.
“Oh, sing him a song and all would be forgiven I’m sure,” he joked and Gary grinned.
“Probably true.”
“Look, Gaz, I don’t know what you want me to say – I don’t know when How knew he was going to ask me to marry him or why he decided to ask when he did, and if that’s what you’re really asking me here, then maybe you should be talking to the other half of this double-act, you know? But if you’re asking me how to be sure…then I don’t know. All I know is that sure is just there for me every time when I’m with How. I don’t have to work at it, I don’t have to ignore any doubts – I just know, and I’m not scared of that the way I thought I would be back when he first started coming round.”
Silence fell between the two of them again, and Gary smiled slightly sadly as he thought over Jason’s words.
“I’m happy for you, Jay, you know that? I don’t think I tell you that enough,” Gary murmured at last. He heard Jason let out the softest, quietest of laughs.
“I’m not saying it’s not exhausting sometimes, Gaz. I’m just saying that…if you just ignore whatever and whoever else for a moment, and trust your own judgement rather than any outsider’s view? Then deep down, you probably already have your answer. There’s some part of you that will either just…know or…it won’t and never will. And if that’s the case, then you owe it to Mark to be honest. You need to be honest about it either way.” Gary nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Jay. You’re a proper mate.”
“Yeah yeah, and the rest. Now come on, get off the line and go find that boyfriend of yours. He’ll never forgive you if you stand him up for your date tonight – I went by the shop earlier, you know, and honestly, Gaz, he’s that excited for an excuse to dress up, I think there’s great aunts that haven’t seen him since he was five who got the call to say he was off out with you tonight.” Gary laughed.
“Don’t even joke – he’s got to style me before we go out apparently!” He shook his head slightly. “But don’t worry, Jay, I might be having a bad day but I still have a heart you know; I wouldn’t stand that man up for the world.”
“Glad to hear it. Now go. Think stuff over, enjoy your weekend and just…stop listening to strangers’ opinions on your relationship. And definitely stop believing anyone who dares to call you boring for just being who you are.”
***
Jason sighed and dumped his phone down beside him on the kitchen counter. For a moment he stared at it thoughtfully, his brain still turning over his conversation with Gary. He was sure there was something Gary wasn’t telling him, and even what he had told him hadn’t seemed to make sense entirely, but it wasn’t like Gary to keep something from him and he tried to suppress the unease he felt. With a shake of his head, he jumped down from the counter, glancing across to where Howard was watching him from the sofa. He caught his eye and Jason flashed him a lopsided smile, crossing back across the room and collapsing onto the sofa beside him, fitting himself neatly into the crook of his arm.
“Not enjoying playing Agony Aunt today?” Howard asked idly, pressing a kiss to his temple and pulling him a little closer. Jason let out a low groan in response, leaning his weight against Howard gratefully and closing his eyes for a moment as he rested his head on his shoulder.
“You know, sometimes I don’t understand Gary Barlow,” he said after a moment of quiet had passed between them. “He’ll pour his heart out in a love song, but you suggest he has an honest conversation and he tenses up like it’s the end of the world,” he added, his voice a low, exhausted murmur. He felt Howard’s fingers tracing soothingly down his arm and smiled slightly, opening one eye and leaning back a little so as to regard Howard carefully. “If you ever stop being a straight-forward, soppy so-and-so, Howard Donald, then there will be trouble,” he warned, his lips briefly curving up into a thin, pink smile. Howard smiled back at him softly, amusement and delight twinkling in his bright blue eyes.
“Duly noted,” he conceded, tipping his head slightly, and Jason smiled back at him, relaxing against him once more and letting out another sigh. Howard squeezed his shoulders gently. “So come on, what was wrong with him then?”
“Is this the part where you pretend you’ve not been eavesdropping?” Jason enquired casually, flicking his gaze back up to Howard’s face, and Howard stuck his tongue out at him.
“Only after I heard my name,” he admitted sulkily, laughing when he saw the amusement in Jason’s eyes. “Hey, if Barlow wants to eat into my sofa-time with you then he needs to know his conversation won’t be staying private – if he wants privacy he should confess to a priest. Now come on, Orange: start talking.” Jason chuckled, but he let his head drop back against Howard’s shoulder all the same, taking a deep breath, his eyes turning up towards the ceiling.
“It was strange, actually. He told me he’d talked to someone who’d said something about…I don’t know, about him being too boring for Mark? Or letting him down somehow by not being brave enough to actually go one step further and marry Mark? Or at least propose or…something, you know? I didn’t get the exact wording out of him, just the general gist of the argument. He was cagey about it, honestly.”
“Cagey how?”
“It was as if he wanted to tell me something more, about whoever it was that’d said this thing or how it came up – maybe why it was they bothered him enough for him to actually think about it…but then he thought better of it and just left it as a conversation about Mark and nothing else.” Jason shook his head. “Maybe I’m reading too much into it.”
“You? Never,” Howard teased, kissing the side of Jason’s face tenderly, and Jason attempted to glare at him, digging an elbow into his ribs in reprimand.
“Well whoever said it, they’ve not done him any favours. They’ve put ideas in his head. Made him think maybe he’s wrong about everything. He’s got it into his head now that he doesn’t even know what he wants.” Jason rolled his eyes, though there was as much concern in his face as there was despair. “He wanted to know if it would’ve bothered me if you hadn’t proposed.” Howard raised an eyebrow.
“And what did you tell him?” When Jason looked up at him sceptically Howard shrugged. “I didn’t hear that bit.” He grinned sheepishly. “And I’m curious.” Jason laughed, giving him one of those looks which was pure affection, an undisguised surrender of secrets that Howard had long come to recognise and appreciate.
“I told him the truth: I don’t know. How can I know? It’s not what happened.” Jason’s smile softened into something more distant and he glanced away. “You asked because you knew what answer you were going to get. And I gave you my answer because I knew that – even if I hadn’t known it half an hour before – it was right.” His eyes returned to meet Howard’s then and he gave a one-shouldered shrug that was deceptively casual given the intensity of his glinting blue gaze. “I might not do sure that often, and I might overthink everything and let outside ideas cloud my view sometimes; but never with you. If that’s not proof this works then I don’t know what is.” Howard kissed the tip of his nose and leant their foreheads together.
“I thought you told me once you needed therapy and not a relationship,” he whispered and Jason laughed softly, giving him a half-hearted shove.
“Yeah, well it turned out you were my therapy,” he murmured and Howard grinned. “Besides, did you listen to the rest of that speech, Howard Donald? I took time out in the pouring rain to let you know you’re incredible. And if you don’t remember what happened after that…”
“Oh, I think I remember…but maybe you should remind me, just to be on the safe side,” Howard replied, his smile wide and mischievous.
There was genuine joy mixed in with the laugh Jason let out then, and his eyes sparkled bright as he brought his hands up to Howard’s face and pulled him into a lingering kiss. Howard tugged him closer until he was practically on his lap, enjoying the feeling of his warm body against him and the scent of his skin.
“Did that help you remember, Howard Donald?” Jason mumbled against Howard’s lips at last, finally breaking the pleasant silence between them, and Howard smiled lazily, running his hand slowly down Jason’s spine and kissing the crook of his neck.
“Mm, I don’t know – it’s just not the same without the rain,” he sighed after a beat, laughing when Jason gave him a harmless shove in response. “Jason Orange, since the first day I met you I wanted you in my life, one way or another. And maybe we squabble all the time. And maybe we drive each other crazy. And maybe we have made far too many memories in the rain. But I wouldn’t change one moment of it. And I promise you, I remember it all.” The smile Jason gave him in reply was small, but so complete that Howard felt his heart turn over in his chest at the sight of it; it wasn’t just the sunlight which shone in Jason’s eyes now, but something more, something Jason saw in him and heard in his words that lit his whole self from within and seemed to make him glow. Howard’s eyes were transfixed, and he watched, silent and still, as Jason gently placed his hands flat against his chest and pushed him down against the cushions, lying himself down on top of him before dipping his head just enough for their lips to meet. Howard closed his eyes and let himself concentrate only on the feeling of Jason’s smiling lips moving against his own.
When the kiss finally ended, Howard let out the softest moan of disapproval, and Jason laughed against him, the sound low, lazy and pleasing. Jason pushed himself up just enough to meet Howard’s eyes, and the two shared a smile, their expressions matching pictures of amusement and profound understanding. There was a strange significance to the moment, as though a shaft of light had fallen into a place where before there had been nothing but rain and silence. Jason’s eyes sparkled, the same shaft of light seeming to open up within him in that moment, and he leant in to press a chaste kiss against Howard’s lips. “And all was well with the world again,” he murmured as he settled himself back down against Howard’s chest. Howard smiled distantly, taking a moment to close his eyes and draw Jason’s body more closely against his own. The sensation of Jason’s heartbeat resting just above his own filled his soul with a sense of peace he’d never known until they’d met, but that he perhaps had never fully appreciated until he had been forced to entertain the possibility it was lost forever. And when he looked at Jason, he finally saw that same peace had been restored to him too; he almost seemed to glow in the late-afternoon haze.
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s that you have to marry the bloke you have fun just being with. On the couch doing your own thing side by side, down the shops annoying the hell out of each other…it’s just easy.” Howard kissed the top of Jason’s head. “You don’t need some big fanfare to know that, to look around you and realise you fucking live for spending time with that person,” he added, his voice soft and distant and his breath tickling Jason’s skin. “I knew I was going to marry you when you told me you loved me. I didn’t know when or how or what the hell I was going to do about it, but I knew.” Howard chuckled slightly, shaking his head, and Jason closed his eyes, a hushed smile curving his lips. “It was one of those nights when we could’ve gone out but we couldn’t be bothered, so we sat here on this sofa watching crap telly and talking, just talking and talking ‘til we didn’t even notice the TV was still on. Somewhere along the way we just lost track of time, because it wasn’t even important to us anymore.” Howard paused, running his fingers along the curve of Jason’s spine in a familiarly absent-minded gesture that made Jason’s body hum with energy. “It must’ve got to about midnight before you asked me to stay, but I know you said it like it was the most amazing thing in the world I could do, because that’s what you do – it’s one of the first things I learnt about you was that you can make words into a promises.” Howard’s smile was almost shy and he rolled his eyes, glancing away. “I think I cracked some joke, and we both shrugged it off like we were still just messing around at being together but…I couldn’t get over how ok it felt to just be doing nothing with you. To listen to you talk all night about stuff that didn’t matter and stuff that did, stuff I didn’t even know I cared about until you started talking.” Howard drew in a breath, his head on one side as he let his mind wander back to that night. “And then just before dawn you went quiet and just rested your head on my shoulder…” Jason’s smile quirked wryly.
“I remember,” he whispered. “It was the first night I realised just how much time I spend holding my breath before you…the first time I really noticed that I’d never felt so much like myself than when I was around you.” His lips twisted slightly. “Although, actually? I was going to apologise for how late it was…but then you told me to keep talking.” Howard looked down at him, his eyes bright, and Jason lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “So I said the only thing there was left to say.” Howard smiled.
“You told me you loved me,” Howard replied softly, his voice rough and warm. “And on some level, I just knew in that moment: this bloke is never getting out of my system, and I don’t want him to.”
Chapter 4
Mark tilted his head, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hand and regarding Gary with one of those unreservedly happy smiles of his.
“So come on, Barlow; I’ve been doing all the talking tonight – it’s your turn,” he teased, scrunching up his face slightly and making Gary chuckle. The restaurant was one of the smart, glass-fronted Italian places which were dotted up and down the street opposite the Palace Theatre, and the Saturday night pre-show-diners were out in force, their excited chatter sending a thrill of excitement through the air which was somehow contagious. Mark and Gary had come in early and taken up a spot by the window, the evening sunshine streaming in and warming their faces; the light caught in Mark’s wide eyes, illuminating them in a brighter shade of blue than Gary had ever seen them before, and they sparkled every time he laughed, making Gary more than to content to sit and listen rather than attempt to interrupt Mark’s rambling flow. He shrugged and flashed an idle smile.
“Maybe I’m happy just listening to you go, Marko – had it ever occurred to you that I actually enjoy your endless wittering?” he asked and Mark laughed a joyous, almost musical, laugh, blowing a stray swish of hair out of his eyes and leaning back.
“It’s the way that you call it ‘endless wittering’ that makes me think maybe I’m going on too much,” he pointed out, grinning mischievously at Gary and giving a little one-shouldered shrug. “Anyway, I think I’ve run out of things to say now – so come on, Barlow: entertain me.” Gary chuckled at the tease, shaking his head as though in despair and narrowing his eyes at Mark jokingly.
“Don’t think I don’t know you’re mocking me, Mark Owen.” Mark laughed but Gary managed to keep his face serious as he sighed heavily. “You see, this is the cross I have to bear – being as fantastically talented and fascinating as I am. People everywhere just expect me to impart the gift of my wisdom and wonder to them, even on a quiet Saturday night,” he added airily, only breaking down into laughter when Mark grinned impishly up at him and kicked his shin lightly under the table.
“Captain Barlow to the rescue again then,” Mark said with a roll of his eyes and Gary smiled.
“Eh, you, a bit of respect please,” he joked, before flashing Mark a quick, affectionate wink.
A combination of Jason’s words and time spent in Mark’s delighted company had suppressed almost all the gnawing doubt left over from earlier, and Gary felt a certain calmness had been restored to him. Sometimes he forgot just how long he had actually known Mark; Jason had drifted in and out of his life for a while before he came to work in the shop, but Mark had arrived on Oldham Street one day and not left since, his genuine warmth and sweetness always counted upon to make life somehow better and brighter. For years Mark had been his best friend and nothing more – even if there were moments when he had wondered – and that friendship was something he realised he ought to pay more attention to. Because there was faith and trust in that, there was strength in that long-standing friendship that meant he shouldn’t treat their slightly newer relationship as though it were entirely separate. There was no real danger in Mark Owen, no real risk; there were questions unanswered, perhaps. But he and Mark were simply not built the way Jason and Howard seemed to be – pain was feared, buried and moved on from, and maybe that led to secrets here and there, but never lies, as such. Everyone had a past, but Mark’s past wasn’t the point. The point was the future, wasn’t it? Gary sighed to himself, regarding Mark thoughtfully for a moment as he took a sip of his wine.
“Do you ever think about the future much, Marko?” He surprised himself by asking, his own sudden boldness catching him unawares. Mark quirked an eyebrow, folding his arms and twisting his lips into a thoughtful pout of concentration that made Gary smile. A lock of his hair fell across his face, and Gary leant forwards to tuck it back into place, meeting Mark’s shining eyes as he did so. Mark offered him a small, mischievous smile before glancing away and giving him a shrug.
“I don’t know, really. About the future, I mean. Some days it’s all I think about. And then I start to worry and I think I’d rather just leave it alone, you know?” He looked up at Gary from the corner of his eye, his smile turning wonky and sheepish. “I’ve always been bad for that. I tend to live in the moment, me – and then I fall over or say the wrong thing, talk to the wrong person and I get into trouble, so then I go home and start thinking too much…”
“And the cycle starts all over again?” Gary suggested softly, kindness in his voice that reassured Mark he wasn’t judging him. Mark shrugged again.
“Something like that. I don’t know, though, I think I’ve mostly broken the habit. It helps that I’ve got a chronically sensible boyfriend to keep me on track,” he added, eyes suddenly twinkling once more, and Gary couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head.
“Oh, that’s how it is, is it? You’re just using me?”
“I love you for your brain, Barlow,” Mark shot back and Gary pulled a face.
“But how can you focus on my brain when there’s all this beauty to go at?” he asked, gesturing sweepingly to himself and sitting up a little taller in his chair.
Mark laughed brightly, his hair falling in his eyes yet again as his head dropped back.
“I’m glad you’ve cheered up, you know,” Mark told him as his laughter died down, his head on one side as he let out a small, happy little sigh. Gary raised a questioning eyebrow and Mark shrugged. “You’ve been acting like a different bloke all week, and it had me worrying, you know? I thought maybe I’d done something. And when I ruled that out I thought…I thought that maybe somehow, even after all these years, you were faking it all along and this moody bastard personality was who you really were.” He pulled a face. “I only thought it for a second, but I didn’t like it.” Gary glanced away, nodding absently and biting at his lip. “But it was all about this…this bloke, wasn’t it? This old friend? And the whole not telling Jay thing.”
“Yeah. Yeah…I think maybe it was.” Gary blew out a breath and met Mark’s eyes once more, managing a small smile. “I didn’t like lying to Jay, but as it turns out I reckon he was best off not knowing anyway. Some things should just stay in the past, I suppose. And you might never understand them but…at least you don’t have to deal with the fall-out, you know?”
“Oh believe me, I know,” Mark agreed with a half-groan, before his lips quickly twisted back into a smile. “Which is why the future is actually a good thing to think about. For both of us.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely. Coz, you know…I think our future is the future. Everything else might come and go, but as long as we stick together we’ll probably be ok.” Mark’s smile widened and he met Gary’s eyes, making him laugh softly, fondly.
“Oh really?”
“I know it, Barlow. I’ve told you before; some days I just wake up with a good feeling, you know? And I wake up with a good feeling when I wake up with you, so there you go.”
“Well, what more proof do we need…?” Gary murmured then, his voice turning quiet and tender. “You’re something else, you know that, Marko? Because you dig in, and you obsess about the strangest details sometimes – but you’re always hoping. Even when you’re at your lowest, you have this way of hoping for something more that I’ve never known in anyone else. And really, it begs the question…what are you doing wasting your time with a pessimist like me?” Mark leant forwards then so that their faces were close across the table, and he smiled, sweet and soft, his eyes sparkling wildly.
“How can I be wasting my time when I’m with my favourite person in the whole world?” he asked gently and Gary smiled.
“Well, when you put it like that…” he acknowledged somewhat shyly before leaning across just enough to press a quick kiss to Mark’s forehead.
For a moment – under the spell of Mark’s smile – Gary thought he might actually say the words. Because briefly in the air between them there was a certainty, a sureness. Just like that, he knew what Jason meant when he’d said the answer was probably already there somewhere, just hidden by the white-noise of everyone else’s opinions. “Mark-” Gary began, but he cut himself off abruptly when he realised Mark’s focus was no longer on him, but on something on the street outside instead.
“Sorry, Gaz – can I just run outside for a minute?” Gary blinked, startled by the abrupt change of tone, but Mark didn’t seem to notice, already starting to push back his chair. “Sorry, it’s just that I can see Ben crossing the road; you remember my mate Ben, right? He’s the musical director for the tour that’s in the Palace at the moment – I promised I’d pop by and say hello even if I didn’t make it to the show. I’ll just run over and catch him before he goes in – I won’t be a moment and then you say whatever it is you were going to say, ok?”
Gary didn’t have time to agree or disagree – he barely even had time to process the words Mark had said – before Mark had sprung from his chair, throwing down his napkin behind him and making a sharp exit. Gary watched, dazed, as he burst outside, darting across the road to catch up with a retreating figure who Gary could only assume was the illusive Ben From The Tour. Gary recognized the description vaguely: one of Mark’s friends from Back In The Day who occasionally dropped in for a random session of drinking and music, happy and friendly but with a tendency to awkwardly back out of certain stories when he clearly thought he’d said too much. And just like that, Gary felt his doubts beginning to seep back into his system, like an inky black liquid that weighed heavy in the pit of his stomach and made his muscles tense. Poison. Why did Mark have so many friends who knew so much more about his past than Gary had ever been allowed to know? And what was the significance of their abruptly-ended stories and their muttered comments that they never seemed to want Gary to hear?
Gary swallowed down the feeling and it was gone almost as quickly as it had come, a smile suddenly coming to his lips as he saw Mark finally catch up to his friend, barrelling into him and giving one of those patented Mark Owen Hugs that seemed to make everything right with the world in a heartbeat. Ben nearly overbalanced and Mark’s whole face was filled with an ebullient, sunshiny grin as he quickly reached out to steady his friend, already talking at him at a mile a minute.
Mark was a lot of things: sometimes rambling, sometimes lonely, sometimes quiet and secretive – always hopeful, always friendly. But above all he was genuine; Gary knew that about him, and it was enough to reassure him that he hadn’t misplaced his trust. The only mistake he’d made today was going to that meeting and letting that man’s words get inside his head yet again. And yet, if he was honest with himself, he knew that, even now, they wouldn’t truly get out; the damage had been done. What ifs and worst cases flittered about at the back of his mind, refusing to be banished, and a panic he was ashamed of briefly stirred in his chest. Even the genuine could turn around and walk away from you if they chose to. And who better to betray you than your oldest friends? After all, they’re the ones who know all your soft spots, aren’t they? And they’re the ones with the most of your trust abuse.
“But would I be thinking that even if I’d had chance to finish my question just now?” he whispered to himself, still watching Mark thoughtfully.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out the business card he had so reluctantly taken earlier. He stared at the stylish font, the smart letters picked out in a steely grey. He was swamped by memories – good and bad – and he sighed. “I should trust Mark,” he said softly, then squeezed his eyes shut. “I should trust Jay,” he added more quietly. He tucked the card back into his pocket and blew out a breath. “Let the past stay buried, Barlow. Don’t go opening up old wounds – not for anybody, but especially not Mark and Jay.”
***
Grace sighed and dumped the phone down beside her on her bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. It had been an unexpectedly abrupt end to a long phone conversation with her mum, and the way they had left things made her feel restless and frustrated; everything had been going well until she heard Tim trying to rush her mum somewhere in the background and she hadn’t managed to cover the sullen edge in her tone quickly enough, sparking her mum’s irritation and causing a somewhat terse exchange. But an argument Grace probably could’ve lived with – she was smart enough to admit it was at least partly her fault they’d argued at all, and the whole thing was sure to have been forgotten about by the next time they spoke. The fight had dissipated before it had even truly begun, though, and instead she had found herself being reasoned with and pleaded with, a needling sadness mingling with hope in her mum’s tone as she tried to coax her, as though all the responsibility lay with her to fix the rapidly deteriorating truce of grudging tolerance she and Tim had just about managed to form previously. Grace resented that Tim – the actual adult in the situation who gave Grace even less of his patience than her mum even seemed to realise – was always the one who needed to be met halfway. It seemed sometimes like her mum’s definition of compromise was Grace’s total surrender, and, out of retaliation, some stubborn, wilful part of her refused to even acknowledge the smallest bit of responsibility in the whole thing.
Glancing around her room, she tried to find something she could settle on to distract herself; her new stationery was stacked neatly on her desk, her scrapbooking things open and scattered on the bedroom floor, where they had been abandoned when her mum had called – but all her enthusiasm was suddenly gone, and she couldn’t even bring herself to sort through the new postcards she had bought for her bedroom wall. Slowly she pushed herself off the bed and tiptoed over to the door, sticking her head out into the corridor and peering down towards the lounge. The pleasant, fuzzy sounds of television and talking mingled quietly in the air, Jason’s laugh vibrating through the warm evening and her dad’s voice rough and amused as he made some comment in response. Grace felt a small smile form on her lips and she quickly slipped out of her room, padding softly down the corridor towards the sounds.
“Lions?”
“It’s true, I saw a programme about it.”
“But who’s keeping pet lions?”
“Some bloke in America. I don’t know, it didn’t end well though. Serves him right too, if you ask me.”
“When I was travelling, I met this guy in Spain whose life-goal was to have a pet giraffe.”
“Now that can’t be legal.”
“Probably not. I’d pretty much done Europe by then and was trying to find ways of making my budget stretch to Asia – this guy was trying to get to Africa. We both took a cash-in-hand job at this tourist-trap place by the beach…and no word of a lie, How, this bloke was obsessed with the idea of owning a giraffe.”
“He’s probably still out there somewhere now, you know – telling a story to people about this weird bloke he used to work with who didn’t have any giraffe-related dreams in his life.”
“God, don’t even joke – he wouldn’t leave me alone, you know? I think he thought I was the perfect best friend for him. He used to follow me around talking about giraffes, driving me mad. Still every time I’m near a beach now I find myself looking round just in case he pops up and starts on with it all again.”
“Or maybe I’m secretly him in disguise – how do you know I’ve not been hiding a giraffe somewhere all this time? Can’t wait to see the look on your face when you find out I’m actually a zookeeper with a giraffe sanctuary I sneak off to when you think I’m at gigs out of town.”
Jason’s laugh was unreserved and warm, and he flopped back against the sofa, bringing his hands up to his face despairingly as he tried to recover his composure. Beside him, Howard watched on, delighted and unashamed, and when Jason finally dared look back at him he waggled his eyebrows impishly, setting Jason off once more. Grace smirked, rolling her eyes even as she fought off a smile.
“Are you even watching the TV?” she asked as she came up behind the sofa, folding her arms in a show of disapproval. Both Jason and Howard turned their heads, smiling up at her unperturbed.
“Hello sweetheart,” Howard said, shifting slightly to make room on the sofa for her. Grace took the unspoken invitation happily, climbing over the back of the sofa and letting herself sink into the soft, plump cushions as she curled against her dad’s side.
“What are you even watching?” she asked, stretching out one leg in order to prod Jason in his side, grinning innocently up at him when he narrowed his eyes at her in mock-irritation. “Dad’s watching you,” she shrugged. “I want to know what he’s supposed to be watching.” Jason laughed and shook his head, exchanging an amused glance with Howard before gesturing vaguely at the screen.
“Saturday night film on Channel Four – I don’t know what it’s called, but these people here are supposed to be saving the day,” he explained.
“There’s a lion involved,” Howard added unhelpfully and Jason laughed.
“You’re all about the details, How,” he joked and Howard shrugged idly, offering Jason a soft, lazy smile, a sly glint in his eyes.
“I’m just in it for the popcorn and the company, love,” he said. Grace pulled a face at him.
“You two like each other too much,” she muttered a little petulantly. Jason arched an eyebrow.
“You’re just noticing this now?” he asked, his tone gentle despite the tease in his eyes.
Grace wasn’t able to prevent the small smile that curved her lips. She curled a little more into her dad’s side and he smiled at her, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
“I’m guessing all this pouting has something to do with your marathon phone call with your mum?” he asked gently. Grace scrunched up her face and Howard nodded slowly. “I’ll take that as a yes then,” he sighed.
“What happened, Gracie?” Jason asked, giving her shoulder a slight nudge of encouragement.
“It was stupid,” Grace mumbled, not looking at either of them and instead becoming fascinated by the loose thread on the hem of her shirt.
“We don’t have that high of a bar for conversation round here,” Jason told her kindly, his eyes sparkling as he looked over at Howard and arched an eyebrow mischievously. “The tone really got lowered the day your father moved in,” he added. Howard stuck his tongue out at him. “See what I mean?” Jason joked and Howard chuckled, rolling his eyes before quickly looking back down at Grace.
“He has no respect for me,” Howard told her in a stage-whisper, making her smile slightly. “So come on then, spill the beans,” he sighed then. “You know Jay won’t let it lie, and call me crazy but I don’t like my daughter moping. It can’t all have been bad – you were on that phone for forever,” he said, raising his eyebrows expectantly. Grace lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.
“It was fun, mostly,” she said, still not looking at either Jason or Howard.
Jason reached across to give her shoulder another small nudge, tucking her hair behind her ear so that he could see her better. Out of the corner of her eye she could just make out his sceptical, concerned expression and it was comforting somehow. Her dad was squeezing her in a half-hug, and the openness to understanding softened her a little. She swallowed hard, scrunching up her face in concentration as she tried to explain what exactly it was about the conversation which had bothered her so much. “We got into an argument,” she admitted slowly. “Tim kept trying to rush mum off the phone but I wanted to talk more and I told mum he was just rushing her because he thinks I’m annoying and that they didn’t really need to go, and she told me I never give him a chance so I got cross with her. But then she just went all sad and kept asking me how she could make it better, how she could make me like him…”
It had all poured out in a rush, to her own surprise, and so she trailed off, trying to catch herself. She sighed, looking down at her hands. “She acts like I’m the one who has to fix it. Even though Tim is the grown-up and he’s the one who started it.”
“Gracie,” Jason said, his tone serious and firm. Grace looked up at him sheepishly: Jason refused to ever talk down to her, and there was a seriousness to his tone that she recognised immediately. She knew him well enough to understand the kindness that lay behind his tone of reprimand, and as much as she wanted to resent the warning way he’d said her name, she couldn’t quite manage it.
“What?” she asked, trying to jut out her chin to challenge him, though her heart wasn’t in it.
“Well first of all, drop the tone because – whatever Tim might think – we both know you’re not just some little kid having a tantrum over nothing.” Grace tried to sustain her pout, looking to Howard in half-hearted appeal.
“Don’t look at me: you know as well as I do that Jay’s not telling you off, he’s just being honest.” Howard’s look was every bit as serious as Jason’s, and Grace deflated slightly. Howard offered her a lopsided, almost apologetic smile that told her he was going to say something she didn’t want to hear. “Look, sweetheart, you might just be a kid to Tim, but you don’t fool Jay and me, you know that. You’re more grown-up than the ‘he started it’ argument, so don’t even try it.”
“It’s true though,” Grace whined, frowning slightly as she looked away. Howard sighed.
“I know,” he conceded softly. “But it’s not always that simple, Gracie.” He looked to Jason for help, and Jason smiled wryly, edging a little closer along the sofa.
“Ok, Gracie – you want to be treated like a grown-up? Then you have to stop whining a pouting and just listen to your dad and me for minute, ok?” His voice was level and solemn, but there was a gentleness in his eyes which Grace recognised, and reluctantly she nodded up at him, watching him with a guarded, cautious expression. Jason offered her a small smile in return. “Look, kiddo: even though Tim might be the grown-up, you’re a pretty special kid. And some people aren’t used to kids like you, ok? And they might not even be used to kids at all, for all you know. You have to learn that everyone is dealing with something, and that those things tend to affect how people cope in different situations.” Jason shrugged. “So maybe, if Tim’s too shy or doesn’t know how to connect with kids or…whatever his reason may be…maybe you should take the chance to do something positive about the situation. Make things better for both of you – and show your mum that you’re grown-up enough to maybe have more say in how you and Tim spend time with each other in the future.” Grace looked at him earnestly and he cast her a quietly sympathetic smile. “Family isn’t always easy, Gracie, trust me on this one. And big families take work sometimes. But it’s usually worth it – if that helps.” Grace smiled slightly, nodding.
“Maybe,” she mumbled, scrunching her nose slightly and shrugging. “I don’t want to spend time with Tim, though. He’s boring,” she added, her voice a little more forceful in her protest, and Howard chuckled, giving her a tiny dig in the ribs with his elbow.
“Hey, you – I left you and Jay alone for five minutes back when we first started going out, and he’s been one of your favourite people ever since,” he pointed out. Grace rolled her eyes but Howard persisted. “How do you know it won’t happen that way with Tim if you actually spend some time really talking to him – away from your mum and everything? If you both agreed to a clean slate, then you don’t know what might happen.”
“There’s only one Jay,” Gracr intoned, her expression solemn, and Jason smirked.
“Well she’s got us there, How,” he joked, sharing a smile with Howard over the top of Grace’s head. Grace pulled her knees up to her chest and huffed.
“Anyway, Tim’s only free at weekends – I’d have to go somewhere with him instead of staying here with you,” she pointed out, her face the picture of outrage, and Jason laughed affectionately at her stubborn display.
“You’ve got all summer here with us, sweetheart: plenty of time for you to get bored of our company later.” Grace twisted her lips into a firm line, suppressing her smile, and Jason nudged her. “Gracie, I don’t know Tim, and I don’t know if he’s going to be just as bad as you think he is, or if he’s going to turn out to be the best guy you’ve ever known. But I do know nothing is ever going to change if you don’t at least try – and do you really want to be stuck in limbo with your mum and Tim for the rest of your life?”
“Sometimes you have to be the bigger person, sweetheart,” Howard added gently. “Even if he started it, even if he should know better – prove to him and to your mum that this is nothing to do with me, or Jay, or you being a kid. Prove that you’re smarter than that and that you can act like it too. Jay said it: you’re a special kid – now you have to show Tim that. And just think how happy it would make your mum to see you making the effort with him.”
For a moment the three of them fell into silence and Grace tried very hard to focus on nothing but a point in the middle distance. She wasn’t sure where they had come from, but a sudden wave of tears had begun to prickle the backs of her eyes, and she was desperate not to give it away to her dad or Jason. But one tear somehow managed to escape, and even as she sniffed and tried to blink it back, it still rolled free, tracing a tickling path down her cheek.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered then, closing her eyes as Jason tenderly brushed the tear from her face.
“What’s not fair, sweetheart?” he asked softly.
“Mum acts like I’m being mean on purpose, or that I’m making a big deal out of nothing but…she doesn’t understand.” Grace shook her head and swallowed down a lump in her throat. Her dad gave her shoulders a squeeze of encouragement, but she still wouldn’t look up at the risk of meeting his or Jason’s eyes. “I wanted my weekends back for forever,” she murmured, pulling her legs tightly against her and trying to scrunch herself up into as tight a ball as possible. “No one let me miss Jay except you, but they can’t do anything about me spending time with him now it’s all fixed and just really don’t want to risk missing any weekends in case it all goes wrong again.” She squeezed her eyes shut once more then, trying to keep a fresh onslaught of tears from escaping.
Beside her, Grace felt Jason shift a little closer, wrapping a strong, caring arm around her and tugging her slowly across the sofa until she had no choice but to climb gratefully into his lap.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he said as he pulled her firmly against him, his voice a sweet hush. He smelt of peppermint and coconut and Grace turned towards him gratefully as he wrapped her into a hug. “Now, I need you to tell me something: do you think there is one moment of any of your weekends here that you would have wasted?” Grace shook her head slightly and placed a kiss to the top of her head, stroking her hair as she pressed herself into the slight concave of his chest. “Ok then. So tell me how being worried about what happened before – and whether or not it could happen again – is making the most of your weekend?” Grace sniffed, attempting a shrug. Jason smiled. “See, that’s what I thought.” He gave her another squeeze. “So, my vote is: you do what you have to do, without being scared about it, and that way, even if everything goes wrong tomorrow? You know you won’t have wasted any of your time being afraid. Because I know you’re really a pretty fearless kid, Gracie. And you shouldn’t lose that over something that you already did the tough bit of surviving.”
For a moment Grace kept her face hidden, burrowing into his embrace gratefully until she felt she’d regained her composure. Then, slowly, she drew in a deep breath and twisted just enough to look up at him. “Hey, princess,” he said, letting out a small half-laugh when she smiled up at him.
“Hi,” she replied in a small, timid voice. She felt suddenly shy, and she glanced over at her dad, who was watching them both quietly.
“He’s good, right?” he joked in a soft voice that barely disguised his emotions, and Grace laughed slightly, nodding.
“He’s ok,” she agreed, swiping the last traces of tears from her eyes and looking up at Jason out the corner of her eye. He looked back at her, eyes sparkling brilliantly.
“What can I say: you grow up with Jenny Orange, you learn a trick or two,” he remarked. “And I’ll tell you something else I learned from mum: there’s over two million people in Manchester. Around sixty million in the whole country. So really, it’s beautifully strange that somehow we manage to find people in all of that madness who we can connect with, and who we want to let into our lives.” Jason leant in a little. “But we do find them. And we build these circles for ourselves of the people we’ve chosen to care about, and we have to hope they all get along, if not all the time, then at least enough to get by, you know? Because even that little bit of compromise is amazing, when it’s so against the odds.” His eyes briefly met with Howard’s and they shared a smile. Howard edged closer and Grace glanced across at him curiously.
“See, Gracie, you and me are lucky: we beat all the odds going and we found Jay and Mark and Gaz, and everything made sense right away. We’ve been spoilt – and that’s pretty much all you’ve ever known now. But with your mum, things are a little tougher.” He shrugged. “She still managed to find someone, though, who – despite all those people and that craziness – she gets along with and cares about. Do you really want to be the reason she doesn’t get to have a go at beating the odds too and making that person fit into her world with you?” He raised his eyebrows at her enquiringly and she gave him the smallest of smiles, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. “So…take a day or a weekend or whatever else it takes to give luck a chance to work its magic. And if it works out then everyone wins – and if it doesn’t work out? Then Tim is the only one losing.” Howard pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before leaning back to meet her eyes again. “I know you love your mum, sweetheart. And she knows it too. But sometimes with families it’s hard to show it because you’re around each other all the time and your drive each other crazy. So you have to make compromises – and, even if it doesn’t end in you and Tim being best friends? You need to find a way to at least live together and be ok with each other; you know I don’t always see eye-to-eye with Justin, but when it comes down to it, we both care about Jay, so we find a way to make it work, even if it means biting our tongue sometimes. It takes both sides, but sometimes you have to be the one to make the first move.”
“Dad,” Grace whined and Howard chuckled softly, giving her another little dig in her ribs.
“I’m just saying so you keep an open mind, ok?” he smiled and Jason grinned.
“He knows you’ve inherited his stubborn streak, that’s what’s worrying him,” he pointed out, winking at Grace and ducking out of the way when Howard took a playful swipe at him with a cushion. “See, there he goes again, Gracie: trying to start a fight,” Jason joked, leaning over to rest his chin on Grace’s shoulder and waggling his eyebrows at Howard in challenge. Grace giggled and Howard scrunched up his face in a show of irritation which didn’t match the joyful sparkle in his eyes.
“Turning my own daughter against me, Jay? That’s low.” He shook his head. “But using her as a human shield?!” Howard intoned, his voice faux-solemn even as Jason smiled brilliantly back at him.
“The Orange Family don’t play fair, Donald. And besides, Grace is one of us now.”
“Oh yeah, says who?”
“Says me!” Grace put in quietly, her smile starting to shine a little more brightly.
“And also my mum,” Jason added with a shrug. “So if you want to pick a fight with Jenny Orange…”
“Oh no, no way – I value my life thank you very much,” Howard laughed.
“Then it’s settled,” Jason smirked, before giving Grace a slight nudge. “So, you; you want to share our popcorn and pick something for us to watch on TV?” he offered, and Grace’s smile turned into an instant grin.
Howard feigned a despairing sigh and reached for the bowl of popcorn and the remote, which sat side by side on the coffee table. As he handed them to Grace he shot her a playful wink, his smile rough and kind.
“See, Gracie – in the end? I still win: there’s a Donald controlling the telly for the night,” he said, looking over at Jason and pulling a face at him. “And he thinks he’s so smart,” he added in a stage-whisper to Grace as Jason rolled his eyes.
“You’re impossible, you know that?” he challenged Howard with a laugh.
“You were the one who gave me a key to this place, you know – don’t think I didn’t notice you wanting that badly to bask in my unending glory,” Howard shot back.
“Please,” Grace remarked, rolling her eyes as she flicked through the channels.
“Yeah, sorry, Howard, but I’m going to agree with the kid on this one,” Jason nodded, shooting Howard a winning smile. “But I do love you, if it helps,” he added. Howard chuckled, inclining his head slightly.
“Oh, it helps a lot actually,” he replied.
***
Music was playing faintly in the kitchen as Howard emerged from the corridor, and he stretched lazily, enjoying the fuzzy peace the sound created in the night-time glow of the apartment.
“The munchkin is finally down for the night,” he announced as he rounded the corner and slumped haphazardly across the breakfast bar. Jason paused from cleaning the worktop – it had been Howard’s turn to cook the dinner that night, but, whilst their culinary skills were fairly evenly matched, their definitions of what constituted a tidy kitchen differed wildly – and he turned, cloth in hand, to shoot Howard a wry, knowing smile, one eyebrow arched.
“And if she hears you calling her ‘munchkin’ again then we both know she’ll be right back out of bed and giving you an earful in no time,” he pointed out. Howard grinned shamelessly back at Jason, giving him a one-shouldered shrug.
“You just don’t want to play referee in a Donald versus Donald showdown.”
“I’ve refereed worse,” Jason laughed, turning back to the cleaning, his head on one side in casual contemplation. “Have you ever seen Dom and Ollie when they get going? Or Justin and anyone?!”
“Oh, like you were always a saint?” Howard teased. Jason flashed him a quick, impish grin over his shoulder, eyes bright.
“I don’t even know the meaning of sibling rivalry, me,” he said brightly, reaching across to hang up the cloth before executing a graceful spin and leaning back against the kitchen counter opposite Howard, eyes aglitter. “Although, come to think of it, there might have been one or two minor disagreements…” he added mischievously. “I think me and Justin are still involved in some heated debate about a stolen packet of sweets from a family Easter thing back in the late seventies, you know.” He shrugged and Howard laughed softly, shaking his head.
“The frightening thing is: I know you’re not joking,” he pointed out, and Jason smirked, nodding slowly in agreement.
“Never have a twin brother,” he intoned, his expression serious but his eyes glinting.
“Duly noted,” Howard acknowledged with a smile. “But speaking of siblings – the not-so-blood-relative kind anyway: I got a text from Gaz.”
“Please don’t tell me he’s gone and broken up with Mark by accident,” Jason groaned, and Howard chuckled.
“No. But he hasn’t proposed either. Unless they’ve hired Jonathan to make the announcement on Monday morning. But hey – the weekend’s not over yet, and who knows what the pair of them are capable of if you give them a full Sunday to mess around with.”
“Ok, Donald: you’ve lost me with Jonathan making the announcement...”
“Oh, the text I got was just asking if I could come to the shop with you Monday – Jonathan phoned Gaz and apparently he wants to speak to us all about something or other. I said I’d got nothing better to do and Gaz said he didn’t either. I tried to coax him into actual conversation but didn’t get much out of him to be honest. Last I had from him he just said he was knackered and ready for an early bed.”
“In a way that implied his talk with Mark didn’t go well?”
“In a way that implied I shouldn’t ask him too many questions because he wasn’t in the mood.” Howard shrugged. “Maybe I read too much into it though – it was only a few texts back and forth, so who knows.”
“If Gaz and Mark had made any major breakthroughs in their relationship tonight, then one or the other of them would have phoned one or the other of us,” Jason sighed, rolling his eyes. “Which means I get to play piggy-in-the-middle between the two of them some more.”
“It’s getting that bad?”
“With Mark…he just can’t help himself, I don’t think; he’ll start talking and he doesn’t know whether or not he wants to stop, so he just keeps going until he thinks I’m looking bored. And then Gaz is used to unloading on me, I suppose – because he knows I don’t really judge when he does something daft, I just shrug it off even if I don’t agree with it. We’ve known each other too long for holding back, I guess…and you know how Gaz is, he can’t settle if he thinks there’s unfinished business in his head. So basically, from my point of view? The sooner the two of them stop messing about and realise they’re made for each other, the better.”
Jason frowned slightly then, glancing away, his gaze fixing on a point in the middle distance. “It’s funny, you know…Gaz always used to be so sure. Back when I first met him, he was a cocky bastard, honestly.” He laughed, eyes sparkling. “And I’m not saying that as a bad thing, you know?” He flicked a glance up at Howard, who smiled understandingly. “Honestly, we both were, probably. I was never one to try and shout louder than someone else, but I was probably one to try and be seen more…I didn’t like being ignored, I know that much.” The frown returned briefly as Jason tried to unpick whatever memory it was that had drifted into his mind, and Howard allowed him the moment, still watching him intently. “It was different with Gaz, though. I mean, he was so sure he was going to make it; he was good enough and he knew it – but he wasn’t arrogant, exactly. Well, maybe he was, in some ways. But not obnoxiously so, I don’t think. But he just knew: he was amazing at writing songs and he was going to be the next, big singer-songwriter, he just knew, without question, he was going to be a success. He was willing to put the work in to get there – but he knew he would get there. He knew his life was going to fall into place exactly the way he wanted it to and he didn’t question anything about that. But somehow, in all the mess that followed with the band and the bad relationship and all of that…somehow he ended up being probably the most overly cautious bloke I know.”
Jason didn’t often speak about the early days of his and Gary’s friendship, though Howard understood why, of course; the beginning of their friendship was tangled up with bad memories and secrets which neither Jason nor Gary wanted dredging up. Howard had heard it all – the whole sad, complicated tale had been told to him in fragments at first, until eventually it had all poured out of Jason in one go. Memories of late nights and shared confidences drifted into Howard’s mind; Jason’s voice soft and scratchy down a phone line, low and husky across a pillow. And finally, something inside him had broken one day, the demons surfacing for one reason or another, threatening to overwhelm him until Howard finally asked him if he wanted to talk: he went back to the beginning and told it all piece by piece, sitting cross-legged opposite Howard on the sofa, their fingers interlaced. Jason was always nervous of summoning those ghosts, and sometimes it was almost possible to forget that he and Gary had a past before Mark at all. But Howard knew. Jason trusted him to know.
“I don’t know when that changed exactly…when it started to happen. I drifted in and out of his life for a while…it might have started before I even noticed it,” Jason continued suddenly, his voice very quiet. “I don’t know if it’s a bad thing, as such. He’s still got a faith in himself that I think I lost somewhere along the way. And maybe I envy him that much, I suppose. But his faith in other people? No one’s trust in the human race should take a hit like that, I don’t think. Even after it all, I never started to fear everyone’s intentions the way he started to. You get cautious at first, guarded, you know? But you have teach yourself to look past it, to not assume everyone is out for themselves – you start thinking like that and you’ll become that way yourself, if you’re not careful.” He shook his head, laughing dryly. “He used to be so closed off to people messing with his music, but he had no problem letting people into his life, you know? It’s strange how it’s all flipped over.”
“Sometimes I forget just how long you two have known each other,” Howard said gently, flashing Jason a soft smile. In the quiet pause that elapsed between them, Howard knew several ghosts danced about in the shadows, but Jason’s eyes were shining as he looked at him.
“You’ve known me longer, though: I was dancing well before I met Gaz,” he replied, his voice gentle and hushed as he flashed Howard a small, almost mischievous, smile. Howard smiled back at him quietly, inclining his head.
“Oh, you call seeing you dance from the other side of a packed room ‘knowing you’ do you?” he asked and Jason laughed, shrugging.
“I’ll say this much: I wish I’d had the guts to go talk to you back then,” Howard murmured, just loud enough to be heard across the kitchen but still barely more than a breath. Their eyes met and Jason’s lips curved into a whisper of a smile. “I think a part of me was a little bit in love with you,” Howard told him quietly. “I was in love with the idea of you, anyway.”
“Everyone loves the sun,” Jason replied softly, his smile wry and his eyes shining distantly. Howard laughed softly, nodding. They stared at each other for a moment, before Jason let out a heavy breath and glanced away. “Me and Gaz were thrown together by chance, really,” he said after a beat. “That’s the reality.” He shrugged. “We didn’t get on at first; only for about a minute and from a distance, just because of first impressions. I thought he was stand-offish and he thought I was too cool – you know, in that way where he thought I would’ve just told him to piss off anyway so he didn’t bother trying. I can’t even remember how we got talking in the end, but I remember thinking he needed a mate. All the lads there had grown up with houses full of brothers and sisters and God knows who else – but for him it had always been quiet, just him and his brother and his mum and dad, out in Cheshire instead of in the city like the rest of us. He stuck out, I suppose. But he had his music and his songs and he knew as long as he had them he belonged there, no matter what the rest of the lads might have thought or said about the way he dressed or the way he acted, or any of that superficial stuff kids go on about when they’re trying to promote themselves. He couldn’t dance, but he could sing and write and he knew as long as he could do that, he was actually the one with the most right to be there out of any of us – which I think rubbed the other lads up the wrong way sometimes. But me and him, we had this weird situation where I was in awe of him for that self-possession and talent, and he was in awe of me because of the dancing and everything, maybe even just coz I was that bit older…and somehow, in the middle of that, something clicked. He liked that I listened and I liked his humour.” Jason chuckled slightly, shaking his head. “If it hadn’t have been for what happened, maybe we’d have stayed in closer contact – would’ve practically grown up together, in way. But…well, you know the rest.” He sighed. “We weren’t close for a while. We talked now and then but we didn’t see much of each other. We sort of…drifted out of each other’s lives for a time. The shop brought us closer though; we did a lot of talking about a lot of things and in the space of about a week he became one my very best friends, just like that. Then we met Mark and it all seemed to fit, like we’d had the chance to handpick a second family for ourselves and all we needed to make it perfect was you.” Howard smiled and Jason flicked a glance up at him, his eyes briefly dancing with light. “Sometimes when you throw the right people together, by chance, it all works out.” Howard smiled back at him and nodded.
“Sometimes it pays to wait to find out the guy’s name before you fall for him,” he put in. Jason’s smile was soft and sweet as he looked back at Howard thoughtfully.
“It was a long time ago; eighteen and dancing every night. I don’t know about being the sun…but I think thought I was, sometimes. On the nights when I really gave a good performance. It was addictive, almost, that feeling. And I suppose that’s why I always found myself drifting, afterwards. Nothing held my attention enough for the longest time.”
Howard studied Jason’s face; the profile he knew so well, the handsome line of his jaw and the brightness of his eyes. He thought back to the dancer he’d glimpsed from afar all those years ago, the way the very set of his shoulders had commanded respect. There had always been something about Jason – it was still there now; a unique combination of light, rhythm and charisma that couldn’t be suppressed.
“So…can I ask you something – now that prying ears have gone to bed and it’s just you and me?” Howard ventured, his voice soft and husky. The gentleness with which he spoke the question made Jason look up and meet his eyes; there was a peculiar sort of intimacy to the moment, to the way Jason looked at him with a half-smile of implicit trust.
“Sure.” His voice was a whisper and a surrender. “What do you want to know?” Howard felt a smile ghost across his lips, and he took a moment to study Jason’s face carefully before he replied – there was open curiosity in his expression, and though there was a certain amount of caution there, Howard also knew there would never be any secrets between them; even those unspoken had been somehow confessed silently long ago.
“Did you stop dancing because you just didn’t want to do it anymore…or did you stop dancing because of what happened with the band?”
Howard knew it was a loaded question, but he also knew Jason had somehow expected it. Shadows seemed to dance across his face briefly, his brow furrowing in concentration as he let his mind wander back over those memories he tried so hard to keep locked away. Howard was one of the only people in the world who knew these stories, the ones Jason didn’t like to tell, and he hated the ache they still left inside of Jason even now. He was caught between wishing he could fix the brokenness that sat so deep within him and realising that, somehow, in that brokenness lay a part of Jason’s unique magic. Howard loved Jason for so many things, but in the end it all came down to his soul, didn’t it? And that was a soul which had been formed out of broken glass.
“I never stopped enjoying the dancing,” Jason murmured at last. His brow was still creased in concentration, and he didn’t meet Howard’s eyes as he spoke, as though he was watching his past play out in the space between them and was trying to understand what he saw. For a moment he chewed at his lip, lost in thought. “I was exhausted, after what happened. I was drained and I was…I don’t know if I was angry, but I wasn’t happy. I was wounded, I suppose. But at first, I felt I had to go back…because dancing was always where I’d felt strong. And I wanted – needed, maybe – to feel that way again. And, even now, you know…I love that feeling, that rush when you know you’ve put in a good performance.” He shook his head slightly, as if he was trying to dislodge some stray thought, a wonky smile briefly crossing his face. “I never stopped loving dancing…but I did end up in a place where…it wasn’t the same anymore. And the more I tried to force it, the more I tried to pretend it was like it was before…then the more it felt like I was barely holding it together. That total confidence that you need to make something look good in a routine…it wasn’t there like it used to be. Every time I was out there, it just started to become more and more like an act, like a persona I was putting on to try and make things work.” He shrugged. “After a while I started to realise, to notice it more. I felt like a fraud; like a fake, almost.” Jason shook his head, looking back up at Howard sadly. “I just wasn’t comfortable with that idea. It didn’t sit right in my head. So…I decided to walk away.” He shrugged again, though this time the gesture seemed somehow heavier. “I hate admitting how much he affected me…how much everything he told me actually sank in, changed my mind about who I was. I hate that that is now part of who I am, as a person. But…I know it is, deep down. I just know. Because I stopped being able to believe in myself the way I used to before…I started to get this idea in the back of my head that I was going to fail, because I didn’t deserve to do anything else; I wasn’t good enough or special enough…I wasn’t enough for anything or anyone. And I know it sounds stupid…but…but even now, sometimes, I’ll have moments, right in the middle of the night where…where I think I can’t allow myself to be too happy – in case I’m not really capable, or I don’t really deserve it…as if it’ll all be taken away somehow. It’s like there’s this part of me that just won’t let me forget or move on properly. It’s like his voice in the back of my mind, still telling me I’m this bad person for having any self-belief at all.”
Jason’s arms were wrapped protectively around himself, and Howard could see an unusual tension in his body. It was as though he was waiting for the past to reach into the present and grab him – he might choose not to dwell on the memories, but they were still there, likely to never be fully dislodged. Jason was more than the sum of his endurances, though – more than any one moment or impression. Taking Jason at face value was never a mistake Howard had made; not even back in those dancing days when he hadn’t even known his name. Howard had recognised a complex intensity to him even then – and now he knew him better than anyone else. Howard watched him for a moment; handsome face, solemn expression, long, slender fingers drumming absently on his arm. The hazy kitchen light made the shadows flitter across his skin, and beneath the mosaic of broken glass and fragility, Howard could still see him the way he had from a distance all those years ago: fierce, electric and unafraid.
“Dance with me.” Jason looked up at him immediately, eyebrows raised in surprise. Howard didn’t waver; he looked back at Jason without flinching, his expression intent and serious. Jason laughed slightly, narrowing his eyes.
“Dance with you?” he asked, and though his tone was sceptical, Howard knew the flicker of intrigue – of excitement – that shone in his eyes. He shrugged, a roguish smile gracing his lips as he straightened up.
“Why not?”
“You mean besides the fact your daughter is trying to sleep down the hall?”
“We both know that girl could sleep through a hurricane.”
“Like father, like daughter.” Jason’s lips quirked up at the corner and he took a step closer to Howard, whose eyes still glinted back at him unflinchingly. “Dance with you…” Jason said the phrase slowly, seeming to turn the words over in his head for a moment. “Dance with you, or dance against you, Howard Donald?” he asked then, raising an eyebrow, his smile turning sly. Howard chuckled, tipping his head on one side and considering the proposition, looking Jason up and down. He took a slight step back.
“Hit me with your best shot, Jason Orange,” he replied with a wolfish grin. Jason’s lips formed an enigmatic line, but his eyes sparkled at the challenge.
The way Jason’s body moved hadn’t changed at all in the years that had passed since Howard first saw him dance. His sense of timing, his power and his ease – Jason could turn it all on at a moment’s notice. He knew how to stare down his opponent in just the right way; a steely mix of intrigue, fortitude and disdain shining in his piercing blue eyes. But the truth of it was, Howard could match him trick for trick and spin for spin, he knew that – his improv was rustier, perhaps, but there was enough remembered choreography he could string together for their impromptu battle. That was never the point though. Jason’s secret had never been that he was the best dancer in the world; Jason’s secret was that he could make you look at him like he was the best dancer in the world. It was not that he had the best technique or any moves no one had ever seen before – there was simply something about him. An aura. He commanded attention somehow, and his determination commanded respect. His musicality and grace, the finishes to his lines: second to none. But it was something about who he was that drew people in and made them stare. It was as though he were lit from within, and, somewhere between moves as he watched Jason dance reply after reply like he could do it all night, Howard forgot everything else and found himself standing, silent and still, for just a beat or two too long. It was all the opening Jason needed.
Howard had hardly noticed how close their bodies had become until Jason was already at his feet, springing up to a crouch from some intricate move which had closed the final distance between them. He drew himself up to his full height slowly, carefully – his eyes were bright and beady and focused intently upon Howard, meeting his gaze with a fierceness and confidence that made his heart stutter a little. No matter what Jason’s own doubts might tell him, Howard was clear: this was no fraud, this was who Jason was born to be. He watched silently as Jason made his way up his body, unfolding and stretching until the two of them were face to face, and he felt his breath catch in his throat as the full force of Jason’s presence was suddenly radiating out towards him from barely an inch away. There was a half-second pause that felt like forever; just long enough for Howard to catch the barest hint of a smile penetrating the regal mask of Jason’s expression as he rose up onto his tiptoes just enough to steal a kiss.
Howard felt an unstoppable smile spread across his face and he chuckled softly, his muscles finally un-tensing as he reached out to grab Jason’s hips and pull him flush against him. His breathing was still heavy, and Howard could feel his heartbeat race against him; but his smile was full and bright as he looked up into Howard’s face, one eyebrow still raised slightly as he laughed too. Howard reached up to cup his face then, dipping his head and going in for a longer, deeper kiss. He felt Jason winding his arms around him and, though they were both a little breathless, they kept drawing each other closer, their eyes fluttering closed.
When they finally broke apart, Howard leant back, meeting Jason’s eyes once more. He brushed the pad of his thumb along his cheek as they both took a moment to draw some much-needed oxygen into their lungs, each looking at the other in silent contemplation.
“I still think you’re like the sun, Jay,” Howard murmured into the peace. “And you do deserve to be happy. I promise.” Jason’s smile was gentle, and he leant in a little, using Howard’s body to draw himself up so their eyes were exactly level. He kissed Howard’s nose then tipped his head back, eyes shining quietly in the low light.
“You make me happy, How.”
***
Gary stared up at the bedroom ceiling, gazing blankly at the column of moonlight which snuck in through a gap in the curtains, cutting a perfect, white line across the room. Beside him, Mark was sleeping soundly, his face half-buried in his pillow, his hair a dark mass of waves and tangles which stuck up at odd angles. Gary risked a glance at him and he couldn’t help but smile; his usually squarish, joyful face looked softer and quieter when he slept, the rounded lines of his eyes and cheeks somehow more pronounced. There was always a strange mix of darkness and innocence in Mark’s face, and you could never be sure which side you would see during the day, his mood sometimes changing from one moment to the next – but sleeping, he looked almost childlike in his sweetness. Gary smiled slightly, leaning across to press a tentative kiss to his forehead; Mark’s face scrunched up for a moment and he let out a small sigh, curling himself up a little tighter and burying even more of his face into his pillow. Gary stifled a laugh, watching fondly as Mark’s hair began to tickle his face as it fell down across his forehead – he batted it away in his sleep and tugged the covers more tightly around himself with an incoherent mumble, and Gary thought he just detected his name being muttered in complaint somewhere in the otherwise indecipherable string of sounds Mark was making as he burrowed himself deeper and deeper into the pillow with an almost petulant frown.
Somewhere beyond the bedroom window a car rumbled past, disrupting the quiet, and Gary started slightly, his gaze turning to the clock. It was only a little after eleven, but Gary felt as though he had been lying there for an eternity; he and Mark had both been exhausted and had gone to bed earlier than usual, but whilst Mark had seemed to drift off immediately, Gary had found his mind unwilling to switch itself off, no matter how tired his body may have been. Strange how he could find himself feeling so thoroughly upside-down from just one day; but perhaps the questions had really been there all along, just buried, and now they were exposed he wasn’t sure whether it was best to rebury them or go out in search of answers. Jason was just a phone call away, Mark was sleeping right beside him – both men held pieces of the puzzles his brain was struggling to untangle. But there was too high a risk of him saying the wrong thing and causing unintentional hurt. There was Howard, of course. Howard had quickly become one of Gary’s closest friends, something about his easy nature and genuine compassion combining to always make Gary smile. But perhaps filling his head yet another outside opinion wasn’t wise; he’d reached a point where he wasn’t even sure which doubts were his own and which belonged to others any more, couldn’t say for sure which thoughts had been planted, which opinions were given honestly, which stories were true and which secrets he wanted to know. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a bad boyfriend – and an even worse friend – but no matter how hard he tried to push his questions and doubts to the side he couldn’t stop his thoughts from circling back over every little moment which had ever given him cause for questions. It wasn’t that years of loyalty and love meant nothing, it was just that he wasn’t built for grey areas. He’d always been that way: he liked yes or no answers, simple cases of right and wrong, known and unknown, good and bad. He liked the clarity. But clarity was a long, long way away; it wasn’t a new development, and the thought had been at the back of his mind for a long time before today. Still, he knew he had been given that final push over the edge by a master manipulator, and he had to wonder what his motives were in all this too.
He looked over at Mark again, a sad smile forming on his lips. There were moments sometimes when it was hard to believe Mark was even real; he was absurd and sweet and always willing to give, he was ridiculous and funny and creative and wild, always off in his own little world. It was as if he was some magical creature – fragile, gorgeous and unbelievable, liable to be disproved entirely if you looked too closely. And of all the people in his life, of all the fashionable, colourful, wonderful people he knew, Mark had still settled on Gary. Gary Barlow and his preference for the conventional, Gary Barlow and his focus and drive and his life inside the lines.
For the most part, Gary preferred the quiet life. Except in one respect: his music. And maybe there were a hundred reasons why he and Mark could talk for hours, why they made each other laugh, why they understood each other; but really, would any of that matter if it wasn’t for Gary’s single-mindedness when it came to music? Mark had the sort of effervescence no band manager or record label executive could possibly dismiss out of hand, and there was plenty of raw talent there – he didn’t need Gary to succeed, in theory, but perhaps he felt he needed his songs, his Undeniable Catchy Pop to stand alongside his own quirky lyrics and bittersweet melodies. Gary winced. He couldn’t believe he was entertaining the idea; it was awful and unfair. But could he really say for sure it was something Mark would never do when he hardly knew anything of Mark’s life in the years before they met? Everything before his work in the bank and his casual Oldham Street busking was shrouded in mumbled sentences and sad little frowns, quick changes of topic and cryptic whispers. And yet, Gary knew, he’d lied to Mark about his own past – little lies, white lies, but lies all the same. Maybe that was where his doubts really came from; his own deceit making him deflect and throw suspicion onto the one person in the world he ought to trust completely. Mark was a dreamer. Maybe Mark was a liar. But Mark was also full of nothing but love; unselfish and kind to his core.
Gary lifted his head in order to turn his pillow over before letting himself drop back down onto it with a dull thump. Beside him, Mark mumbled in his sleep again and Gary squeezed his eyes more tightly shut. He tried to focus on threads of lyrics he’d jotted down over the week, on running through lists of the shop’s regular customers’ tea-preferences, on anything that wasn’t anything to do with his – or anyone else’s – past. Despite his best efforts at distraction, his brain briefly flitted to his texted conversation with Howard earlier, and he wondered to himself what Howard’s advice on it all might have been. Of course it might have been even easier for him to confess all to him if Howard wasn’t the man married to the very person Gary felt as though he had betrayed the most with his little meeting with the past. He got as far as letting himself picture the worried furrow of Howard’s brow before his unruly thoughts were interrupted by the rumble of his phone, vibrating loudly against his bedside table and making him jump, his eyes snapping open as he all but fell out of the bed, making a quick grab for his phone in order to quiet it.
Gary glanced over his shoulder, sighing a little in relief as he saw Mark simply burrow himself further under the covers without waking. Quietly he got to his feet and slipped out into the hall, answering the phone as he shut the bedroom door softly behind him. He clamped the phone between his ear and his shoulder, adopting a half-whisper as he answered; he didn’t need to look at the screen, there was only one person who ever called him this late and he’d half-expected his call.
“I thought I told your husband already: I’m fine. You pair are nothing but worriers, you know that?” There was an awkward pause on the other end, and Gary frowned. “Jay?” he pressed, lifting the phone away from his ear to glance at the screen.
His heart lurched in his chest when he realised the number wasn’t one his phone had saved in its memory. “Hello?” he ventured tentatively.
“Gary Barlow, you sound about as happy as a wasp trapped under a shot glass – surely I didn’t wake you did I? At this time?” A chill ran down Gary’s spine and he was sure he felt goosebumps rising on his arms.
“Look, I told you I wasn’t interested in-”
“I just wanted to call and find out if you’d had chance to think things over. You stormed out so fast earlier that I didn’t have chance to remind you of all my contacts in the industry. I’m well-connected, Gary – your little bandmates can’t bring you that.”
“Look, like I told you earlier: I’m not interested, so just leave it.”
“And can I just ask: are you married yet? Proposal in the works? Contract drawn up with that manager? Or Jason or his husband? How about a number one single? I can get you these things, Gary, but you have to at least talk to me…give me a chance to give you my version of events in the old days, talk it over. I don’t know what Jason told you, but he’s got a way of twisting words to fit his picture of the world in his head and I would hate for you to throw away your dreams on a man who can’t even bring himself to tell you the truth.”
“I don’t need Jay’s ‘version of events’ – I had eyes and I made a decision based on what I saw happening. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve-”
“I have friends in PR, Gary. Local and national companies, interested in what talent I could send their way, looking for opportunities to market someone who could go far. You’re the perfect candidate: hard-working, talented, handsome, good old-fashioned homely charm.”
“Homely?”
“Backlash, Gary; against all the popstars who end up in the papers for the wrong reasons. People are looking for someone who could get invited to tea with the queen, rather than ending up in the paper for falling out of a club with Prince Harry. Come on, what do you say? You could go solo, or I could find you some new bandmates, ones who won’t make trouble and who can actually sing…and if we could persuade your current lot to sign a few waivers we could even use the material you’ve already worked on, get working right away instead of having to sit around waiting for you to write an album from scratch…”
“W-waivers?” Gary stammered uncomprehendingly.
“Waivers. Release forms. Legal documents. Standard stuff in the industry, Gary, standard procedure. I know a bloke who could have the papers drawn up for us by Friday, in fact.”
“Release forms for what?”
“For the rights to the songs, Gary! What do you think?!” He laughed mirthlessly, the sound brittle and cold down the line. “We can’t have people running around collecting the royalties, taking the credit; it’s better for your image if you’re some master songwriter working alone, the rest of the band we put together can just be puppets then, meaning you and I can collect all the money.”
“Do you even hear yourself?!” Gary asked in disbelief, every fibre of his being suddenly on high alert. “And you call Jay the selfish one?” he muttered. He’d walked into a trap by agreeing to meet; now he was in his sights, free to be worked on a wheedled at, fair game for trickery, persuasion, manipulation and temptation, any hour of the day or night. “They’re my friends, you know – some of those songs, I didn’t work on at all…I don’t even-”
“And what are your little bandmates doing with those songs, Gary? Hiding them away, making you perform them before the DJ shows up at weddings? Putting their crappy vocals in the background of your solid, classic sound? They’re holding you back, Gary Barlow. But if you work with me, you could have all your dreams come true, and you wouldn’t have to waste a penny on a group of lads who don’t even care about you. After all; I know for a fact at least one of them can’t even sing.” Gary spluttered out an incredulous laugh, eyebrows raised.
“Please tell me I’m not hearing this.” He rubbed a hand over his face and sucked in as much air as he could. “And what would you know about how much my friends do or don’t care anyway? God, you’re beyond belief, you know that?”
“Oh, and I suppose that boyfriend of yours would never think of it, would he? I’ve asked around about him, Gary Barlow, and I know he’s bad news. A lot of people in his past. A lot of people in his present to, let me tell you – and you think he’s some sort of saint, do you? No agenda of his own? Don’t be so naïve, Gary. Everybody’s after something in this life; at least I have the decency to be upfront about it.”
“I don’t-” Gary began, but he was cut off with sharp finality.
“My office. Tuesday at ten.” And with that, the line went dead and Gary was left standing in silence in his living room, having never in his life felt more confused or more alone.
Chapter 5
Howard leant back against the shop’s counter, watching as Jason attempted to wave away the dust motes which he had disturbed in the calm of the morning air. He was balanced precariously atop an ancient step-ladder, stretching to inspect the labels – written in Mark’s scrabbly handwriting – on the sides of the boxes stored high up on the top of one of Barlow’s Music Shop’s many bookcases. Jason brought a strangely graceful sort of ease to the task, his movements quick, sure and precise as he dismissed some boxes and leant in to try and better make out the labels on others. Howard’s eyes stayed fixed on him, and he ran his gaze up his body, appreciating the way his lean outline was surrounded in a hazy glow of sunshine and dust; Howard felt his lips curve in an appreciative smile as Jason rose onto his tiptoes, stretching the final distance to lower one of the boxes down, exposing a flash of his flat stomach in the process.
“Stop licking your lips, Donald,” Jason said dryly, not bothering to look away from his task. “And if you can be bothered shifting yourself, some help with these books wouldn’t go amiss either,” he added. He was balancing the box between himself and the shelves, sorting through the contents studiously, but Howard saw the slight twist of his thin lips and heard the crackle of amusement in his voice. After a beat Jason glanced up, looking over at Howard and meeting his impish stare. “What?” he asked through a chuckle, the affection in his voice masking any hint of frustration he might have wanted to convey.
“Nothing,” Howard shrugged, pushing himself up from the counter languidly. “You’re beautiful when you do that, you know?” he said then, his voice soft, and Jason smiled down at him with a fond sort of despair.
“When I do what exactly?” he sighed. Howard’s smile was almost shy as he shrugged again.
“Everything.” Jason’s smile softened and he met Howard’s gaze.
“Is that so?” he asked, eyes sparkling. “Well, in that case, you won’t mind sorting through this book box and telling me if we have any books worth putting out on the shelves,” he added, arching an eyebrow. Howard chuckled.
“There’s always a catch with you, Jason Orange,” he sighed, rolling his eyes for effect before dutifully taking the box from Jason and inspecting the contents.
The air was cool and hushed, and for a moment the two of them fell into silence, Jason still balancing on the step-ladder as he inspected another one of the boxes, and Howard picking through the dusty contents of the box he had been handed, eyeing certain titles with a mixture of distaste and amusement. As well as stocking songbooks, Barlow’s did a fairly decent line in more general books about music, including various biographies, autobiographies and glossy picture-books on a range of artists from every era and genre imaginable. The books were surprisingly good sellers, especially at weekends, though Howard had learnt from Jason that some books did have a tendency to mysteriously disappear whenever Mark was left on his own to mind the shop, only for them to reappear weeks later, usually in completely the wrong place on the shelves. Howard rolled his eyes and wondered what it was Jason was trying to replace this time; a Beatles biography, a little music history, a Smash Hits annual? He shook his head, his smile amused, as he fished out a tatty-looking paperback entitled ‘The Evolution Of The Boyband’ and looked up at Jason sceptically, holding the book by its corner and waving it at him jokingly.
“When has anyone ever come in here looking for ‘The Evolution Of The Boyband’?” he asked, and Jason glanced down at him, eyes glittering brightly as he flashed Howard a quiet-but-brilliant smile.
“I’ve known people come in here not even knowing what they’re looking for, love,” he pointed out. He arched one eyebrow. “They always find it, though,” he added in a softer voice. Howard felt every single one of his nerve endings start to tingle, and he smiled distantly as a hundred or more memories whisped through the air like cobwebs.
“Well, when you put it like that,” he replied after a beat. He and Jason shared a small, amused smile. Howard handed the book to Jason, and without another word he took it, bending slightly to run his finger along the shelves, finding a place for the book and slotting it in.
For a while, Howard and Jason worked quietly, side by side, Howard occasionally passing books up to Jason to be put on the higher shelves and Jason occasionally passing books down to Howard for the lower shelves. The stubborn clouds of the early morning had long cleared, but it was still a surprisingly crisp day, and outside Oldham Street was taking a little longer than usual to come to life. Gary and Mark were also conspicuous by their absence; Jason was used to opening the shop, of course, but Mark was usually on his second brew by this point in the morning. Howard thought back to Gary’s strange phone call to Jason at the weekend, and he wondered to himself, briefly, if their lateness this morning could be significant. Before he had chance to voice the question to Jason, however, the sound of Jason’s mobile vibrating against the shop counter jarred the easy peace. Jason jumped, steadying himself on Howard’s shoulder, and Howard grinned up at him mischievously.
“Need a hand, love?” he asked, batting his eyelashes in faux-innocence. Jason bit back a smile, cuffing Howard lightly round the head.
“You’re a nuisance, you know that?” he muttered with a roll of his eyes, before placing his hands more firmly on Howard’s shoulders. Howard caught hold of him instinctively and, as though it were well-rehearsed choreography, he helped Jason down gently, the two of them working in tandem to allow Jason’s weight to sink down the length of Howard’s body until they were standing eye to eye. “Thanks for the lift,” Jason smiled, giving Howard a quick peck on the cheek, and Howard chuckled, stepping aside with a flourish to let him past.
Jason crossed the room quickly and scooped up his mobile, glancing at the screen briefly before trapping it between his ear and his shoulder with a sigh. From years of studying Jason’s sighs, Howard knew immediately that it was one of Jason’s brothers on the line, and, curious, he moved over to stand by Jason at the counter, placing a gentle hand to the small of his back.
“Justin, I’m at work – can’t this wait?” Jason was asking. As he felt Howard’s touch he leant his weight back against him. On the other end of the line, Justin was complaining about something; Howard couldn’t make out the exact words, but he felt Jason’s shoulders tense. He pressed a kiss to Jason’s temple, and Jason shot him a brief, grateful smile in return before closing his eyes and blowing out a steadying breath as he listened to what Justin had to say. “I’m not saying I won’t help, I’m just saying now isn’t the time; I can’t be on-call for you just because I’m the only brother with a best mate for a boss.” Jason’s words were clipped and tired, his voice taking on that tone it so often did when he and his brothers bickered; they were caught, as siblings so often were, in the same relationship they’d had as children, and they found themselves constantly being required to revert to versions of themselves who they didn’t really know how to be any longer, rehashing arguments which had been started during long-forgotten Christmases, rainy days stuck indoors and walks home from school. Howard sometimes suffered from it with his own family, but the Orange brothers had it down to an art. “If you recall, you’re the one who wanted to have a huge do.” Jason was rubbing at his temple, his expression strained as he spoke. There was some defence offered in return, Howard could just make out Jason’s own clipped tone being parroted back to him down the line. Jason simply sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and nodding in a way which did not actually imply agreement.
This was just the latest in a long series of disagreements between the twins in the lead-up to their birthday party. Jason frequently advised Howard to never make the mistake of sharing his birthday with anyone, especially not a twin; if there were two of you celebrating, somehow, it always seemed that people expected you to celebrate together, and as soon as that happened, everything suddenly became a much bigger deal than Jason ever wanted it to be. “I’m not being difficult, I just don’t understand why you can’t sort it yourself – I fixed your DJ cancelling on you already.” A pause. “Well then maybe you ought to marry a party planner and then we can all live happily ever after.” Howard smothered a smirk and Jason pulled a face at him, elbowing him harmlessly in the ribs before shifting his phone to his other ear. “I don’t know what you want from me, you know? I’ll be at mum’s for Sunday lunch this week, if you come too maybe we can divide up whatever you’ve got left over, but honestly, I said all along we should just have a quiet one for once.” As yet another rebuttal was offered by Justin, Howard caught his name being mentioned and arched an eyebrow. Jason huffed out a terse breath and tried to keep his voice even. “I’ve wanted a quiet one ever since our twenty-first when you nearly set Olly on fire and Simon fell into the birthday cake mum slaved over for a week – had it occurred to you that, if Howard wanted to keep me away from you lot, he might actually have a point on health and safety grounds?” There Jason definitely had a point: Jason and Justin’s birthday had a near-legendary status within the family as being the event which always attracted trouble. “Ok, ok, enough. I’ll help, but only by as much as finding someone else you can moan all your problems to: it might be my birthday too, but my present off of you can officially be leaving me out of it, deal? Yeah, yeah, next time try the flattery before you ask me for a favour. I’ll call you later; try not to get into any messes until then, ok? I’m going off duty as the Responsible Twin for the day. And a word of warning? I’ve put in an application with mum for a whole year’s leave from it too.”
As Jason hung up and discarded his phone on the countertop, he let out a long, weary sigh, his head dropping back as he closed his eyes. “Every year we go through this,” he grumbled. Howard nodded vaguely, playing with the hem of his shirt.
“At least I get blamed this year; that’s a nice new touch,” he muttered. Jason glanced over at him, and Howard simply shrugged. “What, you want me to pretend I don’t know about the dirty looks and the muttered little comments? I’m not an idiot, Jay.”
“How, please don’t start this now,” Jason groaned, but Howard’s expression darkened.
“You don’t want me to ‘start this’ ever, I’m always just expected to suck it up and rise above it and pretend that it’s ok. But it’s not ok; it’s bloody ridiculous, I feel like I’m on trial all day every day and I shouldn’t, because you’re the only one who can judge whether or not I love you the right way – the decision’s yours, every decision’s yours with me, always, anyone who knows you should know that.”
“I know it’s been tough since everything that happened, How, but what do you want me to do about it? They’re my family, they’re not going to break the habits they’ve lived with all these years and they’re not going to stop being stubborn bastards just because I married a stubborn bastard of my own; Justin is always going to have a hard time with you, you know? He’s my twin, and weird as it might seem to you or to any other outsider, you took up a space in my life he wasn’t ready to give away.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It’s the way it is,” Jason shot back darkly, and at the warning look in his blue eyes Howard deflated a little. “Being a twin it’s…it’s different to just being someone’s sibling, you know? It’s part of your identity, almost…it stays with you. I can’t ignore something that’s part of who I am – and you of all people should understand that, How; or would you like me to start ignoring Grace and her opinions just because it might be more convenient?”
“I’m just getting tired of always being the bad guy, Jay, ok? Digs, I could take. Not being Justin’s best friend, I could handle. But I just don’t get why I have to feel like I’m doing something wrong all the time these days – like I did something wrong by coping in a different way to how they coped and I’m never allowed back in their club because of it.”
Howard rubbed at his jawline, looking away from Jason for a moment, his eyes fixed on a point on the floorboards where a scratch ran across the wood-grain at a jaunty angle. The day of Mark’s new boots, that scratch had been made; Howard remembered him sliding across the floor in them and falling straight into a box of books, whilst he and Jason had been laughing so hard they’d had to clutch each other to keep standing, only for Gary to come in and spit tea over all three of them when he walked in on the scene. He loved Jason, loved this life; the gratitude he felt for it every day was a warm, heavy weight in the pit of his stomach. But as grateful as he was, he couldn’t deny the ache of fear, of anxiety that still lingered inside him. “I know who you are. I always have,” he murmured at last. He could feel Jason’s eyes on him and the sensation strengthened him somehow. He drew in a long, shuddering breath and swallowed hard. “That whole time, though, Jay…I just knew: if I stop, I’ll die, I’ll just go down and I’ll never get back up. But your family: they stopped. And they didn’t seem to get why I couldn’t do that,” he told Jason softly. He felt Jason place his hand on his arm, and he looked up to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low, scratchy voice. He wasn’t entirely sure he had much to apologize for, and a part of him felt like there was really more to be said, more to be done to fix the rift between himself and Jason’s family. But none of it was Jason’s fault, and he couldn’t bear the look of pain that flashed across his face.
“Don’t be,” Jason whispered, pressing a chaste kiss to Howard’s cheek. “And I know Justin is the worst of all of them and I know I should try harder to talk him round. But…having a twin…it’s literally in my DNA, How. I can’t switch it off when it gets too much, or make it go away because it’s difficult. And I can’t make that not-weird…because, even if I’m closer to Simon or I argue less with Ollie…I’m always going to know more about what’s happening in Justin’s head.” He shrugged somewhat helplessly. “It’s strange. I don’t think anyone who isn’t a twin could ever really know what that’s like, let alone believe that it’s a real thing. When we were kids we were almost psychic with each other sometimes though, you know? And that’s been different, as we’ve got older and got our own lives but…it’s still there, a lot of the time. And until you came along? No one could really read me like he could.”
“And you’re still the only one who can ever really read him,” Howard supplied with a lopsided smile. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing, ok?” Jason told with a small, sad laugh. “My family is a mess. I’m a mess. I told you you were getting into a disaster by kissing me – you were the one who went and kissed me anyway,” he pointed out, and Howard grinned.
“Oh, but it was worth it though,” he said softly in reply. Jason smiled up at him, his expression lovingly amused in a way that made Howard’s heart perform a complicated acrobatic flip in his chest.
Howard moved to stand in front of Jason, leaning in so their foreheads were touching, and Jason looked up into his eyes, his gaze full of curiosity and expectation. “Hey, at least your mum likes me,” he added then, his lips curling into a sly grin that won him one of Jason’s warm, rough laughs, the sound crisp and pleasing as it vibrated against Howard’s ribs. He cupped Jason’s face in his hands, and bent his head to capture his lips in a kiss. He felt Jason’s arms wind around his neck, his body pressing closer, and he closed his eyes. Jason’s skin was warm and soft beneath Howard’s fingers and he pulled him nearer still; for a moment they were in their own close, quiet world, skin against skin, breathing each other’s oxygen, every space filled up by the two of them.
Eventually, Jason pulled back just enough to look up into Howard’s face.
“Told you people always find what they’re looking for here,” he said gently, eyes glittering, and Howard laughed.
“I hope you’ve not been offering this to all the customers, Jason Orange.”
“Only the handsome ones.”
“Y’ big flirt.”
“I am what I am, Howard Donald.”
“Well thank god for that,” Howard told him, his grin playful but his tone sincere. Jason smiled back at him quietly for a moment, then rose up just enough to pull Howard in for another deep kiss.
The moment was shattered by the unwelcome clatter of the shop’s door being pushed open abruptly; Jason simply laughed against Howard’s lips, pulling himself up onto his tiptoes using Howard’s shirt so that their eyes were completely level.
“If we stand very still, they might not notice us,” he stage-whispered, casting a sidelong glance across to where Gary was rolling his eyes at them and Mark was smirking.
“I trust there’s nothing untoward going on on my shopfloor this early on a Monday morning, lads,” Gary remarked dryly. Jason leant back artfully in Howard’s embrace – always a dance with him – and arched an eyebrow.
“And I suppose there was nothing untoward going on on your favourite piano when I left early Friday afternoon?” he shot back with a delightful grin, before pulling his body back against Howard’s and leaning in conspiratorially. “The piano is their ‘spot’ – they just never notice that I’ve noticed,” he told Howard in a wry, teasing tone, he eyes gleeful and bright. Mark was laughing, but Gary attempted to appear stern despite him, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at Jason.
“Hey, that’s different; you pair are married, you should be over all this flirting by now,” he warned, mirth in his eyes but no smile on his lips. Howard wrinkled his nose slightly.
“Is he putting a PG sticker on us?” he asked Jason with exaggerated outrage, and Jason laughed, looking back over at Gary with a grin.
“Gary Barlow, I’ll remember you said that when you’re married,” he remarked. It didn’t go unnoticed by either Howard or Jason that Gary started a little at the mention of marriage, and they exchanged a knowing glance. “Or, you know, I’ll remember you said that ten minutes from now when I go for a brew and Mark’s lying across the piano whilst you wear his hat,” Jason added then.
“Whatever helps inspire a song, Jay; you know I like to go the extra mile for a good chorus,” Mark put in brightly, lifting his hat from his head with a flourish and performing an absurd little bow. Howard and Jason laughed. For a moment Gary just stared at him, a bemused smile on his face, and then suddenly he dropped his head, spluttering out a laugh and rubbing his hands over his face.
“You three are going to be the death of me,” he said through his laughter, and the others simply grinned back at him, amused by the note of affection in his voice. “You know why you lot ended up at my door, don’t you? It’s because no one else would have you,” he told them all as he looked around at their faces.
“Keep telling yourself that, Barlow,” Howard said, waggling his eyebrows. “I think we all know why I’m here, though,” he added, licking his lips and widening his eyes exaggeratedly as he tipped his head in Jason’s direction. Jason bit back a laugh, thwacking him lightly on the shoulder and pushing him away from him.
“You know your problem? Ego,” he told him, trying not to smile. Howard pulled a face.
“I was going to say I was here for the record collection, actually; now who’s got the ego problem?” he joked.
“God, if the banter gets any cuter round here the customers are going to need a sick bucket,” Gary muttered, shaking his head and moving towards the kitchen. “If you need me I’ll be getting a brew and purifying my retinas,” he called over his shoulder.
As Gary disappeared from the room, Mark looked over and Jason and Howard, offering them a helpless shrug.
“He’s been like this most of the weekend: Grumpy Guts Barlow. I’d watch out for affection masked as sarcasm if I was you,” he warned them.
“He’s been like that for most of his life, Marko,” Jason replied, then a frown crossed his face. “Although never with mum…with my mum, he’s always Butter Wouldn’t Melt Barlow, nice as pie.”
“And now he’s her favourite son,” Howard put in, laughing and jumping out the way when Jason aimed another playful slap towards him.
“You’re not big, and you’re not clever, love.”
“Then why do you let me live in your home and eat all your food?” Howard countered.
“Because it seemed a quicker solution than having you follow me round for the rest of my life,” Jason sighed airily, bumping his hip against Howard’s and flashing him a small, sly smile.
“You know, it’s kind of frightening for two people to be this chirpy this early in the morning; I’m on The Barlow’s side,” Mark interrupted impishly, casting his hat aside and running a hand through his artfully unruly hair.
“Said the most chipper man I know,” Jason pointed out. “You ok, Marko? It’s not like you to moan about mornings.”
“Oh, I’m not moaning. I’m kind of excited, actually; Jonathan’s coming over, the sun’s out – I’ve got a shift at the caff later, but until then is all sunshine and music,” Mark smiled.
“Speaking of Jonathan: any idea what’s so important?” Howard asked then, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms. “I can’t remember the last time he wanted us all present for a meeting.”
“He banned you after you fell asleep with your face buried in my neck, love.”
“One time!” Howard protested and Jason laughed.
“One time he noticed,” he said, sticking out his tongue at him. Mark chuckled.
“Yeah, well I don’t know what this one is about, but hopefully it’s going to get us closer to a contract…if the sun is shining and we’re a band with genuine management, Gaz might actually be happy enough he won’t notice you pair being all loved up on his shopfloor.”
“You made that sound weirder than it is, you know,” Jason deadpanned and Mark beamed back at him innocently.
“I can’t help it if your mind is in the gutter – especially not when I’m busy daydreaming about the stars.” Jason and Howard exchanged a look that was somewhere between amusement and despair.
“This whole shop needs therapy,” Jason shrugged dismissively and Howard smirked, stepping closer to Jason and pressing a quick, fond kiss to his temple.
“Why do I get the feeling Jonathan is probably going to agree with you very soon?”
***
Jonathan Wild peered around the door of Barlow’s Music Shop somewhat cautiously; he was never quite sure what to expect when he arrived at the quirky little shop on Oldham Street, but he couldn’t help but be curious. In the short time he had known the men of Four Men And A Dusty Piano, he had come to expect chaos and laughter to follow them around, never more so than when they were in their shop, both on busy days and on quiet ones. Of the four of them, it was Mark who Jonathan got along with the most, but when he arrived at the shop it was often Jason he chose to seek out, the serene front of the operation of the shop, who could find anything and anyone, solve most problems in a sentence, calm irate customers with a smile and silence a chaotic shop floor with a single gesture: in other words, a useful person to turn to on a bright, busy day in Manchester.
The scene on the shopfloor was one of comical chaos: Mark was engaged in an enthusiastic conversation with an elderly man, his arms waving about exuberantly as he talked, and he seemed oblivious to the man’s dog, who was making a valiant attempt at escaping his leash, causing a nervous-looking Gary to frantically hop about, grabbing up breakables, dodging the hyperactive dog with bobs and weaves in order to make it across to Howard, who stood on the shop’s staircase, taking the valuables Gary handed him and arranging them in a messy stack along the steps. Jonathan watched for a moment in stunned silence, some part of his brain distantly wondering if – should he slip away quietly now – the men would ever even remember he was supposed to meet up with them today. And then Jason appeared, placid and amused as he skirted around the edges of the scene; he made eye-contact with Jonathan almost immediately, artfully dodging Gary and the dog with a quick spin before striding towards the door, ushering Jonathan in with a rueful smile.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at the scene. “Dogs love Mark Owen.” He paused, frowning slightly. “And so do children, birds, the elderly and people with hearts not made of stone,” he added with a grin, making Jonathan chuckle. “Come on, come in the back and grab a brew whilst this lot finish up: Mark’s been talking the poor bloke’s ear off for half-an-hour, so another ten minutes probably won’t hurt anyone.”
Jason’s assessment did, in fact, prove true, not that Jonathan was surprised. Within ten minutes Jonathan found himself, mug in hand, ensconced in the small armchair which sat in the corner of the shop’s piano room. Jason had kept him company for a while, until one by one the other three members of the operation drifted in to come and say their hellos and Jason had obligingly gone to make more tea to go round. Jonathan found himself enjoying Mark’s beguiling enthusiasm for his stories and Howard’s dry asides so much he had almost forgotten the reason for his visit altogether by the time Jason reappeared from inside the shop’s tiny kitchenette. But, slowly, the general chatter began to die down as Jason made his way around the room, handing out steaming hot mugs to each of them in turn. Gary and Mark sat together at the baby-grand’s piano stool, Howard on the tiny step down into the room, and after handing Howard a mug Jason settled himself down beside him, his eyes turning up towards Jonathan, an inquisitive look on his face. There was a definite sense of expectation in the air as all four men looked over to where Jonathan sat, and he felt the weight of it keenly.
“So,” he said slowly, drawing out the sound and sitting forward slightly. Jason met his gaze with twinkly-eyed amusement, arching an eyebrow.
“Would you like a side of hushed wonder to go with that dramatic pause?” he teased and Jonathan cracked immediately, a grin spreading across his face as he laughed.
“Ok, fair point – I’ll stop beating around the bush and tell you what I’ve been up to for the past few weeks, shall I?” he suggested.
“Don’t get to the point on his account; I personally was enjoying watching them pair squirm,” Howard put in with an impish smile, laughing at Mark and Gary’s protests.
“I’m not squirming,” Gary objected. Mark chuckled.
“No. Gaz is more like a swan: all calm and serene on top but paddling like mad down below,” he nodded, bumping Gary’s shoulder with his own. Gary scrunched up his face in playful despair.
“Alright children, do you want to hear my news or not?!” Jonathan smirked, rolling his eyes fondly.
“I’m sat here quiet as a lamb,” Howard pointed out. Jason elbowed him, barely smothering a laugh.
“We are all all ears,” Gary assured Jonathan, shooting Howard a playful glare.
“Ok then,” Jonathan nodded, setting his mug down on the floor and resting his elbows on his knees. “The news you boys actually want to hear about: I’ve been talking to a few people, people I work with and some other friends and colleagues who I thought might also want to get on board with doing something with the four of you and your songs…” He trailed off, looking at the faces of the four men: Mark’s face the picture of open, unguarded hope, Gary’s brow knitted into a frown of intense focus, Howard’s expression quiet and contemplative and Jason’s face a well-practiced, enigmatic mask, those blue eyes of his bright, intense and unreadable. Jonathan smiled at them reassuringly. “Look, I won’t lie to you: these things take time. And there’s definitely more networking, on my part and on yours, in the future, but I think we might be able to get something going.” Gary raised an eyebrow and Jonathan chuckled slightly. “I’m not lying, I promise,” he said, putting his hands up in mock-surrender.
Mark smiled at him brightly, but Gary simply nodded, his expression pure concentration as he clearly did some kind of calculation in his head as to what work would be needed – all business as he was. “There’s definite interest out there,” Jonathan pressed, still watching Gary and hoping his tone somehow conveyed how genuine his investment in all this was. “And that’s the reason why I have to say what I’m going to say next.” He blew out a breath. “Your greatest asset is your songs: which is why we have to protect them at all costs.” Gary looked up at him immediately.
“Meaning?” he asked. His tone wasn’t accusatory: it was business-like but warm, intrigued. Jonathan smiled back at him with easy kindness.
“Meaning, I’m speaking to some legal people about getting contracts together concerning things like rights and royalties – serious, sturdy contracts that will protect the four of you whatever you choose to do in the music industry and however successful you are. Because, believe me: if those songs fell into the wrong hands and weren’t protected properly, one or all of you could lose out. I’m not having your chance at making it in this industry be stolen out from under your noses, even if that means we have to hold off on making everything official for a little longer.”
“That sounded like a warning,” Jason interjected softly. Jonathan started slightly, looking over at him in surprise.
“Am I that transparent?” he asked with a small, nervous laugh. Howard chuckled.
“Only to him,” he offered with a shrug and a wry smile. “So, come on then: what’s the big bad wolf you’ve come to warn us about?”
For a moment, Jonathan considered his words carefully. He wasn’t one for industry gossip, and he wasn’t one for bad-mouthing fellow professionals, even when he didn’t agree with their methods. He chewed at his lip, conscious of the four pairs of eyes still watching him curiously.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard rumours about the music business. You know, the high-drama stuff: it’s so cut-throat, it’s all about who you know, back-stabbers are everywhere, everyone’s screwing over everyone else…or just screwing them…all the tabloid-fodder nonsense that scares the living daylights out of people to the point where they’ll do anything their record labels tell them without ever daring to question it.” He rolled his eyes, a rueful smile briefly crossing his lips. “It’s mostly nonsense these days. The industry has pretty much moved on from that school of thought where there’s enemies on every corner; the joys of the internet and the world offering so many more platforms for music, I suppose. On the whole, we’re a pretty collaborative bunch, really – the people who really love the business take it seriously and are mostly supportive of each other’s work. But there’s no smoke without fire, so they say…and some people are more old-school in their methods than others.”
“I sensing you’re thinking about one person in particular when you say that?” Gary said, raising a knowing eyebrow, and Jonathan sighed, crumpling slightly.
“You know I wouldn’t say anything unless I knew for a fact someone was bad news, don’t you, boys?” he asked them, his tone firm and serious.
“We trust you, you know. I’ve never heard you say a bad word about anyone; we know you don’t deal in idle gossip without a purpose,” Jason assured him, his voice calm, low and soft. Jonathan offered him a grateful smile.
“Ok then,” he said with a slight nod. “I don’t suppose any of you boys have ever come across the name Nigel Martin-Smith?”
The air in the room seemed to change immediately. They all felt it; like opening a door on a late December frost. Jonathan was aware of Jason’s spine straightening and Gary’s expression growing strained, and even the normally placid Howard seemed to tense, his expression darkening and his jaw clenching. Mark also noticed the change, and he looked between the other three with perplexed concern.
“Gaz?” he prompted gently, but Gary simply looked over at Jason, as though in a panic. Jason lifted his gaze to meet Gary’s before turning to Howard, something strained in his face. “Jay?” Mark protested, a note of hurt cracking his voice. Jason held Howard’s gaze for another moment before letting out a long, heavy breath, his head dropping slightly, and he rested forwards on his elbows.
“We’ve heard of Nigel Martin-Smith,” Jason said quietly, closing his eyes for a moment then slowly looking back up at Jonathan. “Actually, Gaz and me have some very up-close and personal experience, truth be told.” Off Jonathan’s surprised look, Jason let out a humourless laugh. “It’s a long story,” he said, his voice tired.
For a moment nobody spoke. Jonathan met Mark’s gaze, the two of them sharing a moment of confusion before casting their eyes around the room. Gary looked pale, and Jason looked ill. Howard simply stared down into his mug, tapping his thumb rhythmically against the rim, his face still tense.
“Ok, will someone please tell me whatever it is I don’t know about Nigel Martin-Smith?” Mark burst out, giving Gary a smack on the arm for good measure before looking back across at Jonathan. “At least you know who he is: and apparently this lot do too – but I don’t,” he complained, frustration evident in his voice. Howard looked up now, but Jason and Gary still had their heads turned away. “Will someone please tell me what is so awful about Nigel Martin-Smith and why I’m supposed to care?” Mark pressed.
Jason was the first to look at him. “Jay? Come on, please,” Mark ventured. Jason was the most honest person he’d ever met, and it seemed to Mark that that would make him the least likely to refuse him an explanation. But there was still a reluctance in Jason’s expression, along a hint of resignation. “Please, Jay: someone’s got to tell me what’s going on,” Mark said more softly.
“If there’s some history here, boys, I could really use the information too,” Jonathan put in. “Quite honestly, it could explain some of the rumours I’ve been hearing if you lads have encountered him in the past – and the chances of me getting the truth out of Nigel are slim to none, so you’re really my best hope.”
“It’s complicated,” Gary cut in firmly, his voice hollow and dull. Jason looked over at him with a small frown.
“Gaz, it’s all history now – what does it matter?” he asked, and Gary looked at him aghast.
“Jay,” he half-laughed, his voice somewhere between alarm and confusion. “Come on – it’s not the sort of history we go sharing with everyone.”
“Come on though, Gaz, this is hardly ‘everyone’ – we’re with our best friends here.” Jason’s expression was still confused and he scrutinised Gary for a moment before flicking a glance across to Jonathan. “The key word is history,” he said with a tight smile. “I haven’t spoken a word to Nigel in a very long time. And I don’t intend to speak another word to him again in my life.”
“I’m sensing there’s more to the story,” Jonathan said, his voice even and gentle.
He could see a certain anguish in Jason’s eyes which he was sympathetic to, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. He pushed himself forwards a little in his seat, taking in the room; Mark still confused, Howard and Jason still tense, Gary still anxious and twitchy. There was something more going on than a chance encounter with Nigel Martin-Smith that had ended badly, but there also seemed to be a disconnect between what each of them actually was willing – or able – to share. Jonathan sighed heavily, clasping his hands together. “Look, I’m not going to go over something which you think isn’t important to what the five of us are trying to achieve here and now. But if there is anything more to this thing which might help explain to me why Nigel Martin-Smith might be asking around about you boys, then I really need to know about it – for all of our sakes.”
Another silence followed. Gary had sat up a little straighter, looking over at Jason desperately, but Jason’s eyes weren’t on him, fixed instead on a point in the middle-distance. He drew in a breath.
“It all started back at the audition where Gaz and me met,” he said slowly, wrapping his arms around himself protectively and briefly closing his eyes, as if to bolster his strength.
“Jay, come on, we’re not going into this, surely?” Gary interrupted suddenly, and Jason opened his eyes, his face creasing into a frown.
“Why not? What does it matter? It’s old ground – and he’s right, you know. If Nigel is sniffing around again after all these years, it’s best for everyone that Jonathan knows what he’s dealing with.”
Jason glanced over at his husband, the two briefly sharing a look which no one else in the room quite knew how to read. Then Jason sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Gaz and me don’t tend to tell people the full story of how we met; more of an edited highlights where we let people fill in the blanks however they want in their heads.”
“The band audition? You two met at an audition for a band but it didn’t work out – is that right?” Jonathan ventured, and Jason looked up, nodding.
“That’s the one. When we phrase it that way, people always assume what we mean is that we didn’t get in the band – the part people don’t expect is-”
“Jay!” Gary interjected with sudden force, his eyes wide and his expression pointed. Again Jason looked over at him in surprise, quirking an eyebrow in confusion. “Jay, you’re not…I mean, this isn’t-” He was cut off by a soft, sad laugh from Jason.
“Gaz, what’s it matter? It’s just a bad memory. And, you and me might not like talking about it, but it’s not like it’s some big secret we need to hush up, it’s just history. Unpleasant history, but that’s all.”
“But what about Mark and Howard?!” Gary spluttered, gesturing between the other two men, who both stared at him in bewilderment.
“What about them?!” Jason replied with laugh, looking at Gary curiously. And as he looked at him, his expression slowly began to change. Gary could see surprised realisation settling in those piercing blue eyes of his, and he felt his heart flutter with nerves.
Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath as Gary and Jason stared silently at each other. Jason searched Gary’s face, and Gary was sure he could detect both sympathy and disappointment in the look he gave him. “Gaz, Howard knows everything,” Jason said in a soft, slow voice, as though the information was as obvious as the alphabet. Gary looked at him incredulously and Jason shrugged. “He’s known since before we got married, Gaz. He’s known since…well, since…” He gestured vaguely with his hand, searching his memory for a time when Howard hadn’t known all his secrets and coming up short. “I don’t know what to tell you, Gaz. Of course Howard knows. There’s no one in the world who knows me better.”
“I just thought…” Gary trailed off, looking between Jason and Howard nervously. If Mark heard this story, he wouldn’t just be hurt that Gary had never told it to him himself, he would also be sure to work out who Gary’s mysterious friend from the past had been at the weekend. Would he tell Jason? Either way he felt ashamed – yet also strangely confused, as though he had been backed into a corner by people he had trusted. He could hear Nigel’s voice in his head, reminding him to trust no one, and he shuddered slightly.
Jason and Howard were still watching him, and he was sure that their expressions were shifting into the realms of pity as they realised there were many things Mark had not been allowed to know about him. Jason offered him a small, sad half-smile and a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s part of our deal, you know? All in, no secrets,” Jason told him gently.
“Everything for everything,” Howard murmured, mostly to himself. There was a soft smile on his lips, and Jason glanced up at him briefly, eyes shining, before looking slowly back to Mark and Gary, quirking an eyebrow.
“You really haven’t told Mark anything about the band?” he asked and Gary shook his head.
“He never asked and…I never really wanted to tell.”
“Tell me what?” Mark demanded with frustration. Jason looked somewhat guiltily at Gary before giving another helpless shrug.
“The real story of how me and Gaz ended up being friends, and the real reason neither one of us ended up in that band…even though we both made it through the audition.”
“Gaz?” Mark looked at Gary with wide, sad eyes and he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t like talking about it for a lot of reasons,” he said quietly, not meeting Mark’s gaze. “But it was always more Jay’s story to tell than mine anyway.” Gary risked a glance in Jason’s direction. “Howard really knows the whole sorry saga?” he asked, still a little disbelieving. Jason let out a humourless chuckle.
“Of course,” he said simply.
“I got it in bits and pieces at first, then one night the whole story came pouring out of him and I finally got to connect the dots,” Howard put in. “Jay always made sense to me, but never as much as he did after that.” Gary simply nodded, his eyes turning down once more.
Jonathan had been watching the exchange with bewildered curiosity, and in the pause that elapsed he edged himself forwards in his seat and cleared his throat in what he hoped was a tactful reminder of his presence.
“I don’t want to dredge up the past if you’d rather not go into it…I could go, talk about this with you all some other time,” he offered kindly, regarding each occupant of the room in turn. In the short space of time that he had known them, Jonathan had come to think of the four men as friends, and no matter what the cost might be on a professional level, he was prepared to let them keep their stories to themselves if that was what was best. Gary still didn’t look up, and Mark had turned away, but Jason offered him a small smile. There was still a haunted look in his blue eyes, but his expression was resolved nonetheless, and Jonathan had known him long enough to realise that Jason’s resolve wasn’t something which often faltered.
“It’s ok,” he said quietly, before looking over at Mark and Gary, glancing between the two of them with a concerned frown. “So…I should start from the beginning, I suppose?” Gary looked up, meeting his eyes. For a moment he held the gaze, then slowly, reluctantly, he gave a small nod, blowing out a breath he felt he’d been holding for days.
“It’s probably overdue,” he admitted, regarding Mark sadly.
Again everyone was silent for a moment. Mark watched Gary with an expression that was part hurt and part confusion, before turning his eyes to Jason, studying his face carefully. Jason was not someone who often gave people the chance to learn him out of stories; most people in his life were made to learn him through passing remarks and looks he didn’t quite manage to hide. He couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed with Jason for not telling him this story – whatever it was – sooner, but he still felt a heavy sort of sadness settle over him as realised his best friends had all been carrying around a secret which they hadn’t bothered to trust him with in all these years.
“I really did think you already knew, Markie,” Jason said kindly, his voice even and soft. Mark looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. Jason was honest by nature: he might not tell his stories freely, but he wouldn’t lie either, especially not to people he cared about. Mark offered him the smallest of smiles.
“So, what is it about how you and Gaz met that I don’t know?” he asked. Jason swallowed, looking down.
“I’ll start at the beginning,” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
When he looked back up, it was Jonathan he addressed. “It all starts with the part you know: Gaz and me met at an audition for a band that never got off the ground. I was there coz of an ad in the paper. But Gaz…didn’t really need to audition, not in the conventional sense, anyway.” He flicked a glance over at Gary, who shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat.
“Nigel Martin-Smith started out as a small-time talent agent around Manchester. He heard me sing in some pub or club…I can’t remember the details. When he found out I wrote my own stuff he told me to get in touch – more or less promised me the world if I let him build a band around me.” Gary said. He let out a humourless laugh. “He was very clear on the fact that I was not cool enough, dynamic enough or co-ordinated enough to make it in the nineties pop industry on my own.” Gary and Jason’s eyes met, briefly, and they shared a smile.
“The rest of us weren’t told until the call-back audition a week later – it was pretty obvious though, since Nigel had devoted the entire afternoon of the first audition to trying different combinations of us dancing crap choreography around Gaz whilst he sang,” Jason offered, his eyes briefly sparkling with light. “Nigel’s a lot of things, but never subtle.” He sighed. “He looked us up and down, got us to dance with our tops off – it was a really classy affair, but most of us were there because we were young and bored enough to not mind. He knew me by reputation, it turned out – represented a few of the guys who were in the crews I danced against.”
“But he couldn’t get near anyone from Street Machine: those guys were all too good to need his help booking jobs when they came,” Howard put in, his voice hard and quiet. Jason smiled softly, inclining his head in reluctant agreement. He wasn’t one to boast about it, but Gary knew it was true: he remembered Nigel reeling off Jason’s extensive CV to him after the first audition. He’d watched some of the shows he was on before the call-back, and the time he saw him again he was in stunned awe. Jason had a presence, and when he danced that presence seemed to swell and glow, taking on an almost magnetic quality that drew people’s eyes to him.
“So, you both got in the band then?” Mark asked. Jason nodded.
“Gaz was as good as in already. I got in at the second audition and we were already rehearsing routines and music by that afternoon. We all got on, had a laugh. But it was tough work – you go in and sing and dance for a minimum of eight hours a day and get drilled in interview technique and ‘this won’t be easy but if we stick together we can make a lot of money for ourselves’ lectures from a bloke like Nigel, and the cracks are going to show. There were some hotheads, a couple of the guys didn’t like that Gaz was safe when Nigel made it clear the rest of us were more than replaceable. It was rough sometimes.”
“No kidding. We were exhausted, running around like nobody’s business, working our arses off for scrappy little gigs and local-paper interviews, anything Nigel could scrabble together for us. And then eight o’clock the next day we’d be expected to be back in the rehearsal space, working on a new song or a new technique or getting lectured to by Nigel about his strategy for making us household names.” Gary closed his eyes for a moment. “The rest of the lads didn’t like me much – I think Jay befriended me out of pity more than anything.”
“That’s not true and you know it,” Jason said gently. “The other lads didn’t like how much Nigel cared about Gaz – Gaz was his favourite and he didn’t really mind the rest of us knowing it.” Jason’s smile turned mischievous for a moment. “Of course, Gaz didn’t help his own case much by being so protective of the music – none of us could so much as fluff a line without him thinking we were trying to muscle in on his songwriting action.” Gary smiled ruefully, flicking a glance up at Jason, who arched one eyebrow knowingly.
“So I was slightly high-strung. I wasn’t more than a kid and back then I thought…the music had to be mine, the credit had to be mine, for it to really mean anything.” Gary bit his lip. “Maybe I should have let my guards down with the lads more, paid attention to their ideas…I was just so focused on the end-goal, and so was Nigel. I probably sacrificed a few friendships for the sake of keeping Nigel’s,” he murmured. Jason shrugged.
“Gaz, you were like…the son he never had. He worshipped you. And not just coz he thought you’d make him rich – although it helped.” He offered Gary a lopsided smile. “I don’t blame you for being close with him: he was a different bloke to you than the rest of us. The important part is that you were a decent enough bloke to be able to step back and realise what it felt like from the other side. Maybe not at the time, but…but definitely since.”
Gary couldn’t meet Jason’s eyes. He knew that, really, it was only seeing what he had seen that had ever persuaded him Nigel wasn’t entirely the person he had presented to him. But talking to Jason since, hearing his honesty, his perspective and his stories – it had given him a different outlook on his memories of Nigel and his brief time with Nigel’s boyband, had taught him that not everything was the way he remembered it and not everyone he had thought to blame had acted without reason. It was still something that made him uneasy though. It had been so easy for Jason to change the way he looked at things – just as easy as it seemed it was for Nigel to make him doubt everything. Who was better than who, really, if they were both just trying to colour his past to their own advantage? It was difficult to be told by one friend that another was not the man he thought he was. It was even more difficult to be told by the second friend that the first friend was only out for himself. These were people he had trusted and cared about almost equally, once upon a time. And Jason was right, Nigel had treated him like a son back then: would he really lie to him about everything now?
“Nigel has two faces, I know that much,” Gary murmured, almost to himself. “He knows what he’s doing when it comes to getting his own way and making something he’s invested in a success – but he also doesn’t care too much who he pisses off along the way.”
“Well, I can tell you that much hasn’t changed: if anything it’s got worse, I’d say,” Jonathan put in. Jason shuddered slightly.
“He did care about all of us, in his own twisted way,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, a haunted look coming over his face. Mark studied his expression with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.
“What happened, Jay?” he asked, gentle and careful, sensing that something unpleasantly character-forming from Jason’s past lay somewhere inside the story about to be told.
It took Jason a while to answer the question. Beside him, Howard sat, still, tense and solemn, his wolf-like eyes intent upon Jason’s face. The two of them were sitting close together, but Howard held himself carefully tall, ensuring that they didn’t touch. Jason was tilted towards him slightly, not looking up or leaning in, but somehow curving perfectly to match Howard’s position: he knew he was there, but he didn’t reach for him, instead pulling himself in more tightly and drawing in a deep, fortifying breath.
“I was the only proper dancer in the group: one of the other lads had enough experience to perform but not enough to choreograph or train up the rest of ‘em. So Nigel put me in charge of choreography and dance rehearsals until he could get enough money together to hire us a professional choreographer.” Jason closed his eyes. “I worked so hard on those routines. I knew it was the only reason I was there – let’s face it, I can barely hold a tune.”
“That’s not true,” Gary interjected forcefully and Jason looked up at him with curiosity. “I know…I know Nigel told you that, but it’s not true. You have an ear for a harmony…maybe not as easy as it comes to Howard but…it’s there. And we needed you in that group – you were the backbone in a lot of ways.”
“Well, whatever my talents, Nigel didn’t rate them. I was thrown out of that band at least three times a week: I’d be ten minutes late in or ask if I could come to an interview in my own car so I could make it back to my mum’s birthday after, and that was it. You name it, I was told I’d been fired for it – it got to be so unpredictable I’d second guess myself, constantly thinking in the back of my head ‘Maybe if I do this, I won’t get kicked out today’ but…the rules were always changing and, I s’pose, looking back now…I know there was nothing I could’ve done. There was never any real reason, it was all just what Nigel felt like doing that day. I got thrown out for asking a question, making a suggestion, for doing anything that Nigel deemed to be answering back. It got to the point where the other lads didn’t even bother pleading my case, coz they knew the next day I’d be back and Nigel would make out how fair he was being, giving me another chance and bringing me back all the time. With hindsight maybe I realise now he needed me: I was the oldest and I was used to playing big brother – my presence kept them in line, in a way, held the whole thing together, gave them a peacemaker and a secret-keeper and a scapegoat.” Jason’s forehead creased into a frown. “The only times he told me he needed me in the band, he told me it was because I had a pretty face and a good body – he never talked about my dancing or my choreography or the fact I was the one staying late every night, working out routines so they were good enough to be taught to the lads the next morning. It was always about my looks.”
Gary remembered it well. Jason hadn’t been the only one Nigel had picked on: there had been a young lad – Jack, if Gary remembered correctly – who bore some of the brunt of Nigel’s sharp tongue, and all of them had gotten their fair share of earfuls. But it had been different with Jason: constant, bitter, personal.
“He doesn’t – didn’t – like that you were more intelligent than him, Jay. He always liked to be the smartest person in the room…and unlike most people, you weren’t willing to play along with the façade,” Gary said quietly, thoughtfully. Jason smiled dimly.
“I’ve never been very good at pretending,” he remarked with a sad shake of his head. “Nigel would play so many of his mind games on me I almost started believing the things he said, even when I knew they weren’t true. Honestly, some of the things he did and said have never really got out of my head: he was the first father figure to come into my life since my dad had left…a part of me wanted to look up to him and trust him more than anything. No matter how much he hurt me, he was still there and…back then, that was something. I was nineteen, going on twenty…not a good age to let yourself listen to a man like Nigel: everything sticks in the back of your mind when you’re told it at that age.” Jason swallowed hard. “He’d turn off my microphone, tell anyone who worked with us not to bother with me coz I couldn’t sing…he told some bloke from the local paper not to ask me questions because I was a trouble maker, told another one not to ask me anything because I had nothing ‘valuable’ to say. He made it quite clear I was ‘just a pretty face’, although he did that to all of us to some extent, always saying we should leave all the talking to him and – if anyone absolutely insisted on talking to the band themselves – Gaz.” Jason shivered almost imperceptibly and Gary closed his eyes. “All of us, no matter what he did or said…we all still wanted to impress him. We wanted his approval and we worked so fucking hard to get it. And me? I did the only thing I still knew I was good for: I worked on dance routines…and I tried really hard to keep my mouth shut. Eventually we went a whole month without me getting chucked out the band and I thought maybe we’d finally gotten somewhere.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t that simple though?” Mark’s voice was gentle and kind. He’d known Jason a long time, had seen that troubled look that sometimes came over him when he thought no one was looking. Finally his contradictory nature made perfect sense, and Mark wondered if Howard too had suddenly looked at Jason a little differently once he had known or if he had somehow instinctively understood all along. The perpetual show-off riddled with self-doubt – the person he was and the person Nigel had tried to make him somehow fusing into the complex, beautiful soul Mark had come to know. He felt a brief pang of anger towards Gary for never telling him any of this: he loved Jason so dearly and he wished he could have understood him this completely before, instead of suddenly feeling so helplessly distant from him – from them all.
“I would have been a basket case either way, Marko – I wasn’t exactly over everything with my dad, maybe I still never would have been, I don’t know. But I think I was always going to end up a mess, one way or another.” Jason’s low, measured voice brought Mark’s eyes up to his. It was as though he knew his thoughts and Mark’s brow knitted together in an expression that was somewhere between outrage and sympathy.
“Jay,” he chided softly.
“Don’t talk yourself down so much,” Howard said, his expression pinched, as though he’d heard the speech before and was pained to hear it again. Mark glanced at Gary, and was surprised to find him looking away, his expression giving away no emotion at all and no words of reassurance to his friend of twenty years seeming to be forthcoming from his lips.
“It’s not important anyway,” Jason sighed, breaking the silence before it could become stifling. “I think we went a whole week without Nigel going off on anyone – or at least without him going in for the kill with any shitty personal remarks. And in that week we finally started getting places. A couple of national pop magazines wanted to come and talk to us, Nigel booked us in to perform some songs at some small clubs in Birmingham, London, Newcastle…we were actually starting to be known by people in the industry outside of Manchester. So, of course, we knew we just had to work that bit harder, make the final push to get ourselves out there. Nigel had plenty of ideas on how to get us noticed, but it was as much our job as his, to put the hours in and graft to get ourselves looking as polished as we could. And I did what I was in the band to do: I worked on routines and got them polished.” Jason shrugged. “You spend your whole day practicing songs and routines and interview questions, you don’t get much time for choreographing anything, so I’d end up staying after hours to get it done. I enjoyed it. Until Nigel started staying late too.”
Jason swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment. Mark noticed Gary finally look up, though his expression was still distant, a slight furrow in his brow that Mark couldn’t understand. “He’d find any old excuse: paperwork, needing to be the one who locked up – anything but what he was actually doing.” Jason’s eyes snapped open, as though he’d seen something behind his eyelids which had startled him, and he shook his head slightly. “He would watch me. At first he’d just sit there for hours, staring at my back thinking I hadn’t noticed. Then after a while he’d start being more open about it, meeting my eyes in the mirror. Then he decided to see how far he could take it.” Howard clenched his fingers slightly. “He started asking me to take my shirt off whilst I danced. Used the same excuse as always: he needed to know whether or not I was fit enough to be put on posters in the bedrooms of teenage girls. I’m not an idiot, though: I knew what it was really about. I still did as I was told. I was tired of arguing with him, and I told myself it didn’t matter. What difference did it make anyway? I’d taken my shirt off to dance of my own accord enough times – breakdancing takes it out of you, you know?” Jason’s lips twisted into a brittle smile. “But I knew it wasn’t like that and he knew that I knew. I suppose I hoped I’d have enough sense to get away before the whole thing could get worse, but I was wrong. He started coming over to ‘properly inspect’ me, so he said. Every time it happened he got closer, started leaving his hands on me longer and longer – and every time I swore to myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. I was so sure I could still control the situation I think I stopped letting myself process that it was actually getting worse.”
Gary looked over at Jason. The stillness that had descended upon the five of them felt heavy and oppressive and he wanted to get out, badly. But as he looked at Jason’s face, the greyness that had settled in his normally bright eyes, he could feel himself swaying back. He’d spent years choosing not to think about any of this, fearing that if he looked too hard at it all he might come back with the wrong conclusions and be forced to realise he’d thrown away his best chance of making it for a collection of half-truths and embellished stories. But that look in Jason’s eyes was hard to doubt. Still, in the back of his mind Gary could hear Nigel’s voice, reminding him that everyone was out for themselves, that he was at least the only one who was honest about it. What exactly was Jason supposedly after, though? What did he gain by keeping Gary from making it in the music industry? A job, a quiet life, a friend. Gary looked over at his friend again, and saw him watching him. “Gaz didn’t know all of it,” Jason said suddenly, his voice strangely soft. “I caught him up later, after…but he didn’t know. No one knew. Howard’s still the only person I’ve ever told every single story to – only one I could face telling it all to.” He glanced at Howard, whose eyes looked at him with an intense tenderness. “He’s the only person I’ve ever trusted to believe every word.” At Mark’s hurt expression, Jason offered him a small smile. “It’s nothing personal, you know? I never even explained the whole thing to any of my brothers, not even my mum…I think I was worried about the obvious holes in my logic.”
“Holes?” Gary questioned, his tone more pointed than he had intended.
“I was the one who kept going back. Some nights…I don’t know, some nights maybe you could argue that things I did or said were downright stupid. I knew Nigel fancied me. I knew exactly what he wanted from me from my first audition, and when we were alone he didn’t exactly try to hide it.”
“Jay, he punished you for being a better bloke than he could ever hope to be around – you were the boyfriend he could never have and no matter what happened he was going to take it out on you,” Howard said firmly. Jason gave a small nod that didn’t convince.
“Whatever his reasons – whatever logic was going on in his head or in mine – I knew the way he would twist it if I told anyone and they confronted him. So I kept my mouth shut on half the things that went on…kept it to myself for years. He’d threaten me sometimes, tell me about how he could make sure I didn’t have any career in music or dance if I said anything. I couldn’t be sure that he was bluffing – I told myself I could live with it, that I was always going to be able to get out of the way in time.” He shrugged. “It never got out of hand normally. But one night…”
Suddenly Mark wasn’t so sure he wanted to know. He glanced over at Jonathan’s usually kind, sunny face and saw a heavy, anxious sort of compassion in his eyes as he studied Jason’s face. Howard’s face was similarly sombre, his eyes sharp and blue as he watched Jason silently, though he maintained the careful sliver of distance there was between them.
Gary stood up abruptly, taking Mark by surprise a little. His arms were folded and his posture rigid as he stared at a point in the middle-distance.
“It was spring: the mornings were icy but by the afternoon the sun would be up and you’d feel like you were melting, especially cooped up in that stale old rehearsal space. I left my jacket behind when I left that night – which wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t have had my door key and my wallet in there. I trudged all the way back, hoping that Jay and Nigel would still be there, working late as usual…I didn’t expect to walk in on Jay shoved up against the wall with a cut lip, a nosebleed and Nigel’s hand around his throat.”
Mark wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to hear, but it hadn’t been that, and he felt a sick sort of realisation dawning and a horrid, unwelcome image forming in his mind’s eye. “When Nigel saw me he didn’t even try and jump away…he just launched right into some awful ‘explanation’ about how Jay was supposedly trying to scam him and me, get me to sign over my songs so the others could go on without me. He gave me some guff about Jay not thinking I fitted in and not wanting to work so hard on the dance routines with me but…I knew Jay too well by then, and he was probably the only one of those lads who didn’t think any of that stuff.” Gary shuddered. “Besides, I saw the look on Jay’s face.”
Mark closed his eyes, but Jonathan turned his gaze to Jason.
“What happened, Jason?” he asked in a soft, caring voice, and Jason looked up at him slowly, distantly, his eyes not quite focusing on his face.
“Like I said, I was staying late to work on some routine or other – we had a lot of stuff coming up that Nigel was working us hard for. Anyway, I wanted to change my mind when he said he was staying late too…I knew what it meant by then when he said he had paperwork to do. But I felt I didn’t have much choice: there were always repercussions when you said no to Nigel, and he’d always find a way to convince me whatever happened was my fault. Back then I fell for it…I was young and naïve enough to think there was actually some logic to it, that it wasn’t totally random and there was no way I could stop it.” Jason shrugged. “I know it sounds daft but…it’s a lot easier to say ‘Get out of there’ when you’re not tangled up in it all, you know?” He shook his head. “I don’t think it would’ve made a difference to what happened next, it would’ve just happened some other time; things were bound to come to a head between us. That night started out the same as all the other times, him staring and gradually getting closer and closer. But this time he tried to go further, putting his hands on me and leaving them there. He told me keeping him on side was in my interests – he was making all these claims about what he could do for me, how he could promote me, make me the star of the band, all that sort of crap. On condition I let him do whatever he wanted with his hands on my body.” Jason shuddered, swallowing hard and closing his eyes. “The more I told him no, the closer he got, and the more I tried to get away the more it pissed him off. He told me I needed him, told me he could destroy me if I didn’t let him have his way, told me he’d kick me out the band – the usual threats. It didn’t sway me: he told me this stuff most days. I was under no illusions about how worthless he thought I was. He’d got me trapped against the wall…I was somewhere between ill and shit scared, so when he tried to kiss me I just went on instinct and shoved him back. That was when things got ugly.”
“Ugly how?” Mark asked uneasily.
“You don’t embarrass a bloke like Nigel and get away with it – there’s always going to be some sort of revenge. He grabbed hold of my arm and pinned me back so fast I don’t even think I realised it was happening – I was shattered, running mostly on adrenaline so…he might’ve been shorter than me but he still had the advantage. He smacked me, hard enough to cut my lip, and slammed me back against the wall, got me by the throat and started telling me how little I was worth. He was so close he was spitting in my face every time he spoke and I just closed my eyes and waited for it to be over. I can’t remember the words exactly but I got the gist: I was useless, talentless…all I was was a pretty face and once that faded I’d have nothing and no one in this world and it was all my own fault. He told me I’d regret being ‘too high and mighty’ for him one day, how I’d learn to wish someone would give me the chances he did…” Jason drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know what he would’ve done if Gaz hadn’t walked in.”
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Howard whispered. Gary saw him flinch and the feeling of being a terrible friend had never been more acute than in that moment.
“He lost it when I wouldn’t back him up in front of Gaz,” Jason continued quietly. “But by then I wanted out: he was determined to make my life a living hell for as long as I was around to let it happen, and no job was worth that. The moment he let go of me I scrambled to grab my stuff and I just ran and ran and never looked back.” There was a silence then, and no one moved, all of them watching Jason intently. Finally his eyes seemed to focus again, and he looked up at each of them before turning to Howard, a tentative, genuine smile coming across his face. Mark was surprised that Howard didn’t pull him closer, but then it occurred to him that Howard knew better than to lay a finger on Jason’s skin whilst this particular story still lingered in the air: it was one of the sweetest gestures he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t help but smile slightly as he watched the two of them looking at each other, the colour slowly coming back to Jason’s eyes as Howard’s face helped him banish the ghosts that still flitted around him. “Hi,” he murmured at last.
“Hi,” Howard replied softly, an answering smile on his lips. And that was when Jason finally closed the distance between them, leaning in close enough for Howard to press a kiss to his forehead.
Mark glanced at Gary curiously then, something niggling at the back of his mind.
“So what did you do about it?” he asked. “Jay got out, thank goodness. But you and Nigel were close so…” Gary swallowed, finding his mouth suddenly dry. He drew in a deep breath, rubbing his forehead tiredly.
“It wasn’t my proudest moment,” he admitted softly. He was aware of Jason and Howard’s gazes turning back to him, and reluctantly he met their eyes. Howard’s expression was calm but disappointed, but in Jason’s face there was nothing but sympathy.
“Hey, nothing was simple when it came to Nigel – even I’d trusted him, in my own way,” he offered kindly and Gary gave him a smile that he hoped didn’t show the sharp flicker of guilt which came over him. He had always questioned Jason’s story: after all, Jason had always been the one to say he was staying late first, and some of Nigel’s explanations had made a certain amount of sense, especially back then. But he’d seen the cut lip, the bloody nose. More importantly he’d seen the very genuine fear in Jason’s eyes, those eyes which were usually so bright and alive. And now here was the same man he’d sympathised with but doubted, looking at him with raw affection and total understanding: this was not a friendship of equals, it turned out – Jason was a better man than him, he was sure of it.
He looked back at Mark and for a moment he couldn’t help but suspect he had just read his thoughts, what with the sombre look he gave him. He cleared his throat and sat back down slowly.
“I knew what I saw that night,” he admitted with a sigh. “But at the same time…I felt like my loyalties were torn. I know that sounds awful but…imagine one of your two best friends turning round and telling you some awful secret about the other one, and when you go and ask the other friend they tell you the same story but with all the roles reversed.” He shook his head slightly, looking down at his hands. “And people wonder why I have trust issues,” he muttered to himself. “After Jay was gone, Nigel told me I’d walked in at a bad time and the whole thing was Jay’s doing. I knew he was lying – I knew Jay, not as well as I know him now but I knew enough. He told me over and over how Jay had been trying to scam him – scam us all – and how he had to make sure Jay knew his place or else the whole band would fall apart because of his ‘arrogance’. I knew that was rubbish and Nigel saw it all over my face, so he changed tone, started reminding me how much work we’d put into the band already, telling me how he didn’t want to have to ruin my chance of getting a record deal over Jay’s ‘attitude problems’. I still don’t know what possessed me to listen to him, but I did: he played on my ambition and I think I let him because…I knew he cared about me, that he believed in me. It counts for a lot when someone as upfront as Nigel shows that sort of faith in you. So I let him talk me round to staying. He even convinced me not to mention anything to the other lads, even after it was obvious Jay wasn’t coming back. He told me it would disrupt the ‘harmony’ we’d found as a group.” Gary closed his eyes. “I s’pose I tried to put it down to the fact the two of them didn’t get on, told myself it was just oil and water and it had got out of control and there was nothing to be achieved by running after Jay to find out more of his side of it. I told myself we were all better off with the new set-up – less tension, you know. And that was the end of it. Or so I thought.”
Jason rested his head on Howard’s shoulder, and Howard pulled him closer somewhat protectively, kissing the top of his head.
“I didn’t see Gaz for a few weeks. Then the next thing I know he’s on my doorstep needing a place to stay coz he had no cash and Nigel had thrown him out the band: my mum was only too happy to take in a stray.”
“She loves a full house does Jenny Orange,” Gary remarked with a chuckle. He tried not to think what Jenny Orange would do to him if she knew how many times he’d doubted her son.
“I thought that Jay leaving would mean Nigel would calm down: the person he seemed to have wanted out from the beginning was gone and I was young and dumb enough to think that was the end of it. But Nigel seemed to take Jay’s leaving as a personal insult, kept saying ‘So he thinks he’s better off without us, does he?’ and trying to get me and the other lads to join in throwing insults. He wanted us all to turn on him, tried to make everything seem like it was Jay’s fault whenever anything went wrong or we weren’t happy with something. Sometimes it worked, but for the most part we’d all thought of Jay too fondly to be swayed. Then one day Nigel gets into this stand-up argument with the lad who he was hardest on after Jay – Liam, I think his name was – and I swear I thought it was history repeating itself. Only Liam wasn’t known for being quite as morally upstanding as our Jay: he would’ve thought nothing of punching Nigel’s lights out then and there, and I think he was going to, for a moment. Nigel certainly thought it was going to come to that – I saw a moment of panic on his face where he realised he was out of his depth with this lad. Then suddenly this calm came over him, and he turned to me.” Gary let out a humourless laugh. “My moral code was probably sketchy, but I had just about been able to justify not saying anything about the real reasons Jay had left the band overnight up ‘til then. But when Nigel turned to me, and tried to get me to calm this lad down by outright lying about Jay, saying he’d hit out at Nigel and slagged us all off in the process…I knew I couldn’t do it.” Gary glanced over at Jason, and the two shared a brief smile. “That pissed Nigel off well and truly. You’re either with him or against him, and by not agreeing to his version of the story I was putting myself on the opposite team for the first time since he’d known me. And he didn’t like it one bit: he properly turned on me like he had never done before – he’d done it to all the lads but never me, and I didn’t handle it half as well as any of them managed to, let me tell you.”
“What did he say?” Mark asked, laying a gentle hand on Gary’s arm.
“Nothing compared to the things he’d say to the rest of them, but he did threaten to take my music away from me, told me how he knew people who could make sure I’d never be able to shop a single note to another manager. Empty threats, probably, but they hurt me. He spent the next few days giving me the cold shoulder, making my life a misery…he tore apart every note of my music and my singing. And I couldn’t cope. Jay was my only mate in that band – the others loathed me for being a teacher’s pet with Nigel, for slowing them all down in the dance rehearsals, getting all the credit in what little press we got and never bearing any of the brunt of Nigel’s temper, so they were all loving seeing me out in the cold and made no effort to make me feel like I was one of them. I’d put myself on Team Nigel early on, and as far as they were concerned it was too late to switch sides. I was so isolated…I’d trusted Nigel so much and for him to turn on me like that…it hurt. And I was so alone without Jay around.”
Mark’s face was troubled, a clouded look in his eyes – he studied Gary’s face for a moment.
“A friendship with someone who thought people were either for him or against him…someone Jay used to know and wouldn’t want to know again,” Mark said in a low murmur, realisation written on his face. Gary looked back at him, sorry, nervous and pleading, and Mark stared back quietly for a moment before finally lowering his gaze, giving a slight shake of his head and a small, dismissive smile. “Guess I knew more than I thought,” he sighed, not able to look Jason in the eye. He looked back at Gary pointedly. Mark was rarely cross, and Gary couldn’t recall ever seeing him truly furious, but for the briefest of moments he could’ve sworn he saw something blisteringly angry in those normally twinkling eyes of his – he’d had secrets kept from him, he’d been lied to, he’d been made complicit in a betrayal of one of his best friends, and now Gary had coaxed him into pretending he had no clue about that little meeting with the past, pretending right to Jason’s face. And yet, Gary realised, he still felt that old conflict within himself: he felt ill with guilt, and knowing Jason had told Howard the same stories about Nigel he had told him all those years ago gave the stories more weight than they’d ever had previously, but still he couldn’t shake the thought that Nigel had never lied to him about anything else before, so why would he lie about Jason? Jason could have encouraged Nigel’s attention more than he had let on, maybe more than he realised – after all, they were all outrageous show offs back then, and Jason was a natural flirt, he could’ve given Nigel mixed signals without even meaning to, and that way everyone could be argued to be telling the truth. And then there was the argument Nigel had always made: Jason was the one to offer to stay behind late first, time and time again. Gary closed his eyes and looked away, hoping Mark hadn’t read the emotions in his face but suspecting he wouldn’t be so lucky.
“What happened to the band, then? I’m assuming they didn’t make it?” Mark asked suddenly, just about managing to stifle the desperate edge to his voice as he attempted to move the attention away from Gary.
“Ah, well, I can answer that bit for you: the band went nowhere in the end, broke up before they’d even begun. A dubiously attention-grabbing video done on a budget got them a few write-ups and a scattering of fans, but Nigel’s money ran out before anyone would sign them – and he certainly couldn’t afford to pay a songwriter, well, not one who came close to Mr. Barlow here,” Jonathan put in. Howard nudged Jason slightly.
“None of ‘em could dance as good as you either.”
“And how would you know, Howard Donald?” Jason laughed, and Howard smiled back at him with a daft sort of pride glinting in his eyes.
“No one in Manchester could, not in them days,” he said. Jason laughed, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.
“And you wouldn’t be at all biased, I suppose?” he pointed out. He shook his head, still laughing, before looking back over at Jonathan and arching an eyebrow. “So, not that we’ve not all enjoyed this stroll down memory lane and all, but is there a reason you came in here asking us about Nigel today?” Jonathan sighed.
“Ah. You remembered that then,” he said with wince. “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but Nigel Martin-Smith is actually on the prowl for a new band. And the worse news: he’s been asking around about you four.”
“Us four as in us, as a band, right here?” Howard asked, his shoulders tensing.
“I didn’t think that would be welcome news,” Jonathan sighed.
He rubbed his hands over his face and leant back in his chair. Howard and Jason looked tense, Mark just looked sad. And then there was Gary; his expression was oddly vacant, and he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “It makes more sense to me now, at least; why he’d hone in on you, despite you not really being the manufactured mould he was more associated with back in the day. There’s history. Added to your songs…a wily guy like Nigel is probably seeing pound signs.” Jonathan pulled a face, distaste clear in his tone, and Jason smiled.
“That sounds like Nigel alright. But what the hell would make him think he could persuade Gaz and me to work with him again?”
“You know what Nigel’s like, Jay,” Gary put in quietly, his eyes fixed on the floor, and Jason frowned.
“I know he holds grudges too – you seriously think he doesn’t still tell anyone who’ll listen about the full of himself bloke he knew once who thought he was worthy of being in his band?” Gary flinched.
“I just meant he thinks he can control everything and everyone, never taking no for an answer. And…I know he felt bad about losing touch with me.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he thinks the four of us would be interested in having him as a manager: we’ve got Jonathan already,” Mark interrupted, giving Gary a small glare. Jonathan inclined his head slightly.
“Technically you have – but we’re still waiting on paperwork, remember. And I might not know Nigel that well, but I know he loves a loophole when he sees one. I’ve met him a few times now, through his club connections: he’s got himself back in the entertainment world through the Northern club and pub scene – I think his chain is the biggest in the North-West these days, actually.” Jonathan shook his head, his expression apologetic. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to encounter him whilst launching you lads: he’s not my sort of person, if I’m honest, and I don’t really agree with his methods, no matter how successful they might be. He’s been looking for a way back into the music industry proper for a while now, but I’d just assumed he’d want to go the manufactured root – that was always his comfort zone, back in the day. A few weeks ago now though, some friends of mine passed on that he’d been poking around asking questions about you…it makes sense now I know there’s history, but at the time I was stumped. I figured the best policy was to be honest with you boys.”
Jonathan looked at Jason then, his expression kind, and Jason gave him a small nod of thanks, because he appreciated the honesty and knew his own honesty had been appreciated in kind. The two shared a small smile, and Jonathan nodded slightly, shrugging. “Look, I really appreciate the information – and if it’s ok with all of you, I’ll try and speed up the process of making all our arrangements legally binding. But in the meantime, just look out: you clearly know better than I do what Nigel can be like when he sets his mind to something, and I really don’t want to give him an opening. As far as he’s concerned you boys are unfinished business, and I suspect that doesn’t sit well with him, no matter how successful his might be in the club-running business.”
Jonathan cast his eyes around the group, and was surprised to notice a deep, heavy frown had settled on Howard’s face. He was used to Howard going into something of a trance when they held their meetings – the man had a world of his own he liked to disappear into when confronted with groups larger than three – but this look seemed different somehow. Jason too seemed to have noticed the curious intensity in Howard’s eyes and he placed a gentle hand on his knee.
“How, what’s wrong?” he asked in a low, calm voice that stirred Howard instantly, causing him to sit up a little straighter. He looked over at Jonathan.
“Did you just say he had a whole chain of clubs?” he asked, trying to squash the uneasiness he felt but not quite managing to keep the nervousness from his tone in a way which could fool Jason, and he felt him shift a little closer to him, concerned.
“Yes…the places look a bit tacky in daylight but by night they liven up: he knows what works, I suppose. Most of them are trendy-but-soulless type affairs in city centres all around the North, especially the North-West, but he’s got a scattering of other places in and around Manchester too – I think he even invested in a piano bar a while back that’s done pretty well.” Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Howard looked at Jason then, and somehow Jason read his expression immediately.
“The creep who was asking about me,” he murmured.
“It was him, Jay. He never said his full name but I’m sure of it.”
“Shit.”
“Excuse me: clueless over here,” Mark interrupted plaintively. Howard closed his eyes, but Jason looked over to Mark and offered him a tight smile.
“Turns out Nigel isn’t quite as far in my past as I thought,” he said. He flicked a brief glance at Gary, surprised by his silence. He was looking furtively at the ground, his whole body rigidly still, as though he hoped by not moving the rest of them might forget he had ever been there. “Gaz, you ok?” Gary looked up, startled. He stared blankly at Jason for a moment, and Jason felt a brief nauseousness in the pit of his stomach which he tried his best to ignore.
“Sorry, I just…what are you and Howard talking about?” Gary stammered out at last, and Howard let out a humourless laugh, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I got booked for a good-paying gig at one of Nigel’s clubs in Manchester city-centre: a long-term thing with the possibility of more work in the future as well as in some of his other places. Of course, he made sure I never saw his full name on anything so that the worst that could happen if he asked about Jay was me being weirded out rather than me realising why he was asking.” Howard pulled a sour expression, shaking his head. “He asked me about Jay, tried a few leading questions which I mostly didn’t take the bait for and I tried to shrug it off. But now…”
Howard let out a sigh that was almost a snarl and Jason smiled at him fondly, rubbing a hand over his back and pressing a soothing kiss to his cheek. As spooked as the idea of Nigel tracking him down had initially made him feel, one look at Howard and a strange, all-consuming calm came over him. He closed his eyes, briefly forgetting the three onlookers and taking a moment to breathe in the warm, spicy scent of his husband, enjoying the sturdy feeling of his body beside him.
“It’s ok,” he whispered against Howard’s skin. Howard pulled back just enough to look at him, and Jason tipped his face up slightly to meet his eyes. Howard’s smile was small, soft and lopsided as he took in Jason’s calm expression.
“Oh yeah?” Howard asked him. “Since when were you the optimist in this relationship.”
“Shut up and enjoy it while it lasts,” Jason shot back with a laugh, pressing a quick kiss to Howard’s lips before glancing back over at Mark and Gary. He saw the strange tension between them and narrowed his eyes slightly. “So, I’m assuming Nigel’s not come after either of you two?” he asked carefully, studying their reactions with a critical eye. Gary opened his mouth then closed it again abruptly, offering a small shrug as his only response, and Mark watched him for a moment before turning back to Jason with a smile that didn’t even come close to reaching his usually bright eyes.
“He’s not come after me that I know of – but I could have easily served him in the caff or something and not even realised,” he said quietly, looking away, and Jason simply nodded, aware of Gary’s continued silence but willing not to push in front of everyone.
The quiet was only broken by Jonathan announcing somewhat apologetically that he had a meeting to get to. It was as if they had been beneath a spell which Jonathan’s voice had magically broken, and all four men suddenly sprang back to life, Gary and Mark offering to see him out whilst Jason and Howard got to their feet in a flurry of goodbyes. Jonathan promised again to keep them updated as Mark and Gary followed him to the door.
As the three of them disappeared from the room, Howard glanced up at the clock and winced.
“Somewhere to be, Howard Donald?” Jason’s voice was laced with a light-hearted sort of amusement that drew a smile to Howard’s lips, and he pulled his body closer to his own, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“If I said no, would you believe me?” he asked playfully, resting his cheek on top of Jason’s head and taking a second to rejoice in the feel of his strong, lithe body, crushed close against his own.
“Not for a moment,” Jason told him with a chuckle, though he didn’t move immediately, allowing Howard a second or two of stillness before he leant back in his arms in order to meet his eyes. “I meant what I said, How: it will be ok. Take the creep’s money and run, just like we agreed. I can handle knowing Nigel Martin-Smith paid my rent for the next three months: it’s kind of a relief, actually.” Howard smiled, cupping Jason’s face with his hand.
“A relief?” he laughed softly, his voice a low, fond murmur as he looked at him. No one he knew could surprise and intrigue him like Jason did. He felt his heart swell as Jason looked up at him, his gaze bright and intense as his lips twisted into a strange, wry smile Howard didn’t think he’d ever seen on his lips before. And he knew Jason’s smiles well.
“I’ve spent so much of my life trying to rebuild, trying to feel safe, trying to shut up his voice in the back of my head. And then I met you. And you looked at me like you knew I was broken and it fascinated you…it’s one of those things you don’t realise is happening at the time, but one day you look back and you see that, for the most part, that fear isn’t there anymore, that those voices only creep up on you in the middle the night now and they’re not even as loud anymore so it’s easier to not believe them.” He shrugged. “Nigel doesn’t have power over me anymore. You might, but not him.” Howard raised an eyebrow and Jason laughed softly. “I mean it – this is ok. The way I see it I get one over on him this way: he thinks he ruined everything and can do it again, and him helping pay the rent is my way of making sure we prove him wrong. You’ve given me more than enough faith to know I can survive – and I have more than enough faith in you to survive too. Nigel can’t hurt you and me, or our life together now – which is more of a life than he wanted me to have and the ultimate proof I need to know his opinions shouldn’t matter to me anymore.”
Howard bent down and kissed the tip of Jason’s nose, making him smile.
“I love you,” he said simply, his voice still a whisper. He kissed his cheek. “You are incredible to me.” He kissed the corner of his mouth. “And I’m not the one with the power here,” he added in a murmur. Jason laughed, leaning back to cup Howard’s face in both his hands. His eyes sparkled as looked up at him, but his expression was serious and earnest.
“I love you too,” he replied quietly, a small smile briefly tugging at the corner of his lips. “But you’re wrong, Howard Donald: you do have all the power here. And that’s ok. I gave it to you; and I know if I asked you’d give it right back. We’re all even here: everything for everything, just like always,” he added, kissing Howard firmly on the lips.
When Jason pulled back from the kiss, Howard watched him, saw the way his eyes suddenly clouded over as he looked at something over Howard’s shoulder. Howard glanced back, catching sight of Mark and Gary standing by the shop’s front door, seemingly locked in an intense conversation of their own.
“What’s wrong?” Howard asked gently, touching his hand to Jason’s chin, and Jason’s eyes came back to him in an instant, a troubled look in them which Howard didn’t like.
“I know Nigel can’t work his way back into my world through you: you, Howard Donald, are the most stubborn bastard I know and loyal to a fault – he hasn’t a hope of twisting your arm no matter how many tricks he tries.” Jason huffed out a breath. “But Gaz, on the other hand…”
“You don’t think he would actually set something up with Nigel, though? Without even talking to you about it all first?”
“I don’t know. But I know there’s something on his mind: he looked like he was about to throw up when I asked if Nigel had come after him, and if there is one thing I know for sure it’s that Gary Barlow is a terrible liar.” He looked back over Howard’s shoulder, watching as Mark and Gary continued their hushed conversation by the door, Mark’s expression somewhere between desperate sadness and utter frustration. “And I think Mark knows it too, if that conversation over there is anything to go by.” Jason sighed, closing his eyes for a moment and letting himself lean into Howard’s strength. “He’s one of my best friends, How…but is it terrible if I feel like I know that – when it comes to me versus his career – I just can’t trust him?” Howard bent just enough for their eyes to be level, and Jason lifted his head, meeting his gaze.
“Jason Orange, you are a lot of things. But you could never, ever be terrible. Just honest to fault.” Howard kissed his forehead softly. “And besides, I have it on good authority that you can be a pretty stubborn bastard too, when you put your mind to it. You’re too loyal to ever turn your back on a friend just for being flawed. ”
Chapter 6
Howard and Mark had taken some persuading, but eventually both men had left and Barlow’s Music Shop had descended into an unusually uneasy silence. Gary had disappeared into the piano room and not surfaced since, and Jason had turned the shop’s sign back around to open and set about tidying the place up, using the time to try and gather himself. He felt shaky somehow, as though with every move he made he was waiting from the walls to fall around him. He remembered the feeling, though he wished he didn’t: it was something he’d mostly learned to banish over the years, but it still crept up on him in the middle of the night sometimes. Howard was the only person on earth who knew it, of course – the only person Jason had ever allowed close enough to know about the nightmares and the only person who had ever been able to quell the aching fear and sadness that always came with them. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this way in daylight hours; even after his ordeal with Emily, this sort of clammy-skinned tension had only really been reserved for those hours between midnight and morning, when Howard was there to stop it seizing him so completely. He took a deep breath and tried to push the feeling away, tried to pretend he felt fine and that Gary’s determination to avoid him didn’t give him an odd, ominous sense of knowing. But he had never been built to pretend.
It was only half an hour before Jason came into the piano room, sitting himself down in the armchair and silently watching Gary as he played a wistful, melancholy tune, his eyes intent upon the keys, as though Jason wasn’t even there. He didn’t look up, even once he reached the end of the song he had been playing, but Jason knew he realised he was there, and he let the silence hang over them – for all that he needed honesty, he was never one to force it from those around him without good reason, and he could see a sadness in Gary’s face which he recognised. The wounds from their time in Nigel’s band had never healed, only scabbed over, leaving them vulnerable when they were picked at: Jason understood that more than anyone.
“Nigel got in touch with me not long ago, totally out the blue.” Gary’s voice was low and hollow, and he still didn’t look at Jason as he spoke.
“That much I’d managed to figure out,” Jason told him quietly, letting out a sad laugh when Gary looked at him in surprise. “You can’t lie for toffee, Barlow. And as soon as Nigel’s name came up today you looked like you’d seen a ghost.” Jason shrugged, offering Gary a smile that Gary thought looked surprisingly at peace – it was a look which he had never known on Jason’s face before Howard came along, but it suited him, Gary thought. “You could’ve told me, you know,” Jason said then, his voice soft as he met Gary’s eyes.
“No I couldn’t,” Gary sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and taking a moment to close his eyes. “After everything else you’ve been through this past year, I couldn’t add bad memories on top of it.” Jason looked down, nodding slowly.
“I understand that, I do – but you have got to stop treating me like I’m ready to break, Gaz. That’s what I’ve got Howard for. What I need from everyone else is to just go back to normal, or as close as it ever gets to normal around here. The longer everyone keeps talking to me like they’re worried about where the landmines are buried, the longer it feels like the whole thing is going on for – and at this point I just want it to be over.” Jason sighed, offering a one shouldered shrug. “So: talk to me. Even if it’s about Nigel. I want to know, Gaz. Because you’re my mate and I’m worried about you. And I meant what I said before: I never blamed you for being close with him. He was different with you and we both know it.”
Gary looked down at his hands, clasping and unclasping them for a moment and trying to work out just where it was he wanted to start. Jason’s patient silence almost made him feel worse, as doubt and guilt mingled in the pit of his stomach, making him feel sick and anxious. He let out a long sigh, trying to organize his thoughts before finally risking another glance over at Jason.
“I was sure you wouldn’t have told Howard, you know.” Jason laughed softly, his eyes briefly dancing with light as he raised an eyebrow, surprised that that was the first thing Gary wanted to talk about.
“Really?” he asked and Gary offered him a small, rueful smile and a shrug in reply. “Howard’s known for a while,” Jason said then, his voice a little quieter as he looked down. “I’m talking way back when we’d just started going out.” He shook his head, a small, fond smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I woke up in the middle of the night one time, scared out my mind, trying to breathe. Same old story. But he calmed me down, made it ok. He didn’t ask for an answer or an explanation, not even when it kept happening. He just sat with me every time – I could call him in the middle of the night and offer him no explanation and he’d still be there, even if I had nothing to say he’d still pick up and talk nonsense to me for a while. Eventually, I wasn’t sure what exactly I was protecting: he put up with all the nightmares and the fear without any of the context, and it didn’t change anything about the way he saw me, the way he treated me. So I started telling him the stories. Giving him the context he hadn’t known. And over time I started to realise that, the more he knew, the more he knew me, understood me…and the more he knew me, the more I didn’t mind so much about the ghosts anymore at all.” Jason sighed, his expression somehow distant, though the smile stayed on his lips. “The ghosts are a lot less scary when there’s someone in the world who knows how to fight them for you all those times you feel like you can’t cope on your own.”
Gary had never thought of it that way; he’d never entertained the possibility that confessing his secrets and sins to someone could maybe give them the ammunition they needed to help him fight the battles life threw his way. It was a curiously Jason And Howard sort of idea: the two of them were both so comfortable in their own skin, so ready to drop to their knees in the mud and push on for something they felt was right. The only thing Gary had ever had that sort of conviction about was his music, and there were times, dark, horrible times, where even that certainty had left him. But then he thought back to the night Mark had prized the confession about Nigel out of him: Mark was angry with him for it now, of course, but at the time Gary had felt somewhat comforted to have someone to share that burden with, who didn’t judge him for it and who offered the sort of advice only someone who knew him well could.
He looked up at Jason, took in the calm, quiet expression on his face and the bright, sharp glint of his eyes.
“Maybe it’s something I should’ve done. Maybe I should’ve said something…to Mark, I mean. I told him I was meeting someone, told him it was someone you and me both used to know and that it ended badly. But I didn’t tell him the whole thing – couldn’t bring myself to go into it in case he hated me over it and didn’t want to listen to any more, didn’t want to see it from my point of view.” He winced. “I know I should’ve given him the chance, should’ve known it’d be better than keeping it from him and making him feel like I wanted him to choose between me and you. But there’s plenty of stories me and him don’t share with each other, so I didn’t think it mattered. He’s got his miserable memories and I’ve got mine – it’s not the future we want for ourselves so we keep it in the past where it belongs.” Jason inclined his head to show he had taken the information on board, but he offered no comment and there didn’t seem to be any judgement in his piercing gaze. Still, Gary knew it wasn’t an approach Jason himself ever took and he couldn’t help wondering if some part of him was despairing of him for it – it made him feel like he had to somehow justify himself, putting him on the defensive suddenly. “I just didn’t want to let the genie out of the bottle, I suppose. And now it’s out I don’t think we’ll ever get it back in.”
Jason was quiet for a moment, looking at Gary thoughtfully, his expression still giving nothing away.
“But that could be a good thing, you know,” he said at last, sympathy in his calm, even tone. “You two are always avoiding talking about it – the fact both of you got broken down along the way – but it’s a part of who you both are, you know, whether you like it or not.” Jason shrugged, offering Gary a self-deprecating smile. “Believe me, I know what it’s like to not want to go there, to want to try and pretend that you’re fine and that you can keep your head above water all the time. But nobody’s perfect, Gaz. And even though I’ve not always been great for total-sharing, I’ve always been honest if there’s a problem, otherwise I would have lost the plot years ago. And, since Howard…” He trailed off, but the words didn’t need to be said. Howard had opened a window on Jason’s soul, slowly letting sunlight fall into places it hadn’t been allowed to go in years.
Gary shook his head, letting out a small laugh that was harsher than he intended it to be. Again it was Nigel’s words which drifted back to him, asking him how much he knew about Mark Owen, reminding him that there were people out there with pieces of Mark’s story that, for some reason, Mark had decided Gary wasn’t allowed to know. And maybe it was hypocritical, because he was just as guilty of keeping his past closely guarded, and he didn’t always share everything he was feeling all the time, for the sake of a quiet life. But Mark was the only one who disappeared off with friends and didn’t come back until late at night, full of nothing but nonsense, reeling off names of people Gay had never even met, and Mark was the only one whose family and friends would hurry to change the subject when a story took a wrong turn in Gary’s presence.
“When I called you the other day…it was Nigel,” he admitted suddenly, his voice little more than a mumble. He risked a look back at Jason, whose expression was carefully neutral.
“Nigel told you that stuff? About you not being married?” he asked. Off Gary’s nod, Jason nodded back, taking a moment to choose his words before meeting Gary’s gaze again. “Nigel’s trying to get in your head, Gaz. You must know that.”
“Then why did it hit so close to home?” Gary demanded, his voice cracking slightly. “He told me there was no guarantee: if we’re not telling each other the whole story, and we’re not even married-”
“Gaz, marriage isn’t an insurance policy,” Jason laughed softly, cutting him off, and Gary looked up at him sceptically. “Look, you of all people should know it shouldn’t be about that: how many times have you written a song about love and romance and happily ever after?” Jason pressed. “I’m not saying it’s always as easy as you make it sound in your songs, but it’s nowhere near as cold as being nothing more than a contract to keep you both safe.” He stopped, sighing, studying Gary’s face carefully, as though trying to work out how best to go on. “Look, Gaz, I don’t know for sure what you and Mark are looking for from your own relationship – because God knows he’s every bit as frustratingly obtuse as you when it comes to talking about that stuff. I don’t know what either of you are holding back for, I don’t even know everything you haven’t told each other. And I certainly don’t know what the two of you think marriage should be about – that’s personal for everyone. But what I do know is that me and Howard both grew up with parents who weren’t exactly role models on the ‘happily ever after’ front; romanticizing a situation isn’t something we do, on the whole, so when we do see something that way, then it’s because we know there’s something in there that won’t be completely destroyed by the real world. We’ve both looked into every dark, awful corner of each other’s pasts and we’ve decided it doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t change anything for us or for the way we see ourselves and each other.”
“So?” Gary asked quietly. Jason smiled at him, sympathetic and apologetic all at once.
“So: you and Mark don’t really go there. You both need so badly for the other one to be perfect, to make you feel more sure of yourselves, because that’s what fits the picture you’ve both got in your heads. You were both raised on fairy tales and old-fashioned ballads in homes that fitted into that perfect picture and you don’t like having to let go of that ideal. Mark doesn’t ask you to tell him things that might somehow change his view of you as his hero. And you don’t go wandering in the lonely, broken parts of Mark’s head because then you’d have to accept that fact that he’s not made of sunshine and sugar – and you’re scared if he’s not always that happy-go-lucky bloke you fell in love with then maybe you don’t really know him at all, and maybe he could turn on you, just like Simon did before.”
Gary flinched, turning away. He had spent so much of their friendship looking up to Jason, and Jason’s advice was always freely and honestly given. And there was a part of him that was so grateful for that presence in his life; the older, wiser brother who never judged or told on him to his parents, who drifted in and out of his life for years but had somehow always managed to pick right back up where he’d left off before. How many times, back before the days of the shop, had Gary been looking for some kind of answer and, out of the blue, Jason would phone him up with a piece of advice or a story he hadn’t even known he’d needed? And he was grateful for that, so grateful. But some traitorous part of him resented it too, was tired of always seeming to be treated like the person one step behind. Again it was Nigel’s voice in his head: he thinks highly of himself that one. Gary rubbed a hand over his face and tried to bite the words back, all too aware of the damage they could do.
“Look, Jay, can we please just…not?” he whispered. He could feel Jason’s eyes on him, and he looked over at him slowly, carefully, hoping to see him ready to back down. A rare sight but he craved it, all too aware of the potential this conversation had to get out of hand if Jason didn’t just leave it be.
“Gaz, I’m worried about you,” Jason said gently. “You look like you’re making yourself ill over this thing with Nigel, and honestly it didn’t look like Mark was ok with how you were coping either, judging from the way you had to practically wrestle him out the door before.”
“I didn’t see Howard doing cartwheels about leaving you either, you know,” Gary pointed out and Jason let out a small, fond laugh, inclining his head slightly in agreement.
“No. But me and Howard will talk about it later.” he pointed out, gentle but firm. “I’m guessing you and Mark won’t,” he added then, shrugging somewhat helplessly. “I don’t know what you want from me, Gaz – I won’t tell you something I don’t believe in, you know? Howard won’t let me not talk about it, honestly; if not tonight then some other time. And maybe neither one of us wants to rake over it so much but we have to do it to keep ourselves sane. Yours and Mark’s approach these days seems to be to be to shove it all away in a drawer, as though it’s not all going to come spilling out eventually and end up drowning you both.”
“God, Jay, does it ever get exhausting?” Gary burst out suddenly, taking Jason by surprise.
“Sorry?”
“Oh, climbing up there onto your high horse and just always being right?!” Gary snarled, and Jason blinked at him, startled.
“Where is that coming from?” he asked, through a tense, nervous laugh, though a part of him suspected he knew the answer to the question. Nigel Martin-Smith’s name briefly hung in the air between them, unspoken and unacknowledged but definitely there, making the air between them fraught and tense. “Look, Gaz, if you don’t want me to look out for you, then that’s your choice, if you don’t want me to offer my opinion I won’t – but all I have ever done is be there for you and support you. When you said you needed help with this place, I came and I worked for no wages for a month ‘til you got everything up and running, and I never complained, even though I had to live with my mum the whole time like I was twenty and unemployed again. When your whole life fell apart and you wouldn’t even get out of bed, I dragged you down here and listened whilst you talked about how you were a failure and I never told you to ‘grow up’ even though you were behaving like a kid and there were plenty of times where maybe I should’ve done. When you wouldn’t even talk to Mark because you were sure he’d think you were crazy, I talked to him for you and invited him in. And when you and Mark decided the only way the two of you would ever be satisfied with your lives was if you pursued your music, I agreed to go along with your band, even though it’s really not that important to me. I put my life on hold for you time and time again, and you of all people should know I’m not judging you for your mistakes or your problems, I’m just trying to give you a different view to help you sort things in your head.”
“But I never asked you for any of it: you just did it anyway. Same old Jason – always needing someone to save to take his mind off his own problems.”
“Don’t. Don’t go there, Gaz. Please.” Gary heard the slight tremor in Jason’s voice, could see the tears shining in his eyes. But for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to care.
He was angry now. Full of memories and hurt and a sense of loss he couldn’t quite understand.
“No, let’s go there. Let’s go to when I showed up on your doorstep after Nigel kicked me out of the band, and I couldn’t face going home and telling my parents it had failed. All I asked of you was a roof over my head. I never asked for your stories.”
“I said don’t,” Jason said, a little more forcefully this time, but there was a telling crack in the words. Gary laughed, the sound brittle and humourless, and he was surprised to find tears were in his own eyes too. “You did ask and you know it. And I told you it wasn’t important, that you should go back to the band – I gave you permission to lie to the lads if it would fix it, all I did was ask whether or not that would actually be ok, whether you could actually cope with those four hating you just for the sake of a music career.”
“You knew exactly what you were saying, Jay, come on. We both know you were holding me to your own standards about playing pretend. Although God knows why it’s such an issue for you when it’s what you spend half your life doing: you were always the biggest show off, you know? The one who ended up the centre of attention in any room. You’d flirt and you’d pose and you’d make everybody fall in love with you, and then you’d turn around and pretend it wasn’t the plan. No wonder Nigel got the wrong idea – you encouraged attention all the time and you always kept going back for more.”
The words were out before Gary had even realised he was saying them, and he and Jason stared at each other for a moment, both surprised and wounded in equal measure.
“Wow,” Jason said somewhat shakily, pushing himself slowly to his feet. He crossed the room, bringing his hands up to his face and trying to steady his breathing.
Gary closed his eyes, listening to the sound of Jason pacing the floor. He felt guilty, but he was still somehow too empty to give an apology: he’d finally put a voice to the doubts he’d felt for years now, and whether or not he’d gone about it the right way was just an accident of fate. “Where is all of this coming from, Gaz? Please, because I need to know.” Jason’s voice cut into Gary’s thoughts, raspy and tight but still somehow determined. He’d stopped pacing and was standing in the corner of the room, arms hanging limply by his sides. The expression on his face was one Gary recognised: it was the look on his face that night when Gary had walked into the rehearsal space. Fear, hurt and a desperate need to keep up the fight flickering in and out. He felt a spark of pain when he saw it, because it reminded him of why Jason’s stories of Nigel had – at least at first – been easy for him to believe. “Seriously, what is it that’s got you so pissed off with me after all this time? Is it Nigel? Or is this something you’ve always thought?”
Gary couldn’t answer that. The doubts had come and gone before now, but before they’d simply flickered in and out so briefly that it had been easy to push it aside, put it down to the tantalizing ‘What If’ of the possibility that his time with the band could have ended differently and he could’ve lived the life he’d dreamed of. It had been seeing Nigel again which had brought it all back. But it had always been there – perhaps not at first, but it had crept in in the weeks just after Gary had left the band. In fact, he could trace it back almost exactly, because there was one more story that Jason had chosen to leave out when Jonathan had been there before: the one where Nigel had come looking for him and found Jason instead.
“I want to believe you Jay…I just…” Gary closed his eyes. The guilt came back with force then, bursting out from wherever it had been hiding, as though it had simply been cowering from his anger and now sensed an opening in which it could retake the reigns and try and undo the damage which had – too quickly and too easily – been done.
“You just don’t.” Jason finished for him, his voice wavering.
Gary swallowed hard, feeling the bile rise in his throat; he could hear how desperately hard Jason was trying to hold it together and it was painful to hear someone so calm start to fray at the seams. And the thought that suddenly came to him, seemingly from nowhere, was that Howard was definitely going to kill him for this: what he was doing here wasn’t simply damaging one of his closest friendships, it was decimating all three of his closest friendships. All this over a question of one lie told years ago? Did Nigel ever lie, though?
He drew in a long, shaky breath and slowly looked up at Jason, who was staring at him with a profoundly sad expression. Somewhere in those eyes lurked the memories of his father walking away and not coming back for far too long, and of Nigel turning on him in the space of a half-hour; Jason had lived in fear of goodbyes and endings ever since, and had tried every avoidance trick in the book to evade the pain. His ability to forgive had sometimes seemed boundless to Gary – he would rather forgive than be forced to close a door on someone, and those few people he allowed close enough to him to risk a painful goodbye would never be shut out forever, at least not through Jason’s choosing. And wasn’t that why he had let Gary stay in his home, welcomed him into his family when Nigel had turned on him, despite knowing full well that Gary had done nothing to try and confront Nigel for what he had done to drive Jason himself away?
“I’m sorry,” Gary said in a sad murmur. Jason just stared at him, studied his face in that all-seeing way of his. And whatever he found there seemed only to hurt him more.
“Don’t apologize,” he told him carefully, a slight edge of anger creeping into his tone. “Don’t bother, not if you don’t mean it.”
“Look, honesty isn’t always the best policy, ok? Can you not just let sleeping dogs lie for once in your life?”
“What’s this about, Gary? What did I do?” Jason asked him blankly, his voice hollow. And Gary felt irritation flare up once more at yet another demand of honesty. His expression hardened and he met Jason’s eyes fiercely.
“Nigel came to find me – he found out where I was and he came round to your mum’s looking for me but I was out. So he found you. And he told you to pass on a message: place and time, meet him there and I could come back to the band again, he’d find a way to make it work. I came back as he was leaving-”
“And when I told you what he’d said, you told me it didn’t matter, you weren’t going to go, you’d find a way to go it alone-”
“I lied, ok? I meant it at the time but I…I couldn’t throw away that chance when we were just so close, Jay.” Gary let out a bitter, sharp laugh, tipping his head back and looking at the ceiling. “Of course, you decided to make sure I never got chance anyway – probably told yourself you were doing me some sort of favour in the long run, right?” He finally looked back to Jason, his eyes dark and cold, but Jason simply stared back at him, confused and silent for a moment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gaz, but I didn’t mess with your chance of going back to the band – I told you exactly what I was told.” Gary almost wavered in his resolve. Almost.
“Then how come I went there and no one showed, Jay? How come Nigel – who said himself, to my face, that he needed my songs – didn’t come? You really expect me to believe he just set the whole thing up, just so he could hold it over us in years to come?” Gary looked at Jason incredulously, and Jason offered him the saddest smile Gary had ever seen, shrugging limply and letting out an empty laugh.
“Yes. I really do.” He sniffed, blinking furiously in an attempt to stop his tears. “Because you’re one of my best mates. And I’ve never lied to you. And when it counted? I was always there – whether or not you might have asked me to be. And what’s more? I stuck around, because I believed in you.”
Gary looked at Jason, a lump in his throat. He felt guilty and frightened and overwhelmed and he realised suddenly – terrifyingly – that he simply couldn’t find anything to say that came close to the sheer number of things he felt. Because whatever anger and frustration he may have been feeling, whatever things he might have said, it didn’t change the fact that their history – and their friendship – meant so much to him. He’d lived amongst Jason’s family, he’d got postcards from him out of the blue. He’d answered the phone to him way too early on Sunday mornings, always surprised to find their conversation picked up more or less where they had left it, no matter how many months it had been since they’d last been in touch. And yet, through it all, somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d always doubted him. Sometimes in slivers, sometimes in huge chunks. But it was enough to undermine everything, somehow.
“I told you to leave it alone,” he managed in a whisper, before quickly getting to his feet and all but running out of the shop.
***
Howard hurried along Oldham Street, trying to keep his pace even and resisting the urge to break into a sprint. He was fairly certain he had made the journey across town in record time; it had only been ten minutes since he had gotten Jason’s phone call, but it was still ten minutes too long as far as he was concerned. When he’d first picked up the phone, all he’d been able to hear was the sound of Jason’s breathing, fast and heavy down the line, followed by his own name and then, eventually, Gary’s being stammered out in a weak, shaky voice. It was a tone Howard remembered, and the sound of it down the line to him had triggered some strange, silent steel within him, his body seeming to remember the old patterns before Jason had even managed a single word. He’d moved instinctively, turning on his heel as he cut into Jason’s attempts to explain with a calm, gentle voice, repeating an old, familiar phrase: ‘In through your nose, out through your mouth, Jay. I’m ten minutes away.’ He’d waited for Jason’s small, raggedy ‘Thank you’ before hanging up the call and had only stopped in order to pick up a bottle of cold water from the newsagents – another step in the old sequence which he remembered with an efficient, effortless sort of calm. He half-jogged the final distance up to the shop, taking note of the sign turned around to closed. As he pushed the door open, he briefly found himself trying to recall the last time he had had to do this, and was surprised when he realised it had been almost two years now. It was strangely comforting to know he hadn’t lost his touch.
Jason was sitting halfway up the shop’s stairs, and he looked up when Howard entered, offering him a weak smile. Howard quickly crossed over to him, giving him a gentle smile of his own as he pressed the bottle of water into Jason’s hand and sat down with him on the steps. Light briefly danced in Jason’s eyes at the gesture, and Howard recognised the pure, boundless love there. Jason accepted the water with another small smile, quickly unscrewing the cap with a breathed ‘Thanks’ and bringing the bottle up to his lips.
Howard took a moment to assess him, his eyes roaming Jason’s face for clues. His breathing was raspy but steady, and though he looked pale and shaken, there was a determination in his eyes that told Howard he was bruised but not beaten. Howard had seem him worse, but he had seen him better, and his protective nature triggered a pang in his chest. He had come to sit a couple of steps below Jason, half-kneeling in front of him so as to better see his face, but now he pushed himself up to sit beside him instead, turning his body towards him and leaning in to press a kiss to his temple.
“Better?” he asked softly into Jason’s skin, rubbing his back. Jason lowered the bottle from his lips and swallowed, giving a small nod, his eyes staring unseeingly into the middle-distance. He drew in a long, deep breath, then looked up into Howard’s face.
“A little,” he said before leaning gratefully against Howard and closing his eyes. “Better for seeing you.” Howard let him tuck his head under his chin, holding him for a minute in the silence of the shop and letting him collect his thoughts. Outside the sun was shining, and the air in the shop was stuffy, but Jason’s skin was cool against Howard’s own.
For a moment Howard’s mind wandered back to the night he’d first woken to find Jason sitting up in bed, his forehead resting on his knees as he fought to steady his breathing. He’d sat with him, watching him struggle to keep Howard from seeing the pure, awful fear on his face, his eyes closed and his shoulders heaving. Howard had, briefly, let himself feel helpless – but there had always been a protector in him and that part of his nature had taken over quickly. He’d rubbed his back and kissed his temple, and Jason had slowly – tentatively – leant into him, curling closer and closer until eventually his breathing had evened out. And, just when the two of them were about to fall back asleep, Howard had asked him if he wanted to talk about it. Jason had said ‘I’m sorry’ and nothing else, and Howard had kissed the top of his head to show him that he had never needed Jason’s apology. The next morning when Jason woke, Howard had pulled him close and told him so, unequivocally, before mumbling into his shoulder that he had always known who Jason was and that that would never change. It had awakened something between them, an intensity of feeling that set every cell in their bodies alight when they were together. It was as though he had thought he had fallen in love, only to discover he’d actually only been snagged on a branch halfway down and – upon being dislodged – hadn’t stopped plunging since. He never questioned how something so wild and dazzling could simultaneously feel so whole and secure.
Howard had realised, without needing to be told, that it was not the first time Jason had woken in the night. He’d also somehow known it wouldn’t be the last. So he’d promised himself that – even if he could never outright prevent it, even if Jason never told him what was wrong or why it kept happening – he would never feel so powerless against it again. The next day he’d armed himself with knowledge, and, the next time it had happened, Howard had sat up with Jason, quietly reminding him to breathe in deeply and out slowly, once again holding him until it was over. With time had come more rituals, more traditions and techniques. Howard did it willingly and unquestioningly – Jason always had the option to talk, he always had the option to say nothing, the point was Howard was there and he was determined to make sure he never stopped being there, until eventually a time might come when Jason would realise that nothing he said could make him go, because Jason had asked him to stay, and that was a word Howard wasn’t about to take for granted. And finally, one night when Howard had asked Jason if he wanted to talk about it, a quiet had fallen between them and Jason had whispered the beginning of the secret: ‘I have a lot of ghosts from the past who like to visit me at midnight.’ The secrets had been given in fragments and murmurs ever since. Jason would call him and Howard would remind him to breathe before telling him how long it would be before he could get there to hold him, and, if he couldn’t get there, he’d simply stay on the line, whispering advice and nonsense until it was over, sometimes even until they both fell asleep.
That was the way in which Howard had learned a lot of Jason’s darker stories, the ones he didn’t like to be known by. In broken, abstract pieces and ragged whispers and in conversations down phone lines when it had been too much for Jason to be able to get back to sleep. And with every piece Howard was given, the panic attacks had seemed to lessen to the point where they’d almost faded out entirely. Every now and again Jason would wake in the night, but it would all be over before it even began these days – in fact, now, when he woke in the night, it was just plain old bad sleeping, and he’d get up and make himself tea before crawling back to bed in the early hours. Somehow, seeing him like he was now – fragile, ashen and breathing harshly – was more devastating to Howard than any of the times before.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Howard murmured, following the old script so perfectly it coaxed an immediate smile out of Jason, and he let out the smallest, saddest of laughs, briefly burying his face in Howard’s shirt. Howard smiled slightly, crushing him closer to him and giving his shoulders a fierce squeeze.
“Haven’t we been here before, Howard Donald?” Jason managed in a faint whisper. Howard dropped a kiss to the top of his head, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry,” Jason added then. “I just…felt so out of control all of a sudden, like I couldn’t cope and I…I couldn’t breathe. I don’t even know why, really.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Howard murmured, giving Jason another small kiss on his forehead. “Well, not unless you want to apologize for not congratulating me on making it across town in absolute record time,” he added then, his tone suddenly turning mischievous, and Jason sat up, looking up into his face for a moment before both of them broke into soft laughter. Howard quirked an eyebrow at Jason and offered up his hand for a high five, and Jason indulged him, still laughing and shaking his head slightly. They didn’t break the contact, and Jason interlocked their fingers before tucking his head back beneath Howard’s chin.
“I love you,” he said quietly, twisting enough to press a couple of small kisses against Howard’s shirt, right over his heart. Howard smiled quietly, squeezing him tighter and closing his eyes for a moment.
“I love you too.” The two of them fell into easy silence, then Howard pulled back slightly, looking down at Jason and meeting his eyes. “But seriously, Jay: ten minutes,” he said, trying to keep his expression solemn and failing, and Jason laughed, elbowing him harmlessly. Howard couldn’t help but grin, and Jason rolled his eyes at him, settling back into the embrace with a slight groan.
It was an oddly peaceful moment, and Howard knew without having to ask that Jason felt it too. They were content, despite the circumstances, and it reminded Howard of the night Jason had finally told him the whole story of him and Nigel Martin-Smith. After the words and the tears there had come a quiet between them, broken only by kisses and touches.
“I suppose I should offer some sort of explanation,” Jason said quietly after a while, his voice gentle and distant, and his eyes downturned. Howard dropped another kiss to his head, dipping his head and resting their foreheads together.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and nudging his nose against Jason’s, taking a moment to breathe him in.
“Shut up, Donald: you’re dying to know,” Jason told him, his voice crackling with fond amusement. Howard felt the tickle of Jason’s laugh dance across his skin, and when he opened his eyes he was smiling at him, knowing and calm. “But thank you,” he added with a small shrug, his smile turning shy. “For a lot of times, not just this one.” Howard smiled too.
“You’re welcome. Always.” He kissed the tip of Jason’s nose. “So: I’m guessing this has something to do with the fact you’re in the shop alone?”
“What happened to not needing to know?” Jason smirked and Howard pulled a face.
“Smart arse,” he shot back, going in for another kiss and being thwarted when Jason ducked away, smacking him lightly on the chest.
“Do you want me to talk to you or not?” he asked, though there was a small laugh in his voice, and Howard smiled, leaning in to peck Jason’s cheek quickly then leaning back.
“Go for it.”
Jason sighed, reaching for the water bottle again and taking a swig, before leaning his weight back against Howard, resting his head on his shoulder.
“You know I told you I thought Gaz was holding something back earlier?”
“He’s been in touch with Nigel?” Howard guessed. Jason nodded.
“Honestly, it didn’t bother me that much – I mean, I was there too, you know? I’m more than capable of realising that Nigel genuinely cared about Gaz, and the feeling was mutual. Nigel is capable of being awful to people, but if you’re not the one he’s being awful to, he can actually be kind of good sometimes, and I never wanted to police who Gaz called a friend, that was all Nigel’s doing.”
“So?” Howard asked gently, brushing some of the hair off Jason’s face and dipping his head to meet his eyes.
“So…he told me he was in touch with Nigel. And I wasn’t really all that surprised or bothered by it. And then he told me it was Nigel who he’d been talking to the other day; you remember, when he called, questioning everything about himself and about Mark?”
“Makes sense, I s’pose. Nigel got in his head deliberately – it’s got to be part of a game,” Howard surmised quietly. “Same reason he was trying to get me to talk to him about you. He’s trying to create fractures in the group – he wants Gaz and his music back and he wants revenge on you in the process.”
“That’s what I thought. So I told Gaz.” Jason pulled a face. “It didn’t go down so well.” He took another long swig of water and Howard pulled him a little closer. “Gaz turned on me. Told me how the stuff that happened with Nigel was partly my fault: I’m a flirt, I’m a show off, I’m the one who didn’t walk away.” Jason shook his head, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, and Howard felt a flare of protective anger burn hot in his chest.
“Jay – what that man did-”
“I know,” Jason breathed out shakily, cutting him off. “Mostly, I know.” He took a sidelong glance at Howard then, his eyes glassy but full of affection. “Thanks to you, I figured out somewhere along the way that it’s not my problem that my dad walked out and it’s not my problem that Nigel likes to play games and that I really need to stop overthinking every action I make because of things I can’t control. But Gaz is my best friend…and if even he thinks-”
“Don’t,” Howard interrupted quickly, firm but kind. He placed a hand beneath Jason’s chin, tipping his face up to meet his gaze. “Don’t go to that place, Jay,” he said, a little more softly. “Seriously, just don’t – don’t go to that dark place in your head because you don’t belong there, ok?” Jason nodded somewhat unconvincingly, looking down, and Howard watched him with concern.
Some distant part of his brain was firing out signals to him to get up, stalk out and hunt Gary down. He felt fiercely angry at the depth of the betrayal; he couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept of doubting Jason, of all people. Jason was frank and honest and he would bend over backwards for the people he cared about – this was the same man who’d never once asked Gary to cut Nigel out of his life, even after the terrible things the man had said and done. The same man who forgave Gary anything. The same man who never objected to the fact that Gary’s only truly unwavering loyalty over the years had really been to his music and nothing else. He pulled Jason close to him, letting him bury his face in his chest again and drawing in a deep breath, trying to cool the anger he felt, trying to remind himself that Gary was his friend and he was going through something awful too, being manipulated by some idiot from his past into questioning everything, even his oldest friend. But it was too raw, too painful to Howard to see Jason like this; he’d heard Jason’s raspy breathing down the line, heard the genuine fear in his voice. He’d told Howard once that it was as if his past chased him around, waiting for him to slow down for a moment so it could creep up on him in the dead of night, scaring him out of his mind. He should at least have been able to trust his friends to not pounce on him too.
“The worst part was…he’s spent all this time doubting me, on some level. Nigel just brought it to the surface, but it must have always been there, you know?” Jason was speaking mostly into Howard’s shirt, but he was managing to keep his voice steady, at least, and that much reassured Howard a little. “You remember I told you about Nigel showing up at my mum’s house?”
“He told you he wanted to offer Gaz a second chance?” Howard ventured, vaguely recalling the story. Jason nodded.
“Well, I don’t know how he managed it, but I think Nigel must have set the whole thing up.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know…because he’s a bastard? Because he knew he could rely on me to tell Gaz what happened and he could rely on Gaz to be ambitious enough to actually go?”
“Gaz went?”
“Yeah. That was new information,” Jason sniffed, laughing mirthlessly. “I don’t really mind the lie. But what got to me was what Gaz had assumed about me: apparently Nigel didn’t show, and now Gaz reckons I did it on purpose somehow, set him up to fail.”
“What?!” Howard spluttered. Jason shrugged helplessly.
“That’s what he said. He told me…he told me he thought it was my way of ‘saving him from himself’ or something, that he assumed I was trying to hold him to certain standards.”
“I’m going to stuff him inside his favourite fucking piano and not let him out for a month after this,” Howard managed through gritted teeth, and Jason let out a small laugh, leaning back and looking up at Howard with watery eyes.
“Harsh, How,” he said softly and Howard looked back at him, offering him a smile.
“Not from where I’m sitting,” he replied, somewhat sulkily, before kissing Jason’s forehead.
“I’m going on record as being against the plan, just so you know,” Jason told him with a faint smile and a shrug. “Either way: the last I saw of him he was telling me this was all my fault for digging and then storming out the door.” Jason glanced down. “I don’t do so well with people walking out, you know? Bad memories.”
“I know,” Howard said quietly, pulling him back to his chest protectively.
They fell into one of their deep, rich silences – the kind that seemed to fill the air around them, spreading out to create an ocean of calm which left the two of them entirely separate from the rest of the world. Howard could feel the warmth of it lapping at his skin like waves. Light streamed in through the front window, falling in neat, perfect beams across the old wooden floor. The dust motes danced in the air, the light forming a rim of hazy gold around Jason’s outline, and the building seemed to let out a sigh around them.
Jason’s breathing was even and calm, his expression peaceful and content, and Howard was reminded yet again that this man was a jumble of contradictions – he was easy and complex, he was complete and he was broken, he was wild and he was gentle, the centre of attention who was never quite comfortable with all those eyes on him. The man who was always moving, now still and silent in his arms. And all of that – as messy and beautiful as it was – wasn’t really what defined him. Jason was possessed of a rare sort of resolute goodness: he was true to himself and he was true to his word in a quiet, genuine sort of way that those people who he loved felt the full force of. It was incomprehensible to Howard that someone who knew him as well as Gary could doubt that: Howard had started to realise it from their very first meeting. He may not have known Gary for as long as Jason had, but he had at least thought he had known him just as well. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Jason’s soft voice broke into Howard’s thoughts, vibrating slightly against him as he didn’t lift his head from where it was lying on his shoulder.
“Oh really?” Howard asked, sceptical. Jason smiled quietly.
“You can’t get your head around why Gaz is doing this, coz you thought you knew him and now you’re questioning what he’s really like,” he said, shrugging as best he could in Howard’s firm embrace. “But the thing is, How, you don’t know Nigel. I mean, you’ve met him, but you’ve never really spent time around him like Gaz and me.” Jason sighed, turning and pressing kisses into Howard’s shirt once more before pushing on. “He’s got this way of making you feel…just…so helpless, you know? Even with Gaz, that much is the same. And even though you know he’s pulling the strings, you still feel like you can’t stop it – like it’s inevitable he’s going to win but you still have no choice but to keep playing the game.”
“And what game is he playing here exactly?” Howard asked, kissing the top of Jason’s head.
“Divide and conquer?” Jason suggested. He let out another heavy sigh. “I don’t know. I stopped playing his game a long time ago – and I don’t intend to go back to it. It’s bad enough I’ve allowed his voice to stay in my head all these years, without me letting him know it.”
“And yet, from your tone, I’m sensing I’m still not allowed to stuff Gaz in that piano,” Howard mumbled into Jason’s temple, making him laugh. He gave Howard a harmless thump.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I’ve been called worse,” Howard said with a smirk. “Mostly by you,” he added playfully, and Jason sat up, smacking Howard’s arm despite his laugh before slowly falling back down against him and letting him bring him back firmly into the circle of his arms.
After a moment, Jason took in a deep breath, blowing it back out slowly and closing his eyes.
“All I know is that we can’t make every upset in our lives into the end of the world, because when the end of the world does come, we’ll only end up realising we wasted all that time on crying.” Howard pulled back just enough to press a kiss to Jason’s temple, dipping his head in an attempt to meet his eyes.
“You have a beautiful soul, Jason Orange,” he whispered. Jason looked back at him quietly and Howard leant in to kiss his forehead. “Please don’t let anyone tell you differently, ok?” he added in a whisper against his skin.
***
Howard jangled his keys agitatedly as the lift made its slow climb up to the top floor. Jason had insisted he was fine and, though Howard had attempted to protest about not wanting to leave him, Jason had been adamant that he had to shut up the shop and get across to the cafe to warn Mark about the events of the afternoon. In the face of Howard’s protests, Jason had played his trump card: reminding him of what happened the last time he had dared to be late to pick up Grace from school. The warning had worked, and Howard had somewhat reluctantly left Jason tidying up the shop’s small kitchenette, sending out silent pleas to the universe that – for once – Grace would actually not come out engrossed in a conversation with Izzy that she deemed too important to cut short. His pleas hadn’t been heard, though he found it hard to hold it against Grace, who had sensed something was up barely two minutes into the drive home and had got the information out of him barely two minutes after that. He couldn’t help but smirk slightly thinking about it: even if Jason was against a piano-related accident befalling Gary, something told him that Grace would be willing to overrule him should Gary make the mistake of prolonging the fall-out, and the mental image was entertaining.
Howard knew he was being overprotective – he also knew that Jason knew he was being overprotective, only letting him get away with it because he was Howard and he loved him for it. Still, after everything the two of them had been through together, he just couldn’t shake the hangover of nervousness from his head; he felt with great conviction that he would dearly like to erase Nigel Martin-Smith from the face of the earth, along with all the damage he had left in his wake.
He was jolted from his thoughts by Grace suddenly making a grab for his keys, snatching them from him and holding them out of his reach.
“Oi!” he protested and Grace rolled her eyes.
“You were rattling them and it echoes in this lift and that’s annoying,” she shot back.
“Bossy boots,” Howard pouted, and Grace simply smiled back at him, shrugging blithely before turning back towards the doors, just in time for the ping of the lift reaching its destination. Howard could only smirk and roll his eyes as she skipped out, making a rush for the apartment door.
Jason had – as Howard had suspected he would – beaten them home, and when they made it into the apartment they found him curled up on the sofa with his laptop. He looked up at them with a tired but genuine smile, blue eyes catching the sunlight. There was an easiness about him once more, light and colour restored to him almost completely, and as he met Howard’s gaze he seemed to sense the thought, his smile turning mischievous as he quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Did you miss me?” he enquired, and Howard smiled back at him fondly.
“Always,” he replied, his tone striking a balance of honesty and humour that seemed to light Jason up further still, his eyes sparkling as he laughed.
“Good to know,” he replied and Howard winked back at him, shrugging off his jacket and taking Grace’s blazer and schoolbag from her, allowing her to skip across the room and jump enthusiastically onto the sofa. “Good day at school, I take it?” Jason laughed as Grace crash-landed at his side and Grace nodded, beaming.
“Last lesson on Monday is art and that’s my favourite,” she told him excitedly, before suddenly her expression sobered somewhat and she grabbed Jason into a sudden fierce hug. “Sorry about Gary,” she told him earnestly, and Jason chuckled, kissing the top of her head.
“Don’t be. He’ll come round eventually,” he said, glancing at Howard, who shrugged, flopping down the other side of Grace and sighing.
“She’s getting almost as good as you at reading minds,” he explained. “Only difference is she’s a lot scarier: she knows something’s up but not what so she just pesters ‘til she gets her answers.” Grace stuck her tongue out at him and Jason suppressed a laugh.
Howard felt that same easy calm from before returning to him then; the way the apartment caught the late afternoon sunshine and the sound of Jason and Grace bickering made him feel suddenly overwhelmingly at peace and he took a moment to enjoy it, breathing in the familiar smell of home and letting his weight sink back into the cushions. Jason had set his laptop aside, and Howard glanced at the screen out of idle curiosity; an email chain between Jason and Justin was open, Jason’s half-finished reply visible at the top. Howard swallowed down the brief stab of irritation he felt that Jason was still having to deal with so much disapproval from his twin and tried to ignore the slight twinge of hurt he still felt from their argument earlier. He didn’t like knowing that somewhere out on the edges of the world he, Jason and Grace were currently sitting in, bathed in sunbeams, were the storm clouds of a conflict Howard wasn’t sure he would ever be ready to face. He glanced back at Jason, still smiling and content, and it occurred to him just how much he didn’t want Gary or Justin or Nigel Martin-Smith – or anyone – to question that smile or the fullness of it. Jason had no agenda in any of this: he was finally – and completely – happy in a way he hadn’t been for far too long. And Howard couldn’t help but feel there were few people so deserving of that feeling. Jason was a fundamentally good human being, and no matter what other flaws anyone may or may not find in him, that should be what counted the for the most.
“What are you staring at, Donald?” Jason asked, interrupting Howard’s thoughts, and Howard blinked, realising Grace and Jason’s conversation had come to a pause, the two of them looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Howard smiled back at Jason, soft and quiet, giving him a lazy one-shouldered shrug.
“Nothin’.” His eyes sparkled. “Just you,” he murmured, for once not bothering to pretend. Jason’s answering smile was tender and sweet. Howard chuckled self-consciously. “Anyway: what of it, Orange?” he asked, pulling a face, and Jason chuckled.
“Wow, the blunt approach – I like it.” He leant over Grace and pressed a brief, chaste kiss to Howard’s lips.
“Urgh,” Grace huffed, wrinkling her nose.
“Oh, don’t start already – you’ve only been home five minutes and you’re already sick of us!” Howard teased, poking her lightly. “Anyway, if you can stop rolling your eyes at me for ten seconds: it’s my turn to do dinner – any preference what I make?”
“I don’t know if it influences anyone’s decision, but Mark happened to be so overcome with guilt over letting Gary convince him to keep secrets from me that he gave me the last three portions of Stella’s Belgian chocolate brownie free of charge…” Jason put in, waggling his eyebrows and laughing as Grace let out a squeal of delight.
“With the white chocolate chunks?!” she demanded hopefully, and when Jason nodded she let out another squeal, turning to look hopefully back at Howard.
“Well in that case I’ll have to come up with something full of vegetables to justify that much sugar for desert,” Howard said with a laugh.
“Poor, noble Howard Donald, always being led astray,” Jason joked, giving Howard a quick wink.
“We all have our crosses to bear, Jay,” Howard shot back with a grin.
“Actually, technically dad should be noble,” Grace put in, her tone matter-of-fact. Howard and Jason exchanged amused-but-intrigued glances, and Howard leant in, placing a hand to his daughter’s forehead jokingly.
“I’m sorry, was that my daughter sticking up for me?!” he joked, laughing as Grace batted his hand away and stuck out her tongue at him.
“Not for much longer I don’t think,” Jason chuckled.
“All I was saying was that that’s what your name means. Or…part of what it means. We were doing this project in art where we had to find out what all our family’s names mean and create a family portrait using pictures that represented the meanings. It was really fun.” Grace shrugged. “Your name means ‘noble watchman’ – which is really hard to come up with a picture for, just so you know.” She looked up at Jason then, smiling. “Your name means ‘healer’,” she told him brightly. “I think it suits you,” she added with a little nod that made Jason laugh.
“I think I remember my mum telling me that once – which led to a whole argument between her and Justin about the merits of his name meaning something along the lines of ‘righteous’ and whether or not that was actually a backhanded compliment.” Jason rolled his eyes with amused exasperation and Howard chuckled, nodding slowly as he mulled it over.
“I think Justin and me may have found some common ground on that one actually – it does sound like your mum has some explaining to do there.” He reached across the back of the sofa, resting his hand on Jason’s arm and looking over at him with a wry smile. “Don’t tell your mum I said that though: I’m really not ready to lose her as an ally on Team Howard.” Jason smiled back at him quietly, his eyes somehow communicating sympathy and reprimand all at once.
“Hey: I’m Team Howard, that’s all that matters, you know,” he said softly. Howard smiled back at him, wanting to believe that that was enough to make the lingering doubts in his head go away but not entirely sure it was. “And anyway, as my mum pointed out to Justin – she wasn’t really thinking about meaning, she just wanted to come up with a second name beginning with ‘J’ so the two of us would match.”
“Is there a law that twins have to match their names? Because there’s a pair of twins in the year below me at school, and their names match too,” Grace said, tilting her head to one side in genuine intrigue, and Jason laughed.
“No, no law. But I think it’s human nature to like to impose a bit of symmetry on things, sweetheart – it’s our way of trying to make the world seem a little less crazy than it actually is,” he replied.
***
When Gary got in, the flat was in darkness. He’d spent the afternoon driving aimlessly around the city and out into the countryside; driving had long been his go-to method for clearing his head, but sadly today the usually effective ritual had failed him, and despite having churned everything over in his mind a thousand times over he still didn’t feel like he fully knew what it was he felt or how he wanted to deal with it. Jason’s stricken expression briefly flitted into his head – not for the first time since he’d made his swift exit from the shop that afternoon – and Gary blew out a quick, harsh breath, taking a moment to squeeze his eyes closed. He’d gone about everything the wrong way, that much he was willing to admit now: Jason had been right to say he should have just been honest with him about Nigel getting back in touch, and he certainly shouldn’t have let Mark end up so oblivious and inadvertently placed him in the middle of it. But his feelings on the rest of the mess were still tangled and confused; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt simultaneously so lost and so conflicted. And the worst part of it all was that none of the people who he had come to depend on to help him with his problems were going to be able to come to his aid this time – they were all too closely involved. He’d already fought with both Jason and Mark, questioned them both and doubted them both and not eased any of his doubts about either of them in the process, and he knew that treating them the way he had had closed him off from any hope of one of Howard’s blunt, yet strangely insightful, pep talks. He felt a pang of immense regret at that; strangely enough, even though he found himself questioning everything else in his life right now, his friendship with Howard was something he still had total faith in. Howard possessed a certain rough-edged honesty which simply couldn’t be distrusted: he was frank and no-nonsense, and as down-to-earth as they came, and he tended to say what he thought even when most people would shy away from it. His mouth got him into trouble sometimes, but never with Gary – he never quite knew what Howard was going to come out with, but he always knew it would be candid and sincere. It was something he thought he could do with right now. But the other thing that Gary knew resolutely about Howard Donald was that he was incredibly, stoically loyal, and he loved Jason Orange with every cell in his body; that love drew out every fierce, protective instinct the man had. Gary knew he would be firmly on Howard’s bad side tonight as a result, and he suspected he’d get short shrift if he called him asking for advice. Funnily enough, Jason would probably be more willing to give him a pep talk than Howard right now.
Gary flicked on the light and surveyed the living room. In the corner, Cadbury was curled up in his bed, watching him silently. The dog slowly lifted his head, looking at Gary with dark, accusatory eyes: where Jason had Howard to help fight his battles, Mark had Cadbury.
“Not you too, lad,” Gary sighed, crossing the room to give the dog a quick pat. Cadbury simply harrumphed and rested his head back on his paws. It wasn’t outright rejection, but still Gary was somehow sure the dog knew more than he was letting on. Gary straightened up and shrugged off his jacket, glancing around the room. Despite the quiet in the flat, Gary knew Mark must be home: the scarf he’d been wearing that morning had been discarded on the arm of the sofa and his favourite new boots were sitting by the door, and Gary was fairly sure the empty mug on the coffee table hadn’t been there earlier either.
It wasn’t late, but Gary was still more than ready for his bed. With a heavy sigh he headed down the corridor, trying his best not to make too much noise as he nudged open the bedroom door. Sure enough, Mark was there, curled on his side, his back to the door. The curtains were drawn, but not all the way, and the bedroom was lit in a strange burnt-orange hue by the streetlamp outside; there were speckles of water on the glass, a fine Manchester mizzle having broken the dense, muggy air which had blanketed the city that afternoon. For a moment Gary thought he’d got away with returning home undetected, but then Mark slowly rolled over, his eyes shining in the dimness of the room as he looked up at Gary expectantly.
“You took your time,” he murmured sadly. Gary closed his eyes.
“Can we please not do this now,” he whispered. At first there was no reply, and when Gary reopened his eyes he found Mark still watching him, his expression unreadable in the semi-darkness. “Mark…” He trailed off, lifting his arms slightly in a shrug of helplessness. Mark almost flinched, and Gary was briefly able to see the melancholy in his face then – a flicker of a seemingly boundless sadness that went far beyond the events of the day.
“You could’ve called, you know – told me you would be home late.” Mark said, pushing himself up in the bed. He lowered his gaze as he spoke, a tiny frown creasing his forehead. “I was worried – everyone’s supposed to check in these days, but you didn’t pick up the phone when I called.”
“I figured Jay would’ve clued you in; I’m assuming he came to you with his version of events after I left?” Gary said, knowing that the bitter edge to his tone was somewhat harsh but still not quite able to tame it. Mark shot him a dark look.
“Jay’s ‘version of events’? What’s that supposed to mean? Like Jay would ever lie about something like this?”
“Oh spare me the Saint Jay speech.”
“Gaz, he was worried about you. He was upset, you know, but he was more bothered about whether or not you were going to be ok.”
Gary had to admit, that took a little of the wind out of his sails. He knew his anger was misplaced, knew he was being too hard on Jason and definitely too hard on Mark. He just felt so off-balance. Whether or not Nigel’s words had been warranted, he couldn’t deny that they’d unlocked the doubts he’d been trying to keep at bay for years, and now they were loose there was no putting them back in their box, even as he saw the destruction they were reaping around him. He felt helpless and confused and strangely angry; some part of him was resentful of Mark for giving him any leeway to doubt him, resentful of Jason for always being just virtuous enough to encourage everyone to believe him and for always having to be right about things. It wasn’t fair that everything he felt was somehow invalidated by Jason and Mark’s warm personalities – to everyone, the two of them were above suspicion on the simple grounds that they never intentionally set out to hurt anyone. Gary didn’t care about intentions; even good people could hurt others if they were careless enough – or selfish enough.
“Can we please not get into this, Marko…please.” Gary pinched the bridge of his nose, sitting heavily down on the bed, turning his back on Mark’s sad expression. “It’s been a very long day and I’m really tired of being made to feel like I’m in the wrong for just looking at things logically.”
“You made Howard want to commit an act of violence with a baby grand piano – according to Jay,” Mark shot back, letting out a hollow laugh and rolling his eyes. “And I know he can be overprotective, but he thinks of you as his best mate, Gaz, so for him to get that worked up at you I know that you can’t exactly be blameless, you know?”
Gary rubbed his hand over his face, letting out a frustrated huff. It hurt to hear how angry Howard was with him; it was one thing thinking that it was the likely state of affairs, it was another having the suspicion confirmed. “Gaz, how can you seriously be doing this? To Jay of all people…he’s been in your life so long, and he’s always come through when it mattered. How can one word from this Nigel bloke just turn everything upside down?” Mark’s voice was softer now, but somehow the tenderness was worse than the anger.
“It’s not just about Nigel, Marko. It’s about…about everything.” Gary shook his head. “I’m just so tired of playing by his rules – how does that make him any better than Nigel? All this endless expectation of honesty and openness, even when I don’t want to talk about something – all this determination to help me whether I want his help or not. It’s just another way of controlling me: you tell me he’s always come through, but why? Because he’s always known the position it puts me in – as if I owe him my trust because he’s placed himself in some role I never asked him to play.”
“Gaz!” Mark exclaimed, genuine shock in voice. “Jay doesn’t know how to not do stuff: it’s the way he’s built. And he doesn’t ever expect anything in return – you’re family to him, we both are – and Jay just…he doesn’t know how to not be the big brother. Come on, Gaz, you know that – that’s been his whole life, it’s just who he is. If he just want you to be honest with him about stuff that’s going on then that’s just because he’s trying to protect you, you know? He needs to know what he’s dealing with so he can help. And that help doesn’t come with any strings attached, ever.” Mark shook his head, turning his eyes up to the ceiling and letting out a groan of frustration. “You realise you sound exactly like this Nigel, don’t you? Calling Jay out for being a good friend, saying he’s getting some sort of kick out of it and making himself seem superior? Doesn’t that ring a bell?”
“Marko-”
“No, Gaz, you know it’s true! Those are the same things Nigel used to say, you even admitted that much yourself this morning – you can’t turn around and say Jay has some chip on his shoulder when you know as well as I do Jay is the most self-deprecating bastard on the planet.” Mark let out a slow breath, sitting back a little bit, and when Gary glanced over at him he saw how shadowy his normally bright eyes looked. In the strange orange fuzz of the room, his sadness seemed to dance across his face, shifting from a personal sadness to a different kind of sadness, a sympathetic one. Mark cared about Jason deeply, had gratefully accepted his kindness and his protectiveness and his willingness to help; Mark had a genuine love of his and Jason’s long talks and a fierce affection for their frequent sessions of bickering. Mark was grateful for Jason’s role as a big brother in his life; he liked the safety net it gave him. Learning about what had happened with Nigel had hurt him, in part because he wished they had told him the story a long time ago, but mostly because he couldn’t bear the idea of anyone thinking so many untrue things about one of his best friends. Mark couldn’t abide awfulness of any kind, especially not when it was inflicted on those he cared about. He and Gary stared at each other for a moment, both thinking the same thing: whatever you might think of Jason, you could never possibly think he deserved to have been at the mercy of Nigel’s spite.
Mark shifted slightly, pushing himself along the bed so that the two of them were sitting closer. He looked down, tracing patterns on the sheets for a moment before taking a steadying breath. “Look, Gaz, I know you were there, and maybe that makes it harder to take a step back and see the whole picture, but you have to have noticed what that man did to Jay, you know? Nigel stole a part of Jay, with what he did and said – and you can turn around now and say you don’t believe that, but deep down you have to know it’s true, because you’ve known him even longer than I have, long enough to watch it make him the person who he is now. The person who won’t ever be that bloke you first met at that audition ever again, no matter how much he’s managed to piece himself back together over the years.”
Silence fell between them then. Gary could feel Mark’s eyes on him still, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at him. A part of him recognised the logic. Another part of him still couldn’t quite believe that Nigel would have gone to the trouble of seeking him out at Jason’s house just to set Jason up somehow – Nigel had always been good to him, had cared about him and believed in him, it just didn’t make sense for him to turn on him so harshly, especially not since it had cost Nigel a lot to lose Gary from his band too. And yet, Gary had watched Nigel burn bridges in the past, had seen the scorched earth policy he operated by. Jason, on the other hand, had an almost pathological fear of goodbye.
“I still wish you’d told me, you know.” Mark’s voice cut into Gary’s thoughts, taking him by surprise.
“Told you what?”
“About the band, Nigel. Who it was you were going to see and why Jay might not like it.” Mark picked at a loose thread on the corner of the duvet, his face scrunched up slightly. “I wish I could’ve known those stories a long time ago…because you and Jay and Howard have all known and had this piece of the puzzle I wasn’t allowed to share.” Mark gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I wouldn’t have judged you for any of it, you know? And it just…would’ve been nice to have been told.” Gary glanced back at him, and Mark looked up to meet his gaze; his eyes were glassy and tired, and in the dark of the bedroom they shone bright with disappointment. “Maybe then we could’ve talked about it, you know? Got the whole picture clearer in your head before you went to Jay with it, maybe even before you went to talk to Nigel again – it might’ve helped to talk it over properly, with someone who’s enough of an outsider to all that history that they could give a more unbiased look.” Mark chewed at his lip for a moment. “We can still talk about it, if you like,” he offered more quietly. Gary let out a harsh, humourless laugh.
“Oh come on, Marko: we both know there’s plenty of stories you haven’t told me either – and it’s pretty clear by now you’ll never be putting those out in the open for discussion,” Gary muttered. Mark winced and didn’t look up to meet Gary’s eyes.
An uneasy quiet settled on the two of them. The distant sounds of the city at night could be heard beyond the window, muffled and dull; it made Gary feel strangely adrift from everything, detached and overwhelmed by a hollow sort of sadness. There was something about the orange fog of the streetlamp’s light as it focused the shadows and stillness that gave Gary the strangest sense of something being left behind; a memory, a moment, a chance – he couldn’t be sure, but he felt a powerful longing to have it back and the heavy weight of the loss of it pulled his body down. He was anchored in this stillness, this darkness, and though Mark was beside him, he still somehow felt completely alone.
“I don’t tell you my stories because you never ask me to.” Mark spoke so softly Gary had to strain to hear him. “And I worked out a long time ago that you don’t ask because you don’t want to know, in case I don’t match up to the person you need me to be.” Gary flinched, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to protest. He heard Mark let out a half-laugh, half-sigh, and when he spoke again there was a slight catch in his voice. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t try and run from my past sometimes, Gaz. I’m not built like Jay – I hate being broken, I don’t know how to own it. But you run from your past too, you know – the only difference is you don’t ever admit it.” Mark paused a moment, looking away. “You’ve run from it for so long you’ve come full circle, though. And blaming my secrets and Jay’s scars is just another way for you to pretend you don’t have scars and secrets of your own.” Mark’s voice was strained now, and Gary closed his eyes, trying to hold back a mixture of frustration and tears. “You don’t ask questions about anything you think you don’t want to hear, you know? My past, yours…you’re so scared we might both be too screwed up to fit the perfect picture you have in your head and it freaks you out.” Mark sniffed slightly, staring up at the ceiling in an effort to stop himself from crying. “I’m always the one who has to take the blame, though – if I’m not the person you can imagine fitting into that fairy tale picture of love and happiness you have in your head, then it can’t be your fault when things are tougher or don’t work out how you hoped. And don’t get me wrong, Gaz, I try and hold on to that picture too – no one wants to believe there could ever be any awful, broken thing in them that makes ‘happily ever after’ that bit harder. But…Gaz, I just don’t know how much longer we can go on holding our breath this way, you know?”
Gary couldn’t look at him, but he could feel his eyes on his back all the same. The words made him feel uncomfortable and he tried to ignore them, refusing to fully process them: the last thing he needed was yet more opinions in his head, it was too hard to hear his own thoughts already without Mark adding yet more pain and accusation to the tangled heap.
“Don’t try to guilt-trip me right now, Marko, please: I’m just not in the mood.”
“Gaz-”
“Just. Don’t.” Gary spoke with icy calm, a quiet force in his tone that cut Mark off immediately. “You know, I’m not the one who disappears off with old friends to get drunk and not come home for hours – or days. And you know, when these friends of yours show up, I never get an invite.”
“I used to invite you,” Mark told him in a low voice. “You always said no and after a while I got tired of asking – I knew there was no point.”
“Well maybe I got tired of all their stories which would mysteriously finish halfway through and all the jokes that never got explained – there are things I know you’ve chosen to keep from me, Marko, things you wouldn’t talk about even if I asked you to.”
“And there’s part of you I’m expected to never question too, you know – stories I only know because Jay doesn’t realise I’ve not already been told.”
“So we’re back to noble Jason again, are we?” Gary asked, his tone sour.
“That’s not what I meant, Gaz, and you know it!” Mark protested, frustration edging his voice once more. “But since you want to go there: what about Jay?”
“What about him?” Gary snapped.
“He’s told Howard so much. He’s told him every story that he knows has made a part of who he is, even the parts of himself he usually tries to protect, the parts he doesn’t like. The two of them are so sure they’re flawed, and broken, and messy…but when I look at them, all I can see is that stupidly perfect picture that you and me keep trying and failing to achieve.” Mark drew in a shaky breath. “I’m having to try so hard to have an honest conversation with you, Gaz…but I just don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“And?”
“And…it’s scaring me, you know? Out of nowhere today, you turned around and told Jay you didn’t believe in him and the shock of it nearly broke him – the shock of it nearly broke Howard and me! But if you said the same thing to me right now? I don’t think I would be anywhere near as surprised.”
Gary sat in silence for a moment, not looking at Mark. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to clear his head, trying to pretend Nigel’s words weren’t still ringing in his ears and to swallow down the tears that were threatening to overwhelm him.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a horse whisper. He felt Mark moving behind him, and was surprised when he felt his soft, wet lips pressing a kiss to the side of his face.
“I know you are,” Mark murmured into his skin. He wrapped an arm around him and buried his face in the crook of his neck, drawing in a deep breath. “But I also know you’re just not sorry enough to take a gamble and actually believe in me.”
***
Howard opened his eyes and squinted blearily around the room, taking a moment to adjust to the semi-darkness around him. Blushes of white and amber were cast across the ceiling, the city’s lights making hazy half-patterns across the room as they mingled with the moonlight, casting abstract shadows on every surface. Rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn, he lifted his head slightly from the pillow. The apartment was quiet, and outside the night was calm, raindrops drying on the windows, but beside him the bed was empty, and the door to the bedroom had been left ever-so-slightly ajar, letting in a sliver of yellow light from down the hall. He rolled over, reaching across to check the time on his phone. He let out a rueful chuckles, shaking his head. It was always 3a.m. with Jason. He pushed himself up and out of bed, padding quietly down the corridor.
Jason was curled up on the sofa, watching the TV with disinterest, an empty mug balancing next to him on the sofa’s arm. He didn’t look up from the screen, but Howard knew he knew he was there, the small half-smile that had formed on his lips was the giveaway – it was the smile Jason always gave him when he found him in the early hours of the morning.
“If you’re here to ask me if I’m ok, then you should know me well enough to know the answer, Howard Donald,” Jason said after a beat, his voice low and soft, an almost mischievous edge to it.
“I know the answer you’re going to give me,” Howard shot back, and Jason laughed, the sound sleepy, rough and pleasing.
“So why go to the trouble of getting out of bed?” he asked, flicking a glance up at Howard, his blue eyes glittering quietly in the fuzzy light.
“Now who’s asking questions they already know the answers to?” Howard said, his smile soft and sweet as he pushed himself up from where he’d been leaning and came across to the sofa. He bent to steal a quick kiss from Jason before flopping down beside him, slinging his arm along the back of the sofa so that his hand came to rest on Jason’s shoulder. “Outside of this room? You can tell whoever you like that you’re okay as many times as you like, and you know I won’t tell them any different. But here, with me, at three in the morning? All you need to do is be Jay. Whatever that means at this moment. Ok?”
A slow smile coloured Jason’s lips and he twisted his body slightly, reaching over to interlock their fingers. He brought their clasped hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to Howard’s skin and looking up to meet his gaze.
“I love you, you know that?” he murmured, resting his head back, his eyes still intent upon Howard’s. His smile was crooked and honest and he ran his thumb along the back of Howard’s hand slowly. “I think maybe knowing that is exactly the reason why…I actually am ok, right at this moment,” he said quietly, his tone thoughtful. “I won’t pretend – I’m not good at it at the best of times and with you it would be impossible – the way Gaz was talking today…scared me so much. Because it was almost like I was talking to Nigel again, back in that place where every move was wrong and I was never enough. But I know that’s exactly what Nigel wants…he wants me back in that place because back then he had control.” Jason sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. Howard shifted a little closer to him, and in a mirror of Jason’s earlier gesture, he pressed a kiss to the back of Jason’s hand.
“And where does that leave you and Gaz?” he asked gently.
“Where we’ve always been,” Jason said. “Best mates. People with too much history to hold grudges.” He flicked a glance across at Howard and gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “He always needs a project. He always has to have a distraction. Because when he stays still too long he’s forced to look at the real world. And it doesn’t always match up to the world he wants to live in, you know?” Jason closed his eyes again, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Howard squeezed his hand. “Nigel will promise you the earth if he thinks he’ll get something in return. And he knows Gaz well enough to know what his idea of happily ever after involves. So he offers Gaz a part of the fantasy – and he destroys the things in his life which might get in the way of that by pointing out their flaws.”
“So setting you up as the bad guy, making him doubt Mark…”
“All part of some bigger Nigel Plan. I know it. Nigel can sell him the moon and then some: he can talk anything up and make it sound like a good idea, and he can make you believe what he wants you to believe if you don’t go in with a good dose of scepticism. I learnt that the hard way.” Jason shook his head. “You know, a part of me thinks he’s been planning this since the day Gaz walked away from the band: you don’t cross Nigel and get away with it, he has to either leave his mark on you or get the last word. If he can make Gaz hate me and split him up from everyone who might warn him against going back into business with him? He can get revenge and make money doing it. And probably scar Gaz for life in the process.”
“And you think Gaz would really go for it? Work with Nigel again, just like that?” Howard asked, raising his eyebrows. He was close with Gary, and he knew that – for all his determination to succeed with his music – when it came down to it, he wasn’t someone who went in for cold calculation or backstabbing.
Jason bit his lip, considering Howard’s question carefully.
“One talk with Nigel the other day, and he was already doubting everything about his and Mark’s relationship,” he said slowly. “And I know those two have their flaws, I know Nigel couldn’t destroy something that didn’t have any holes in it to begin with – that’s not the point though.” He looked up at Howard, offering him a slight shrug. “I know Gaz loves Mark. I know that, for all their secrets, there is no one either of them would rather share their life with than the other.” Jason’s lips twisted into an expression which was almost wry, and he rolled his eyes slightly. “And I also know Gaz didn’t mean half of what he was saying to me today: it hurt to hear him say it, but…I know Nigel meant something to him, back in the day. He’s being forced to pick sides – and I know how bad that feels, you know? I can’t hold it against him for not coping.” Howard nodded thoughtfully, once more bringing their entwined hands up to his lips and pressing a reassuring kiss to Jason’s skin.
“So what you’re saying is: it’s going to get worse before it gets better?” he guessed. Jason smiled up at him lopsidedly, his blue eyes bright but sad.
“Something like that,” he agreed softly, edging slightly closer to Howard and placing his other hand on his knee. “But it will get better. That much I know. I don’t trust Nigel – but I trust Gaz. He’ll find a way to work it out, with or without Nigel’s help.”
Jason fell silent again, his eyes turning down; Howard watched the way his face fell into shadow and he edged closer, unclasping their hands in order to cup Jason’s cheek, forcing his gaze back up to him.
“Hey,” he whispered and Jason’s eyes met his own once more. Jason offered him a small, tender smile in return.
“Hi,” he murmured back.
“So I’m going to ask again, because I’m annoying and overprotective and I know you too well to be fobbed off: are you sure you’re ok? With everything going on, Nigel sniffing around…are you ok?” Howard spoke in low, firm voice, his eyes studying the sharp angles of Jason’s face. He was so gorgeous to Howard in that moment; the three o’clock in the morning Jason who only he knew and only he loved, whose eyes were intense and whose words were always so softly spoken yet so deliberate. Jason placed his hand over Howard’s own, turning his head slightly in order to place a kiss against Howard’s palm.
“I’m ok, Howard Donald,” he whispered, closing the final gap between their bodies and giving Howard and small, soft kiss on the lips before settling back, resting his head against Howard’s arm with a sigh. “Actually, I’m ok because you’re annoying and overprotective and you know me too well to be fobbed off.” He shrugged. “I was lucky enough to be able to marry my best friend, How. You came along and you loved every daft, broken part of who I am and you never looked at me any differently for any of it. Nigel can’t take that away from me. You proved him wrong: about me, about my life. You changed how I thought about myself and you stopped his voice constantly being in the back of my head.” Jason smiled quietly up at Howard, blue eyes sparkling. “Nigel can say what he likes about me and think what he likes about me and he can try every trick in the book to try and ruin my life. But I’ve got you. And besides, we’ve got through bigger storms, you know? What’s a little more rain to you and me?”
Chapter 7
Nigel’s office was cold. Literally. An air-conditioner was humming softly to itself above, and Gary shivered slightly, rubbing on his arms. Everything in the space was hard and cruel, with cut-glass, chrome and too-much leather mingling to make a dark, uncomfortable space which Gary couldn’t ever imagine himself working in. He thought of the shop; warm, jumbled and creaking, full of people and dust and books. He shivered again and bit down on his bottom lip. There was nothing in the space to distract himself with – the closest thing to a personal touch in the room was a plastic plant in the corner, although Nigel’s desk was stacked with papers and files, just enough to give off the illusion of someone running a complex-but-efficient empire. Gary felt out of place; he didn’t want to be here, he wasn’t even sure if he ever had. And yet he’d still come. Tuesday at ten, just as requested – he felt as though he were being tugged on a string in Nigel’s wake. Bobbing about, rattled and powerless as he lurched towards a destination unknown.
The door opened abruptly, and Gary jumped. Nigel didn’t even look at him as he entered, his mobile still clamped to his ear as he crossed over to the desk and took a seat. It was well over twenty minutes later than when he’d told Gary to meet him, but who was counting? Not Nigel, clearly. He raised a dismissive hand at Gary by way of a greeting, before turning his chair slightly to return to his phone call, leaning in to look at something on his computer screen. Gary looked down at the ground, listening to the agitated clicks of the mouse as Nigel shook his head in a slow, exasperated fashion that Gary couldn’t help but feel was partly for his benefit. Such a busy man, he was, so good of him to make time for Gary – right? Gary knew he could slip away now, avoid whatever game it was Nigel wanted to make him part of and just go back to his life the way it had been before that man had walked back into it. But he also knew that walking away wouldn’t make that sick feeling in his stomach go away. He would still have those wispy, pervasive doubts about Jason in the back of his mind. The clunkier, heavier ones about Mark. And there would still be the question about what could have happened if he’d just stayed with the band all those years ago. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes a moment, listening to but not processing the sharp, clipped words Nigel was giving to whoever was on the phone. The only clear thoughts in his head were ‘I shouldn’t be here’ and ‘But I couldn’t not be here’.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Gary.” Nigel’s voice took Gary by surprised, and he blinked up at Nigel in bewilderment. The other man’s face was pinched and tight, his blue eyes cool. He wasn’t even a little bit sorry. “Business. You know how it is: you can’t trust anyone to do anything properly.” He gave Gary a thin, grey smile and leant forward, his hands clasped in front of him. “So, you decided to come and see me after all?” He attempted to arch an eyebrow, but the skin of his face was so stretched it barely moved. “I bet that went down well with our old friend Jason.”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Nigel?” Gary shot back, his voice tired and dry.
Something flickered briefly in Nigel’s beady eyes, and Gary knew he’d been read; a calculation was already being made in Nigel’s head, a plan mapped out on how best to handle that glimmer of brokenness Gary had just inadvertently revealed. He sat back a little, unclasping his hands and opening his arms in an expansive gesture.
“You didn’t have to come here, you know, Gary,” he said through a brittle smile.
“Didn’t I?!” Gary barked, a humourless laugh in his voice. He winced inwardly at the bitterness in the sound. Nigel’s face twitched again, something resembling amusement flitting across it before he quickly smothered it, shrugging casually.
“Well I don’t see a gun to your head,” he remarked, looking Gary up and down thoughtfully. “But since you’re here, you could at least hear what I have to say – don’t you think?” he added then. Gary clenched his jaw, attempting to keep his gaze steely as he met Nigel’s eyes. “I’m only thinking of you, Gary, whatever Jason might try telling you.”
“Can you please leave Jay out of this, for once?” Gary snapped. Nigel’s lips twisted up at the corners and Gary rolled his eyes, looking away. “This isn’t about Jay, ok? And Jay told me he didn’t care whether you and me were still in touch or not, if you must know. What went on between you and him…I wish it had just stayed between you and him, instead of the two of you dragging me into it all the time.” He drew in a deep, fortifying breath before looking back up at Nigel. “What is this about, Nigel?”
“I’m worried about you, Gary. I want to help you, I want to show you the way you’re going right now isn’t the only way to get where you want to go. I care about what happens to you, Gary. I want to see you succeed. And I don’t think Jason – or that boyfriend of yours – are the answer.”
Gary swallowed, nodding and looking down again. The real question he wanted to ask was ‘Why now?’ – but a part of him already knew the answer: because now was convenient for Nigel, because no one could sniff out an opportunity the way Nigel could and because no one had ever denied Nigel as many opportunities as Gary had the day he’d picked Jason’s side. “You are a brilliant songwriter, Gary Barlow. You have an undeniable talent. But unlike Jason Orange? You have absolutely no instinct for self-preservation.” Nigel’s voice was quiet but firm, and Gary had to work hard to avoid his piecing gaze. “I made a mistake, the first time around – I tried to find a group of lads who each had their own talent and ambition and I forgot that a good band needs more than that. Chemistry, Gary. That’s what works: on a stage, in an interview – people like to see friendships, a band of brothers.” Nigel shook his head slightly. “I should’ve known better: I thought your songs alone would be enough but I forgot I needed the band to hold long enough to get those songs out there, get you all a bit of success to stop you falling out with each other. I would keep that in mind this time around, Gary – I would find you people who were willing to be mates with you, who wouldn’t drive you away.”
“Jay didn’t drive me away,” Gary murmured, eyes turning down. “And I have mates already; ones who didn’t have to audition for the part.” Nigel waved a dismissive hand and rolled his eyes. “Jay has never driven me out, even when he should’ve done,” Gary added more quietly, delivering the statement mostly to his hands.
“Jason Orange was smart enough to realise the songwriter was the one with all the power and made the most of the situation,” Nigel told him and Gary scrunched his face up in confusion.
“And what situation was that, exactly?” Gary asked, looking back up sharply and meeting Nigel’s eyes. The other man faltered for the first time since he’d entered the room, and he quickly glanced away, his thin lips curving down at the corners.
“Gary, I doubt Jason has ever made a friendship in his life he couldn’t find some benefit to himself from. He’s a manipulator, Gary: he has a chip on his shoulder and he thinks he can make all the rest of us give him what he wants by trying to keep himself one step ahead.”
“Nige, that’s not Jay; you know that’s not Jay. Jay is a cocky bastard sometimes but…he likes people, he gives people a chance to be his mate no matter how bad a start they get off to. He listens to people, even when everyone else is putting someone down. And back then…you were the one with all the power – not me, definitely not Jay…you were our manager, you were in a position of authority over all of us-”
“I did what I thought was right by all of you, Gary. I sunk all my money into you boys – it was in my interests you succeeded.”
Gary studied Nigel’s face for a moment, trying to find some clue in it. But there was nothing. He wasn’t answering the question Gary had asked and he never would, he was too clever for that. And wasn’t that incriminating enough? He thought of how clearly Jason had always answered the questions Gary had asked him about those days, how he’d always looked him in the eye as he spoke and frowned at every flaw he found in his own logic, shaking his head like he thought he deserved to be doubted. “This isn’t about Jason Orange any more, Gary. This is about you. Your life. What do you want it to look like – who do you trust to help you find it.” Nigel had regained his composure, and was leaning forward again, his blue eyes intent upon Gary’s bowed head. Gary squeezed his own eyes shut for a moment, and when he opened them again he lifted his head to meet Nigel’s gaze. “I’ve told you before, Gary Barlow: you have something special about you. You could take over the world, with the right people around you.” Nigel shrugged. “I’m honest about what I want out of you, Gary. I always have been. There’s nothing worse than someone you can’t trust. And maybe you’ll hate me when it’s over, but we’ll both be very wealthy men with very happy careers behind us. No lies, no guilt trips; just success and an early retirement.”
The two of them watched each other in silence. Somehow Gary knew he’d given too much away; in something he’d said or done, or perhaps just by coming here at all. He swallowed hard.
“Why now?” He finally managed to get the question out, but the victory felt hollow. His voice was faint and uncertain; he couldn’t stop giving himself away, it would seem, and there was an almost-smile in Nigel’s eyes. Gary cleared his throat and pushed himself up a little in his chair. “You could’ve come and found me any time – if you believed in me half as much as you say you did, you could’ve stopped those other lads from making my life hell. You’ve could’ve found a new group, you could’ve got me to stay.”
“Gary,” Nigel said, his voice saccharine and placating, his arms outstretched once more. “I didn’t have the money to start over with new lads – I took a risk, I let you go. But I never forgot you. And now, now I have the money and the time-”
“When I went to stay with Jay you came and told him a place and time that I could meet you and we could put it all behind us, you told him you wanted me back in the band – clean slate. That was a chance when you could’ve got me back, if you’d told me yourself when you saw me coming back.”
“I know that was a mistake, Gary – but I wasn’t sure if you would listen to me. But I suppose Jason didn’t much care for the plan and warned you off it?” Nigel asked, though the look on his face suggested he thought he already knew the answer. Having information Nigel didn’t was a novelty for Gary, and it restored a little courage to him.
“He told me to go for it. He told me I should go for it.” Nigel masked it well, but Gary caught the brief flicker of surprise on his face – and perhaps there was just a slight edge of panic there too, the sense of a man who always had a trick up his sleeve suddenly having to come up with a new plan on the spot. “I was the one who said I wouldn’t go,” Gary told him, and Nigel’s eye twitched. Gary was the proverbial kid in the audience who’d spotted the false-bottom in the top hat and Nigel found he could no longer stick to his script. Gary glanced away, a frown creasing his features as he took in another deep breath. “But I did go. Just like you wanted me to. And no one was there. So I went back home and I never told Jay and I tried not to think about it for so long.” He regarded Nigel out of the corner of his eye. “So tell me honestly, if you want me to trust you so much: did you ever have any intention of showing up that day? Or did Jay just give me the wrong time and place?”
There was that look on Nigel’s face again: as though he was trying to do a very complex sum very quickly in his head. And then – slowly enough that Gary could see it happening – the gleam in his eyes returned, and he sat back in his chair with a practiced smile. Gary felt ill, and he suddenly realised he really didn’t want to know the answer to the question after all. There were only two outcomes, really: he’d either doubted Jason for nothing for all these years and helped Nigel hurt him all over again, or his best friend was a liar who’d cheated him out of his big break. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he felt sure Nigel could still read him too well to be fooled.
“I’d forgotten all about that day,” Nigel said slowly, looking down. “God.” He shook his head in a show of sadness that almost convinced, but there was a brightness in his eyes which Gary didn’t think he should trust. “The honest answer, Gary, is that it isn’t something I’m proud of – it wasn’t my finest hour, I’ll admit.”
“What are you saying, Nigel?” Gary asked, his voice shaking a little. Because he knew what Nigel was saying, really, and he couldn’t quite bear the thought of it.
“I’m saying, Gary…that I made a mistake letting you walk out of that band. And even though there was a part of me that knew I should ask you back…a part of me was angry at you-”
“So you didn’t show up?! You just left me standing there, thinking my mate had lied to me?” Gary demanded hotly. Tears were prickling the backs of his eyes and he blinked them back desperately; Nigel couldn’t see him cry, not after this. Oh God, Jay. He pushed himself up from his seat abruptly, causing Nigel to stand too, offering out his arms in a gesture of appeasement.
“Gary! I was angry! I felt like you’d betrayed me when you walked away, I felt like I’d lost you. I was sure you wouldn’t even have gone to meet me anyway.”
“No,” Gary said forcefully, setting his jaw firmly and glaring across at Nigel with as much determination as he could muster, trying hard not to let the lingering flickers of uncertainty show. “No, you don’t get to rewrite history this time, Nige. You left me standing there, and you gave up on me, because you wanted to hurt me the way you felt I’d hurt you by staying mates with Jay – and now that you’re looking for a new project, you’ve come back into my life thinking you can just pick up where we left off. And it’s not happening. We are done. I’m done.” He swallowed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. It felt like there were bands around his lungs, tightening relentlessly. “I’m done.”
He shook his head and pushed his chair back, looking over at Nigel for a moment, his expression helpless and disappointed. “I never thought, for one moment, you wouldn’t come. And I honestly never thought you’d play with my life like this.”
“Gary-”
“I’m done, Nigel. It’s over: game over. I don’t want to play with you anymore. All you do is meddle, and lie, and turn people’s lives upside-down so you can get your own way. I should never have trusted you, I should never have believed you over Jay.” He winced. He was sure he shouldn’t have revealed that particular piece of information – perhaps it was the one thing he should have tried not to reveal above all else. Nigel’s ice-blue eyes lit up for a split-second. He was always information-gathering, Nigel was: he’d been the same way back in the day too, Gary remembered that, even when they’d been at their closest, that glint in his eyes had always unsettled him. He shook his head again and turned away, heading for the door.
“If I’m such a liar and a cheat, Gary Barlow, then why did I tell you the truth about that day?” Gary stilled. He turned slightly, glancing back at Nigel over his shoulder. Nigel shrugged. His demeanour had changed suddenly, and there was a slight smile on his reptilian lips. “Surely that would be the thing to lie about, if I was so calculating and cruel. Surely it would serve me better to lie about not meeting you that day than to tell you tales about your bandmates, or your boyfriend. Don’t you think?”
Gary shivered. He couldn’t bring himself to move. That sick, uneasy feeling had returned to the pit of his stomach. The bands around his lungs tightened. And Nigel Martin-Smith stood at his desk with a thin, dry smile on his lips and a gleam in his eyes. “I didn’t ask you to come here today to rake over old memories, Gary. I asked you to come to talk about your future.” He shrugged. “If I’m the Big Bad Wolf, Gary Barlow, then how come I’ve been upfront with you about all my mistakes, swallowed my pride and come and found you?”
“I don’t need to listen to this,” Gary muttered, shaking his head, though he didn’t turn away.
“Whether you work with me or not, I think there’s actually a lot of reasons you should listen to me. Starting with those bandmates of yours, actually.”
“You know nothing about them – you have no right to start getting in my head, telling me stories about how Jay is too full of himself. Jay has done nothing but be my mate, he’s never asked for anything in return and he’s never held any of my screw-ups over my head later: because no matter what you say about him? Jay has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to the people he cares about – that’s the part of him you always overlooked because you were too busy treating him like he was just another pretty face for you to push around.”
“So maybe Jason isn’t the problem. This time.” Nigel shrugged, as though the admission were nothing, as though he’d never said a bad word about Jason Orange and Gary’s friendship with him in all his life. Gary spluttered out a humourless laugh.
“So who is then? Howard?! That bloke’s honest as the earth.”
“And a good DJ too, apparently. I’m happy for the two of them – they make quite a handsome pair up in that DJ booth I suppose. Showy, but not bad to look at. If you like that sort of thing,” Nigel said, his voice a sneer and his smile faltering for a moment. Then he raised his eyes back up to meet Gary’s. “But really, I never thought they were the problem. Howard clearly doesn’t need you to succeed, and Jason doesn’t have what it takes and he knows it. Besides, he found a new talent to piggy-back with his DJ.” Nigel smiled again, coolly now. The expression seeped into his pinched face slowly and Gary felt like he was going to throw up right there. Because Nigel only smiled like that when he knew he’d won. “That boyfriend of yours, on the other hand: the total package. I’m surprised the music industry hasn’t snapped him up. And what do you think it is he needs, Gary? Other than a nice warm body to come home to each night?” Nigel smirked. “Or maybe we should talk about what stopped him making it when he was younger – what he might have been busy doing, and who he might have been busy doing, that might have stood between him and being the cutest pin-up nineties pop could’ve dreamed of?”
“Stop,” Gary pleaded, closing his eyes tight.
He shouldn’t have come here. Jason was right: Nigel was playing a game and Gary knew he was in the centre of it, but he had no idea how to get out. Nigel laughed, the sound jagged and cold, and he flicked his eyes across his desk, searching a stack of papers before finding what he wanted and brandishing it like a trophy. He waved the large, brown envelope in Gary’s direction, coming around his desk and holding it out to him.
“Mark Owen has quite a colourful past, you know. Messy too. Musical, though – and he has a lot of friends from those days, and they’re every bit as musical too.” Nigel waved the envelope again, raising his eyebrows at Gary expectantly and gesturing for him to take the envelope from his hands. “I own a studio space, you know. In the Salford area: bought it before the prices went up. I’d make a lot of money selling it, but I prefer to keep the studio going – stay in touch with the industry a little.” He tipped his head to one side, eyes glittering at Gary sharply. “I don’t suppose you know of a bloke called Ben Mark, maybe?” Gary felt the colour drain from his face and he met Nigel’s eyes fearfully, nervously. Nigel’s smile was as cunning as it was patronising. “Jamie Norton, perhaps?” he added. Gary shook his head – in disbelief rather than denial – and Nigel stepped closer, pressing the envelope to his chest and holding it there. “Take it. Look what’s inside. And ask yourself what Mark Owen might be doing in recording space, with two musician friends and without you.”
As Gary bewilderedly took the envelope, Nigel stepped away, shrugging blithely and sitting back down at his desk like he’d just handed Gary the day’s paper rather than a live grenade. “You know my number, Gary. When you’ve decided our next move you call me. I’ll get a head start on the paperwork; I’m sure those boys in your band will sign when you explain to them the opportunity on offer.” Nigel glanced back up, his smile disconcertingly bright. “Jason and the husband will be no bother. But I imagine you and your boyfriend will want to talk it all over before anything is signed. I can assure you, though: you will have the moral high ground on this one.”
***
There was something glorious and wild about the sight of Jason Orange walking towards him, framed by hazy gold sunbeams, smiling warmly and holding a to-go cup of his favourite coffee blend. Howard’s breath caught in his throat when he looked up and saw him. Jeans, a crisp, dark blue shirt, smart, tinted aviators and a lopsided smile. He looked like pure light itself. He cocked his head slightly, arching an eyebrow, and Howard recovered himself when he saw the look of challenge dancing in Jason’s eyes, only just visible behind his shades.
“Morning, gorgeous,” Howard said, his voice rough and genuine. He leant his weight back slightly then, folding his arms, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “What time do you call this, though?” he demanded, and Jason narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, removing his shades and tucking them into the neck of his shirt; he scrutinized Howard’s face for a beat, his expression all warning, but the corners of his lips quirked up, betraying him.
“Watch that mouth of yours, Donald, or no cinnamon roast with an extra shot for you,” he retorted, waving the coffee cup enticingly and laughing as Howard made a grab for the offered drink like a man possessed. Jason’s reflexes, however, were slightly quicker, and he quickly moved a step back, holding the drink just out of Howard’s reach – he was smirking still, and Howard had to work hard to suppress a grin of his own, forcing his lips into an exaggerated pout and attempting to bat his eyelashes at his husband, who rolled his eyes fondly and finally handed over the coffee cup, watching with amusement as he took a delighted gulp of the coffee and then looked back over at him with a smirk.
“See, I know you, Jay: you love this mouth of mine,” Howard said over the rim of the cup, his voice low and his tone devilish. Jason simply shook his head, glancing down in an attempt to hide his smile.
Howard chuckled, taking another gulp of the coffee and sighing contentedly as the liquid warmed him from within. He let out an almost-hum. “God I love you right now,” Howard all but moaned. “I so needed this.” Jason laughed again, his head tipping back this time as he swung around to lean next to Howard on the shop’s counter like it was a dance move. He bumped their shoulders.
“Only right now?” he asked, leaning in, and Howard met the look, a grin forming on his lips once more as he winked back.
“What can I say? I like to keep things interesting,” he shrugged. Jason quirked an eyebrow and Howard leant in, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Hey: you’ll always be in my top ten favourite people though.”
“More romantic words were never spoken,” Jason remarked with an airy sigh, and Howard chuckled as he saw the light which danced in his eyes. “Good job I love you too really, isn’t it,” he added then. “Or who knows how far out of the top ten I might slip?” Howard smiled, shrugging in a poor attempt at nonchalance as he took another sip of his drink.
With another small shake of his head and an affectionate smile, Jason pulled himself up to sit on the counter, his shoulder still brushing Howard’s. Howard could feel the muscles of his arm, firm and warm against his own. “So, your daughter was safely delivered to the school gate. With only seconds to spare – might I add – because, in a bid to win an award for just how much she takes after her father, she forgot her homework and we had to turn back five minutes into the journey…”
“That’s my girl,” Howard joked and Jason laughed, rolling his eyes in a show of despair.
“You shouldn’t be so proud of that, you know?” he pointed out with a wry grin. “I hope ‘I swear I set off in good time’ is written on the Donald family crest.”
“Right above a picture of a watch that’s five minutes slow,” Howard shot back with an unapologetic smile. Jason couldn’t help laughing once more, tipping his head back in an effort to squash the amusement. “Good job it was you dropping her off and not me: we would’ve never made it on time if I’d been there too,” Howard added then. Jason nodded.
“Of course – the sacred law that two members of the Donald family can never reach their chosen destination on time unless they travel separately.”
“Or unless they bring you,” Howard grinned. Jason chuckled, tilting his head slightly in order to regard Howard out of the corner of his eye.
“I knew there was a reason the universe brought us together.” He sighed in that put-upon way of his that always made Howard laugh. “Although, I’ll be honest: I was struggling to come up with anything myself.”
“Because I needed someone to laugh at my jokes?”
“No one should ever laugh at your jokes, Donald.”
“And yet you still do.”
“I’m a hopeless case.”
“You’re wonderful.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Jason asked through a half-sigh-half-laugh. Howard shrugged, casual and content.
“More romantic words were never spoken,” he murmured in reply, his voice rough and soft as he tipped his chin slightly and met Jason’s eyes. His smile was wolfish and delighted as he took in Jason’s expression – caught off guard in a small, fond smile – and his eyes sparkled bright. “And you thought I didn’t listen when you talked.” Jason’s smile turned lopsided as he leant into Howard’s body slightly, laughing. He smelt like burnt toast and fabric softener, like Sunday mornings.
“You’re a menace, Howard Donald,” he mumbled into Howard’s shoulder, and Howard’s smile was soft and tender as he shrugged just enough to force Jason’s head back up. The two looked at each other for a moment in silence before finally Howard broke the spell, leaning in to steal a kiss – long and fierce – and when he finally pulled back he met Jason’s gaze again, his eyes shining.
“For the record: you really are wonderful.” He leant their foreheads together, smiling fondly at the slight look of confusion on Jason’s face. He stole another small, chaste kiss from Jason’s lips. “You’re wonderful,” he whispered earnestly. Jason’s lips twisted into the smallest, shyest smile Howard had ever seen.
The two of them drew apart suddenly at the sound of the shop’s bell, and Howard grimaced at the jarring feeling of the silence being broken. A sliver of space opened up between him and Jason as Jason leant backwards, unfolding his body slowly and giving himself just enough momentum to leap gracefully down from the counter. He spun away from Howard with a low, soft laugh, flashing him a conspiratorial wink before propelling himself forwards into the other room. Always moving. “Sophie! What can we do for you today? More piano workbooks or are you looking for something different?” His voice was bright and clear and charming as he folded his arms, leaning in the archway like he’d been poured into place. The consummate professional in a heartbeat. Howard chuckled softly, shaking his head and leaning back to watch Jason go, his smile incredulous and reverent.
Jason moved like no one else; his body was like music, graceful and rhythmic. For a moment Howard found his mind wandering back to sitting on the sofa with Jason that morning at 3am, to watching him stretch out his body and sigh, like he was shaking the ghosts off his shoulders, his smile brilliant and quiet as he’d pulled himself closer to Howard’s body. Jason, as ever, capable of being so simple and so complex all in the same moment; eyes closed and smiling like nothing in the world had ever hurt him, voice soft and gentle as he whispered ‘thank you’ against Howard’s skin. Howard didn’t know why Jason always thanked him – after all, he knew he reaped the rewards of keeping Jason safe from the shadows. He was the one who got to feel the beat of Jason’s music, got to watch him twist his body against his own and laugh and wind their fingers together like it was choreography. He thought of the way Jason had kissed his skin and pulled him close, thought of the slow ebb and flow of his movements as he silently tugged Howard back to their bed. Like the rest of the world didn’t exist – like he had no history, like he had just appeared out of the early morning darkness one day and started to dance. Howard would fight a hundred ghosts to see that. And it occurred to him, dimly, that he didn’t care what Justin said as much as he’d thought he did. Not when he got to see Jason like that. Not when Jason was glancing back over his shoulder at him now, that same quiet smile on his lips. When Jason was dancing – in early morning haziness or in late morning sunbeams – Howard was content. He felt peaceful in that moment. And from the glint in Jason’s eyes as he looked back at him briefly, he knew he knew it too. He felt it to.
Howard stayed at the counter for a minute or two longer, even as Jason turned back to his customer and followed her off between the shelves. Jason was all light and teasing charm as he spoke to Sophie – one of their regulars who had a not-so-secret crush on Jason that Jason was too polite to draw too much attention to. Howard bit back a chuckle as he heard Sophie’s shy laugh in response to one of Jason’s jokes, and he tipped his head back, letting out a long, happy sigh. It wasn’t as though everything was ok – it wasn’t. But he and Jason were in it together; there was always light and music and hope tied up in that knowledge, Howard thought.
By the time Jason had finished talking Sophie through the shop’s latest delivery of piano workbooks, Howard had migrated to the shop’s kitchenette, where he was leaning back against the counter and waiting for the kettle to boil. As he looked up at Jason they shared a smile, Jason almost chuckling from the warmth of it. He stretched and hopped down into the room. “Sophie greeted, assisted, sold to, charmed and dispatched with a kiss on the cheek in less than ten minutes,” he announced, grinning as Howard nodded with considered approval.
“Good timing: tea’s almost ready,” he offered by way of a response, nodding his head towards the kettle. There was a slight twinkle in his blue eyes and Jason smirked at him. As their paths crossed the two exchanged a casual high-five-low-five, quick and perfect, before Jason spun around and jumped up to sit on the counter beside where Howard was leaning. “What a team,” Howard joked lightly as Jason bumped against him affectionately, and Jason smiled back, lifting one shoulder in a lazy shrug.
“I don’t know: you should see me and Mark when have the shop to ourselves. We run like a dream.” Howard arched an eyebrow, shooting Jason a sceptical look as he turned to resume making the tea. “Do you ever wonder if I married the wrong bloke, Howard Donald?” Jason teased. Howard chuckled.
“The last time you two were here alone, Mark knocked over the guitar picks box and forgot to ask a customer to pay…and didn’t something happen to Gaz’s favourite piano?” Jason suppressed a laugh, tipping his head in agreement.
“Mark spilt a mug of tea over it. Gaz nearly a had a heart attack when he got back…” He paused for a moment, as though lost in thought, a slight frown creasing his features. “In Mark’s defence, he wouldn’t have spilt the tea if one of the customers hadn’t knocked the drum kit over.” Jason flicked a glance up to meet Howard’s eyes, finally breaking into a soft laugh. “It’s still one of the best days I’ve ever had in this place, though,” he added. “But when it comes to teamwork? Just to set the record straight: it’s always been you since the moment you walked into this shop and told me I could call you whatever I liked,” he said, his voice a little quieter. “I can’t resist that kind of offer,” he added.
“Banter,” Howard joked, glancing down with a shy smile. Jason chuckled, nudging him softly. They looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes, both smirking slightly.
“Banter takes rhythm, Howard Donald.”
“Well you’ve always had rhythm, Jay. No one could ever keep up with you.” Jason leant in, his eyes still focused on Howard as his smile grew intense.
“No one ‘til you.”
Howard grinned and glanced away, busying himself with making the tea in an effort to brush off the shiver that Jason had sent down his spine. Jason watched him in silence for a moment before shaking his head slightly and leaning back with a soft sigh. “I stopped by Stella’s on the way over,” he remarked after a beat. He smirked at Howard’s pointedly raised eyebrow. “Hey, no remarks about covering my shift: I could’ve told you to drop your own daughter off at school, you know. Her school isn’t that close to my dentist – and you have yet to compliment me on my perfect teeth,” he retorted, giving his teeth a quick flash for good measure and making Howard laugh. He shook his head, turning round and handing Jason his tea.
“Shut up and drink this god-awful herbal crap I made for you,” he shot back. “You’re forgiven for leaving me alone to cover your shift for five whole extra minutes, I suppose – if only because I can’t say no to that perfect smile,” he joked, rolling his eyes in a show of exasperation. He leant back against the counter and crossed his legs at the ankle, looking up at Jason from the corner of his eye. “How was Mark anyway?” Jason smirked, taking a sip of his drink and then giving a small shake of his head.
“Nice save, Donald,” he teased, before letting out a sigh.
He leant back, taking a moment to consider the question. “Mark was ok. Well, no, he wasn’t ok. He was…pissed off, mostly. Gaz left this morning before he was up – he assumed he’d come to open up the shop, but when I told him you hadn’t seen him either he scrunched his face up into the closest thing to fury I’ve ever seen on his face.” Jason shook his head again and took another long sip of his tea. “It takes a lot to make Mark Owen that angry, you know? I don’t know what those two talked about when Gaz got home last night, but I don’t think it ended well. Especially since Gaz isn’t answering his texts, apparently.”
“You ever wonder what those two would be like if they actually talked things through?” Howard queried with idle interest. Jason took a moment to consider the question, his tea cupped in both hands. He rested his chin on the rim of the mug and sighed, looking into the middle-distance.
“Married,” he declared at last. “Living in London. Three dogs. Successful songwriters slowly making a name for themselves in the mainstream media thanks to some sort of ‘behind the scenes’ style TV show Gaz secured for them through a network of contacts who trust him implicitly. Definitely a lot of awards to show for it all.” Howard raised his eyebrows, surprised.
“Wow, you really have thought about it.” Jason smiled wryly.
“You know me, How. Dancer. Smiler. Daydreamer…Over-thinker.”
“I know you, Jay,” Howard agreed softly, leaning in to press a kiss to Jason’s temple. “Through rainstorms and ghosts: I know you and your mad, beautiful mind. Always.”
***
Gary had always had a vague understanding that Mark Owen wasn’t like most people. He held endless, dark oceans inside himself. Dying stars, glittering universes. Infinite depths of black holes and stardust. He was full-up on the inside and painted bright on the outside, and you could see both sides of him most clearly when he smiled. He was a quirky, complex thing.
Gary was fairly sure he had no oceans inside himself. No black holes. No quietly dying stars and no glittering universes. Mark Owen had the lot; he’d exhausted the world’s supply of wonder and absorbed it into his soul, leaving nothing behind for Gary Barlow. What Gary had always had was projects. Aims. Tangible dreams. No universes spilt out of him when he smiled, but he had always had great universes he’d been aiming towards; he tried to keep his focus on where he was going, kept that light glinting in his eyes. He was a solid, determined person who liked to keep his feet on the ground. Less dangerous that way. People who held oceans and universes inside their bodies were capable of anything, after all – they were liable to shoot off in directions that couldn’t be planned for, and there was no keeping their feet on the ground, not even if you held onto their legs.
He hadn’t gone to the shop all day. He’d considered it. Got as far as Oldham Street and sat in his car for a while, trying to force himself to move. He’d seen Howard arrive to open up, and as he’d watched him he’d felt the sense of displacement acutely. He was still and silent and he didn’t belong here, not even at his own shop. And it had been Nigel’s words which had come back to him then, the ones he’d said as Jason had disappeared into the night with his bloodied lip and his determination to never come back: “You don’t belong in his world, Gary Barlow. And he doesn’t belong in yours.” Maybe that was why he’d decided to go to Nigel’s meeting after all – to get some answers, to see if Nigel had been right all those years ago. A part of him wished he’d made a different choice now, as he glanced across at the envelope sitting beside him in the passenger seat. Still unopened. Still taunting him with secrets and possibilities. Nigel obviously didn’t think he belonged in Mark Owen’s world either – Gary was inclined to agree – but what secrets could possibly be hiding in that envelope that meant Mark didn’t belong in his world either?
Mark and Jason had both tried to get in touch with him over the course of the afternoon, texts and missed calls piling up on his phone’s screen. Howard was tellingly silent. Howard was such a gentle soul, but he loved with a fierceness that was formidable – Gary knew he would come to feel the loss of that protection more keenly in time, but in that moment he was too numb to notice it. The only feeling which could penetrate the fog he was in was the sensation of that envelope burning his fingertips as he picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It had been playing on his mind since the moment Nigel had handed it to him, even as he’d walked out of the office and back to his car, even as he’d told himself over and over in his mind that he wasn’t going to let Nigel win by actually looking inside. He’d kept telling himself he wouldn’t look, that it didn’t matter, that Nigel had already planted too many doubts in his mind to be given the chance to disrupt his life any more. As he’d driven out of Manchester and out onto the motorway, he’d started to list all the things he’d ever heard Nigel say about Jason and all the reasons he should never have listened to them. Yet here he was now, in an empty corner of a service station carpark, turning that envelope over in his hands. Ready to let Nigel influence his opinion of another of the people most dear to him.
And the thing was, Mark Owen held endless, dark oceans inside himself. Dying stars, glittering universes. Infinite depths of black holes and stardust. He was capable of anything, liable to shoot off in directions that couldn’t be planned for – and there was no keeping his feet on the ground. No matter how tightly Gary had tried to hold onto his legs. Some part of him had almost expected to have that fact thrown back in his face one day, and it seemed like Nigel would be the one to finally do it.
***
“How would you rate me?”
“How would I rate you?”
“Yeah, you know; scale of one to ten.”
“Is there any specific criteria I have to work on, love, or is this just a general assessment?”
“Just on general amazingness and all-round greatness.” Jason finally looked up from checking the till’s cash draw against the shop’s sales book, quirking his eyebrows at Howard and smothering a laugh.
“General amazingness and all-round greatness,” he repeated dryly. Mark suppressed a laugh.
“Feel free to go up as high as a hundred if you don’t feel like ten is quite enough to capture it,” Howard shot back, leaning back on his hands and batting his eyelashes at Jason mischievously. Jason shook his head slightly as he looked back down at the sales book and resumed his task.
“I’d give you a five at best, love. And there are some days you’d be lucky to get a three out of me,” he said, the very corners of his lips quirking up into a smirk, though he kept his eyes focused on the book in front of him.
Mark bit back another laugh as he caught Howard’s eye; Howard was waggling his eyebrows, a gleeful, impish look in his eye. Suddenly, he pulled himself up to sit on the counter, reaching around to grab the book out of Jason’s hands.
“Ok: new criteria,” Howard declared, unflinching even as Jason narrowed his eyes at him, letting out a sigh which was somehow despairing and affectionate all at once. For a moment the two men stared each other down – Jason folding his arms and Howard holding the book out of reach – and Mark glanced between the two of them with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Howard arched an eyebrow, licking his lips slightly, and Jason narrowed his eyes even more. “Go on: rate these lips and don’t even lie,” Howard challenged then, pointing to his lips as he pursed them into an exaggerated air-kiss. You had to know Jason’s face pretty well to see the laughter he was biting back – Mark caught it, but only just, spotting the brief glint in his eyes as he leant forward ever-so-slightly, bringing his face close to Howard’s as though to accept the kiss. Howard’s face lit up expectantly and Jason almost smiled.
“Piss off, Donald,” he murmured then, just before their lips could touch, following the sentiment up by quickly and breezily snatching back the sales book, plucking it from Howard’s fingers with one hand whilst giving Howard a light push away from him with the other. Howard broke into a laugh as he fell back, and a smile curved Jason’s lips for a moment, even as he shook his head and turned back to the till, slamming it closed and locking it for the day. “I’m going to tidy up the kitchen. Make yourself useful and pull down the shutter out front and then we can go,” he said, dodging around the counter and turning on his heel to blow a kiss back to Howard, winking before he swept out of the room. Howard grinned, pretending to catch the kiss and then shaking his head, chuckling softly.
“See, Marko: that right there was me winning,” he said in a hushed, conspiratorial tone, pushing himself up off the counter.
“No it wasn’t, Howard Donald!” Jason called back and Howard laughed, his grin wide as he winked at Mark and pushed himself away from the counter. He was still chuckling as he headed outside.
Mark leant back on his hands and let out a soft sigh as the door closed behind Howard. He’d come to the shop after his shift in an effort to distract himself, but he was starting to realise that the shop was probably the worst place for him to be; there was just too much in its atmosphere. It made him think too much. It made him feel too much. Too much history weighed the air down. Memories, jokes and nonsense danced in the dust motes, banter and music hummed in the silence. And Howard and Jason cluttered up the air with their easy bickering and uncomplicated smiles. Mark loved them too much. But he wasn’t sure if he loved Gary too much or not enough. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sound of cupboards opening and closing in the kitchenette as Jason tidied up for the day, the rattle of the shop’s shutters as Howard tugged them down. And then he felt the buzz of his phone in his pocket and he jumped. His breath hitched slightly as he looked down at the screen – the feeling of relief flooding into his system jolted him and he practically jumped off the counter. Finally a text from Gary: can you get home so we can talk?
***
The flat was cast in the dim grey hues of early evening, and the air was cool and quiet. Mark found Gary at the kitchen table, a mug of long-cold tea cupped in his hands – he didn’t look up when Mark appeared in the doorway, but Mark could see the slight stiffening of his spine which told him he knew he was there. For a moment he waited, shoving his hands in his pockets and biting awkwardly at his lip, watching the top of Gary’s bent head anxiously. There were some papers spread out on the table, a mix of documents and photographs and a battered looking CD case; Mark barely gave them a glance, too distracted by the heavy weight of the silence he was being greeted by.
“Gaz?” he ventured nervously. Gary winced at the sound. Mark swallowed. “You said you wanted to talk…?”
There was another pause, and for a moment Mark thought Gary was going to carry on sitting there, staring down into his tea as though he wasn’t even there. But then he lifted his head, blinking slowly, as though he’d been woken from a deep sleep in the middle of the night.
“Gaz, are you ok?” Mark asked gently, stepping further into the room.
“Am I ok…” Gary repeated quietly, rubbing a hand over his face. “What do you think, Marko?” he asked, his tone clipped and tired. Mark’s forehead creased into the smallest of frowns. He had a sick, uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach; he felt lost and uncertain, unable to understand Gary’s mood and not knowing how best to try to reach out to him. Some instinct was telling him to tread carefully – he had the strangest feeling he was walking into a trap, but he still somehow knew he had no choice but to keep walking forwards, as though he’d already chosen his path without realising and now there was no way back.
“You know, Gaz, I might know more about how ok or not you were if you’d actually bothered to go into the shop today,” Mark pointed out somewhat defensively. Gary barked out a laugh.
“Oh, that’s rich: we all know you come and go from your place of work as you please! And not always to come to the shop either – how many times have I popped over to the caff and they’ve told me you’ve just left with some friend I didn’t even know was in town?” Mark blinked, bewildered.
“Where’s this coming from, Gaz? What does it matter how I manage my shifts at work? Howard’s always subbing for Jay at the shop, and how many times has Jay covered for you without warning?” Mark laughed, shaking his head in frustration and turning away, throwing his arms up in frustration. “Isn’t that the reason for this whole mess anyway? You walking out on work to go meet your old manager without telling any one of us what was going on?” He stilled then, a piecing clarity filling him instantly. He turned back to Gary slowly and studied him for a moment, and from the way Gary glanced down self-consciously, Mark knew he was right. He shook his head, in frustration as much as disbelief. “That’s where you went this morning, isn’t it? You went back to see Nigel again – that’s why you’re in a mood with everyone because Nigel’s filled your head with more poison.”
“This isn’t about Nigel,” Gary snapped. Mark rolled his eyes.
“Oh I know it’s not about Nigel – it’s about Jay and me and Howard and how none of us are good enough for you and we’ve all ruined your life and held back your career.”
“Don’t be a drama queen, Marko – that isn’t what this is and you know it.” Mark simply shrugged.
“I’m being a drama queen when you’re the one who’s sat in the flat looking ready for a fight?” Mark swallowed hard, trying to keep down the frustrating mixture of hurt and anger building up in his chest. He blew out a breath. “Nigel or no Nigel, I know enough to know what you’ve been getting at with me and Jay these past few days, you know? It’s about how you’re absolutely sure you deserve something more. We’re the ones who don’t match up to you, rather than it being a case of the real world just being kind of shit compared to the way you dreamed it. I’m the one who’s broken. Jay’s the bloke who took your career away. Nigel’s just the way out – the proof that Gary Barlow can have the world if he just wants it hard enough and throws enough of the deadweight away.”
Gary flinched and looked away, rubbing his hands over his face and letting out a small growl of frustration.
“Look, this isn’t just about Nigel anymore, ok? I said it and I meant it: this is more than just a Nigel thing. This is about everything – it’s about me and us and the music and everything, Marko. This is about everything. And maybe I shouldn’t have trusted Nigel as much as I did, maybe I shouldn’t have let him get in my head and get Jay hurt in the process. I know I shouldn’t have said those things to Jay and I would give anything to go back in time and change the moment I let myself doubt him. But I can’t. It’s done. It’s over.” Gary swallowed, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath before looking back over at Mark again, sadness and anger in his eyes as he met Mark’s gaze. “But you know what? At least I know where I stand with Nigel. At least he owns up to who he is, to what he is. He doesn’t lie to my face and try and pretend to be something he’s not.”
Mark felt his skin go cold and his breath caught in his throat. He turned more fully, looking carefully over at Gary, his eyes wide and distraught.
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Pretending to be something I’m not?” Gary looked down, unable to hold Mark’s gaze. Mark felt suddenly dizzy, though not the sort of dizzy where he felt he might go over any moment, more the sort of dizziness where it felt like the whole room might just spin off into the atmosphere any moment and throw him down. “How am I lying to your face, Gaz? Why would I want to?” Gary huffed out a laugh, shaking his head and rolling his eyes like Mark had asked him some wildly obvious question. That was when Mark finally looked properly at the papers spread out on the kitchen table.
Taking a step forwards, Mark picked up a print-out of what looked like a sign-in sheet and leant in close to study it. He could feel Gary watching him out of corner of his eye, the scrutiny hot and uncomfortable on his skin, but he tried to push it out of his head, focusing instead on trying to process the information in front of him. It was a sign-in sheet for studio space, and after a moment Mark realised why he recognised the logo: it was for the Salford studios which one of his best friends worked at regularly as a session musician, somewhere Mark had spent a lot of time over the years, hanging around and mucking in with bits and pieces when he got the chance. He ran his eyes quickly down the names, and a sick, angry feeling came over him as he saw three signatures he recognised all too well. He glanced up at Gary, frowning, before looking back down at the other papers. There were studio notes there, some of which he recognised as being in his own handwriting, and in amidst some more poor-quality photocopies of worksheets and paperwork, he spotted prints-outs of grainy CCTV images from in and around the studio space, each depicting Mark with Jamie and Ben, the three of them laughing and joking together, working together, even talking together outside on the studio steps. There was a higher-quality picture of Mark standing smoking outside the studio, his guitar case on his back. Mark put down the sign-in sheet and reached for one of the photos: Mark sitting on a small, squashy sofa with a guitar in his lap, Ben sitting beside him, both peering over something being shown to them by Jamie, their expressions intense. Mark knew when these photos had been taken. “Have you been following up on me?” he asked Gary slowly, looking up, his usually bright eyes now hard and cold. Gary looked back at him with fierce intensity, raising an eyebrow.
“Why, Marko? Should I be?”
“Tell me you’re joking,” Mark said with a rough, nervous laugh, tossing the paper back down onto the table and letting it slide back across to Gary, stopping only when it bumped against his arm. Gary shook his head, clenching his jaw as though trying desperately to restrain his temper. He shrugged, meeting Mark’s gaze.
“I don’t know – maybe it is all a joke to you: why else would you be sneaking off to a studio space with two of your best mates, working on music that was started by my band?”
“Sorry: your band?!” Mark spluttered, disbelieving, but Gary didn’t flinch.
Mark ran a hand through his hair, letting out yet another humourless laugh as he looked despairingly up at the ceiling then back to Gary. “Since when were we your band, Gaz? And since when was what I worked on with Ben and Jamie some big secret? I told you Jamie works down at the studios in Salford – I always tell you when I go down there. I’ve even invited you a couple of times, not that you’ve ever come.” Mark shook his head, throwing up his arms to emphasise the point. “God, Barlow: Jay’s even come over when I’ve been there sometimes and brought me coffee and asked to look at what I was working on. He’s even brought How and Grace over before: Grace put her voice on one of my songs once.” Gary was looking at him with a scrunched-up expression that seemed to be as angry at it was confused, and Mark realised immediately that Gary either didn’t believe him, or didn’t want to. He felt desperate and hurt – all he wanted to do was shake him, ask him if he really thought so little of him, but he fought to keep a hold of his frustration and tamp it down,. “Did Nigel tell you all this? Is this where this stuff has all come from?”
“So what if he did, Marko? You can’t lie and tell me none of it happened: Nigel owns those studios, I’m sure this isn’t the only evidence he can get a hold of.” Gary bit his lip and looked down, his face fixed into a furious frown. “You know, I never thought you’d do this. You of all people: I thought when it came to music, it was the only thing we had going for us where we actually seemed to function like a team.” He looked back up at Mark from the corner of his eye. “But you decided to use me instead. And you know what? I should’ve known. That many half-finished stories and unexplained jokes…there had to be something you and your mates were all hiding.”
“Oh no: no you don’t, Barlow – don’t try and start all that stuff again. I told you last night, I wanted to tell you some of that stuff, you just made it clear you didn’t want to know, that I was on some sort of probation where I couldn’t be anything less than Bubblegum Owen all day, every day: sunshine and rainbows only, in case you don’t fit into Gary Barlow’s love songs when you let him in on the fact you’re broken.”
“Don’t try and turn this around on me, Marko: I’ve listened to the recordings you know.”
“What recordings?”
“These.”
Gary picked up the CD case which had been sitting on the kitchen table in front of him, throwing it with force in Mark’s direction. Mark only just managed to catch it, looking down at it in confusion, his brow furrowed. There was a tracklist written on the disc in Sharpie, and Mark regarded the track names for a second, trying to decipher which of the three might be the cause of Gary’s bitterness. Then he spotted it. ‘Track 3: Hold On’. He smiled sadly, shaking his head and rolling his eyes skywards before tossing the CD box back down onto the table. He spun on his heel elegantly, flopping down into the chair opposite Gary’s with a dry, brittle laugh, tipping his head back.
“God, and, you know, if you’d just come to the shop Saturday morning instead of going to Nigel – behind all our backs, just so you remember – then you would’ve known I was going to work on that track.” Mark shrugged, smiling a strange smile that was both angry and placid at the same time; the pain, he realised, had become so great, his whole body had gone numb from it. Self-preservation was an amazing force, he thought. “I told Jay when he came into the shop, you know. He said to go for it – that we were getting nowhere with that chorus and a fresh set of eyes would be great for it. Jamie really helped out, and I wanted to get his ideas down on the track before I forgot the thread of it; you know, use the moment? I was going to show it to you after. And for the record also? That second track was one of my own: no input from you, just some suggestions from a couple of my musical mates who I was getting to catch up with for the first time in ages. Or don’t you recognise Ben? From the tour? I ran out to meet him during dinner the other night: when I came back in I told you I’d got him to spend his day off with me and Jamie at the studio.” Mark closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, realising for the first time that he was in danger of crying. “But why would you remember – you were so out of it that night anyway,” he sniffed, rubbing a hand over his face.
When he opened his eyes again, Gary’s head was bent – he couldn’t meet Mark’s eyes. There was a chance he was close to tears too, Mark realised, but the thought somehow just made him feel worse. “Do you love me?” Mark asked suddenly, his voice meek and scratchy. Gary winced slightly, but he didn’t look up. “Do you love me, or do you just love the idea of me?” Mark swallowed down a lump in his throat, turning his eyes down to the floor and trying hard to keep his voice level. “Am I just some manic, crazy little cartoon who came along and loved music as much as you did and made you laugh by talking too much about stacked heels and scarves? Because if that’s what I am to you, Gaz, then I think we’re both way too far down the wrong road, and maybe it’s time we both just stopped walking and went home.”
Gary was quiet for a long time. Mark glanced up at him, but his expression gave nothing away, and he still couldn’t look him in the face. The kitchen was lit gold by the evening sunshine, covering everything in a hazy glow; it almost made Mark feel as though they were suspended in the thick summer air, spinning and missing each other like stars on a child’s mobile, turning in perfect synchronisation, forever chasing at each other’s shadows.
“So what does that say about whether or not you love me?” Gary’s voice was a low, rough murmur, but, as softly as he was speaking, Mark still started at the sound. He became very aware of the feel of his heartbeat in his ribcage. Gary looked up at him at last, his sharp, determined eyes unusually distant and quiet. It was Gary, but left out in the sun too long; faded, fraying and fragile. “I mean, since we’re being honest here, right? Since we’re talking. So talk to me, Marko: tell me whatever it is in your past that I’m missing that makes loving me – but not all of me – ok. Because I’m not the only one guilty of that and you know it.” Gary shrugged. “Or maybe you could try telling me what part it is I’m missing that makes stealing my music ok, how about that? What part is it that makes going behind my back with people I don’t know ok.”
Mark simply stared at him, blinking. Something inside him crumpled; he could feel his heart free-falling from its place in his chest right down to the pit of his stomach. He felt a tear escape, rolling slowly down his cheek – this time he made no move to stop it.
“What are we doing here, Gaz? What is this – you know?” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and hardly noticing as yet more tears fell. “The day I first came to Oldham Street, I remember you standing in the door of the shop, just listening to me play all my songs. I played ones I’d never played for anyone before, because I didn’t want to play you anything twice – I didn’t want you to get bored, I wanted you to keep standing there, watching me play.” Mark let out a small, watery chuckle. “Jay told me later that you’d drove him mad for weeks after that, singing my songs and nothing else round the shop the whole time. He said your eyes lit up when you’d heard me sing because it didn’t sound like anything you’d heard before – and because it was the sort of song you didn’t think you were capable of writing yourself.” Mark smiled lopsidedly. “You fell in love with my music before you fell in love with me: I’ve always known that, you know? I just always told myself it didn’t matter – that’s Gary Barlow, it’s always music with him, just like it’s always rhythm with Howard and Jay. I told myself I thought I was built the same.” He took a deep breath. “I guess I should’ve thought one day you’d turn around and say it was the other way around, I guess I should’ve…I should’ve known how crazy it would make you that I had a world of music inside my head that was just my own, that I had stories to tell you couldn’t tell for me. You fell in love with my music first, Barlow: and you know the daftest part of that? That’s where you can find all my secrets. All my broken, stupid pieces. All that darkness you’re so afraid of now, all those stories you think I’m hiding. I told you who I was the day we met. But I guess I should’ve demanded the same in return, because right now? I’m pretty sure I don’t know you at all – that I’ve never known you.” Mark met Gary’s eyes, and though he was still crying he felt a little stronger – finally strong enough to push himself to his feet. “I’m just starting to wonder, Gaz, you know? How I could love someone who’s always so cold, how I could love someone who sees everything as being black or white and nothing in between.” His voice cracked on the words, and he sniffed again, and this time he tried to brush away his tears. “But I do love you, you know. I love you so much it’s like I don’t know what to do with it – it’s too big to fit inside me and I don’t know what to do about it, how to cope. And those songs? The ones you’re saying I stole? I wrote you into them. Because that’s the only thing I’ve ever known how to do with things that big. I wrote you into all of my songs since the day we met.”
“But how was I supposed to know?” Gary burst out suddenly, getting to his feet and throwing his arms out in a plea. “How was I supposed to…how am I supposed to know?” he asked again, his voice softening slightly with emotion. He shook his head, attempting to blink back tears of his own. “How am I supposed to know?” he asked again in a murmur, looking at the ceiling for a moment before finally looking back into Mark’s eyes, offering him a helpless shrug. “You’re always pulling away at the last moment, you’re always moving.” He swallowed. “How am I supposed to know when every time you turn around, it’s like there’s this whole new side of you I don’t even recognise?”
“You don’t recognise what you don’t want to see – in case it makes you see those flaws in yourself,” Mark whispered, looking down. “You don’t want to love in thunderstorms and broken glass. You want a million love songs and butterflies.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, steeling himself before meeting Gary’s eyes once more. “And the worst part, the part that hurts the most? It’s that, right now, in this moment, even though you’re looking at me and thinking ‘Maybe there’s some truth in that’, it’s still not enough to make you think for one second that this isn’t still somehow my fault. Deep down, you don’t believe in me, Gaz. You didn’t believe in Jay, so why should I be any different? It’s all got to be black and white in your world; day or night, right or wrong. All or nothing. You can’t believe in anyone who might be broken – nothing they do can ever be whole. Not even how they love you.”
He’d wanted to say something. The way Mark had looked at him – imploring some kind of denial or defence – had made him want to say something. But he’d just felt so empty. His skin felt raw and his throat felt dry and there was nothing left. Not even a shred of a song. For the first time in his life, his mind had been completely and totally quiet. And Mark saw it – Gary could see the exact moment he saw it, could see the slight curl of his lip and the sudden spark of anger in his eyes.
“I’m done, Gaz. I’m done.” He’d shaken his head, standing up and backing away from him like he was disgusted. “Do me a favour: when you put this into you first single with Nigel, don’t try and make it sound like I was the one who went and broke your heart,” he’d said through gritted teeth before spinning on his heel and storming out of the room. It had taken Gary a long time to bring himself to move. Strangely, whilst his body felt light and hollow, his head felt like it was made of lead, and lifting it took all his strength. When he finally pushed himself up from the kitchen table and made his way out into the lounge, he’d found Mark moving round the flat like a whirlwind, throwing things into an overnight bag and swiping angrily at the tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Where are you going?” he managed at last, his voice croaky and uncertain. Mark didn’t look at him, simply brushed past him on his way back down the corridor.
“What’s it matter, Gaz? Do you want me to give you a full report on who’ll be there and what song ideas they might give me in the process?” he asked, sullen but sniffling as he turned into the bedroom.
“It’s not like that and you know it, ok? I just…you have so many friends and so many secrets and…and you have so much music inside you…and you don’t tell me where it all goes. You don’t even tell me where it all comes from. It just pours out of you like it’s never going to stop and…I don’t feel like that, Marko. My music…I’m terrified, all the time, that it’s going to stop, that if I don’t keep hold of the pieces of it I have then maybe I’ll never put it together enough to make it.” Gary raked a hand through his hair, feeling desperate and helpless and still not entirely sure how it had all got this far. “It’s all I know for sure that I have, ok? And I spend a lot of my life chasing after the pieces I’ve left behind, the pieces other people leave behind. I live in fear of finding out that I don’t have all those pieces – I’ve never had the luxury of giving myself away the way you do.”
“Giving myself away?” Mark echoed. He stilled, turning from where he’d been rooting around under the bed amongst his shoes and looking up at Gary slowly. “You say that like there’s a choice – every time you write a song you give a piece of yourself away, Gaz. Every time you make a friend or spend a day with your family. Every time you fall in love.” He laughed softly, pushing himself to his feet. “And maybe I’m not saving myself enough, not keeping enough back for any one person to hold on to. Maybe that’s my trouble – maybe Jay’s right, maybe I give too much without checking the cost. But what I do know is that I would’ve tried to show you the world if you’d asked me to, I would’ve poured it all out onto you if you made me think for one moment you wanted to know…I would’ve given you whole universes in a night if I thought it would make you love me. If I thought it would make you lose yourself – lose control – long enough to see what we could have together if we just tried.” With a flourish he turned back, leaning down and grabbing the first pair of boots he could lay his hands on. He snatched them up and whirled round on his heel, stalking past Gary without meeting his gaze. Gary followed the sound of his voice back down the corridor and into the lounge. “And you know, Gaz, do me a favour, ok? When you go and you write down every word of this conversation in your notebook tonight, make sure you don’t take credit for any of the parts that were mine, ok? Since that’s how this works. Don’t plagiarise – but get a song out of it whatever the cost.” He threw the boots into his suitcase and looked up, meeting Gary’s eyes. He was crying still, but his expression was firm and determined. “You’re supposed to give it all away, you know: that’s how love works. You give until there’s nothing left. You fall ‘til there’s nowhere left to fall. And you just…you hope those arms are going to catch you. You believe those arms are going to catch you, when it matters.” He shrugged, a lopsided smile suddenly lighting his face. “I mean, look at How and Jay, you know? They’re so…crazy. And they’re so ok. The sky was falling around their ears and everything was on fire…and they made it out.” The smile vanished, and his eyes turned down to the floor, one tear escaping and rolling down his cheek. He sniffed. “Now look at us: the sky is falling and everything’s on fire. And you’re standing there, convinced I’m the one with the matches.”
***
The evening air was cool and hazy, with a certain summer stillness that made everything seem heavy and bright. The late evening sunshine was pale and soft, glimmering and winking down the street and making pretty shadows across the buildings. Mark squinted up into the light, allowing his vision to blur into smudges of gold light and rainbows through his eyelashes. He shivered slightly, turning to glance back at the flat. He thought he could make out Gary’s silhouette in the bedroom window, but it was hard to tell in the thickness of the evening air and he quickly turned away again, swallowing down the lump in his throat. And then the sound of a car cut through the peace, and Mark looked across towards the end of the street, a great weight of gratitude threatening to overwhelm. The tiniest of smiles briefly flitted across his lips as the car pulled up in front of him: Jason, top-down, shades on, music playing softly in the background.
“Need a lift?” Jason asked, his voice low and calm, his expression kindly neutral. Mark wanted to throw his arms around him for that, for that understanding pretence of normality and for the unquestioning way he’d come when he’d got Mark’s cryptic call. How anyone could ever resent Jason for that instinctive protectiveness he had was beyond Mark – he’d always wanted someone like that in his life, always suspected he needed that to stay sane. Jason wasn’t just the perpetual big brother, he was more than that. He was the 3a.m. friend who would always pick up the phone and show up where you told him you needed him to be. He was the guy who would bail you out of jail as easily as he would agree to buy the next round of drinks. He would patch up cuts and bruises, fight your corner unquestioningly, and never forget your birthday, and, most important of all, he would never ask for an explanation as to why you ended up broken down on some country lane at three o’clock on a Monday morning, or how you locked yourself out of the house, or got cuts all over your face or became involved in a bar brawl in a town you’d never been to before. If you needed help – needed to be saved or mended or stuck up for, if you needed a listening ear or a loyal sidekick, needed a laugh or to have your tears dried, even if you just needed to see a friendly face – you called Jason, any hour of the day or night. And Jason always came: if you needed something from him, in Jason’s world, that was it, you just…needed it. No questions. No judgement. Not even any pity or anger or barbed remarks about the time of day – not unless you looked like you were in need of the banter or if it was well beyond time for some tough love.
Mark had called Jason on instinct, asking for a lift and a bed for the night. Jason hadn’t even hesitated – he’d agreed to pick Mark up like it was the most normal thing in the world, pausing only to ask Howard if he minded taking over cooking dinner. He hadn’t asked Mark why. He hadn’t pointed out that Mark had his own car, or that he had plenty of friends with far more room to put him up for the night. He’d just told him he’d be there in about half an hour, and then he’d come. “Come on, stick your bag in the back and we’ll get off,” Jason prompted softly, and Mark blinked, focusing back on his friend’s face. He’d hooked his shades into the neck of his shirt, and his expression seemed more tender without them – he had some of the most expressive eyes Mark had ever known, and he managed a smile when he met their gaze.
“Thanks Jay,” he murmured, leaning across to put his bag on the back seat. He paused, looking back at Jason thoughtfully. “For everything, you know?” he added then. Jason gave him a small, conspiratorial smile.
“It’s what I’m here for, Marko,” he told him with a shrug. And, Mark knew, it really was that simple to Jason. “Now get in: How’s in charge of dinner, which means he’ll eat it all himself if we’re not home soon,” he added then, eyes twinkling, and Mark was surprised to find himself managing a laugh as he opened the car door. He shook his head slightly, falling back gratefully into the passenger seat, a tiny smile still on his lips. Jason flashed him a wink and restarted the engine.
It was only as they were driving away that the exhaustion hit him, and he suddenly became hyper-aware of the weight of his limbs. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, taking in the feeling of the light evening breeze on his skin. His hair fluttered, tickling him, and beside him Jason was silent, allowing him his peace, the only sound the roar of the road beneath the tyres and the disjointed strumming of a guitar coming over the car’s speakers. The song was mellow and sad and something about it calmed Mark, squashing the nervy feeling in his chest. He felt less like he was about to cry now, but perhaps he was just too tired. In the back of his mind, he could still see Gary’s face, the look he’d given him when he’d come home. As though they’d just been two strangers all this time. And Mark was starting to wonder if maybe that really was all they were to each other after all; his whole world, as steady and secure as it had seemed just one week ago, was suddenly foreign to him, people’s pasts spilling out into the open and changing his perception of everything.
He opened his eyes, glancing over at Jason. He felt his stomach drop as he thought of all the things he had gone through, all the ways he’d been formed into the beautiful soul Mark loved so dearly. But his sadness was tinged with anger. Gary had kept that from him – had kept a part of Jason from him, and not even because Jason had wanted it that way. He knew Jason, he was sure of that, but thanks to Gary he couldn’t help but feel some piece of that friendship that he’d always believed to be so complete – so total, so brotherly – had been missing the whole time.
“What was nineteen-year-old Jay like?” he asked suddenly, his voice soft and rough. A lopsided smile formed on Jason’s lips. He thought for a moment, keeping his eyes on the road, and Mark took the opportunity to study his face. He took in the familiar, sharp angles of it, trying to pick out which parts of it belonged to the Jason he’d first met and which parts came from the Jason of all those years ago. The one who’d danced every night ‘til no other dancer had the stamina left to keep up with him. The one who’d joined that boyband and befriended Gary. The one who got backed into a corner by Nigel Martin-Smith and still didn’t give in. Jason caught his eye for a second and he gave a small, one-shouldered shrug.
“Mostly the same as this Jay,” he replied quietly. “Probably more selfish. Definitely more of an attention-seeker,” he added then, his grin lighting up his face for a moment. “And although Howard would make some crack about ‘How is that even possible?’ despite having no room to talk himself? Definitely cockier too,” he said, rolling his eyes before blowing out a long breath. “Less afraid of people. But learning fast,” he murmured after beat.
Mark watched Jason’s face, and he saw the sadness in it. Jason was so strong in Mark’s eyes. So full of love and kindness and so determinedly loyal. Where Jason saw fear, Mark saw the bravest person he’d ever met: someone who got back up, even with the scratches still raw on his face, and came back every time with more love, more kindness, more loyalty and more compassion. He was neurotic and maddening. But he was funny and clever and charismatic, and he still lit up when you put him on a stage, even if he doubted that light more now. He hadn’t hidden his darkness inside himself the way Mark had, he’d let it smear and smudge across his face and worn it like war paint; he was covered in mud but still dancing, Mark was spotless but frozen in place. And Mark was about to say it all – to try to tell his friend just how much he saw in him – but when he glanced back at Jason again he caught him smiling quietly, and Mark realised that it didn’t need to be said. “It doesn’t change anything, you know,” Jason said and Mark smiled back at him faintly, giving him an almost imperceptible nod. Somehow, Mark realised, Jason had always trusted him to know him, even if Gary hadn’t. Mark tipped his head back against the headrest.
“Okay,” he said with a slow, sleepy nod. “But that’s not the most important part,” Mark added then. Jason raised his eyebrows, glancing at Mark expectantly. “Did nineteen-year-old Jay still make the best cheese toasties known to man? Because that’s what I need to know, Jay,” Mark said, opening one eye to look over at Jason again, flashing him a bright smile. Jason laughed softly, his eyes twinkling in a way that lifted Mark’s spirits more than he’d thought was possible.
“I’m wounded you’re even asking: some of us are just born with talent, Marko,” he joked, his tongue briefly poking out of the corner of his mouth as he licked his lips, his expression mischievous. “Mum’s recipe. I was the only one of any of her boys that listened though,” he added. Mark smiled, closing his eyes again for a moment and sighing.
“Well then I know I would’ve liked nineteen-year-old Jay,” he said thoughtfully. “But I’m glad I got to know this Jay. Our Jay. That makes me happy, that does,” he added more quietly.
Mark caught the small smile on Jason’s lips, and a brief smile flitted across his own face. The two of them fell into an easy silence once more, and though Mark could feel Jason glancing at him thoughtfully now and again, he was grateful that he still didn’t push him to talk. The sun was dipping lower in the sky, casting everything in shades of blue and amber and making the air feel cooler and lighter; Mark watched silently as the city flitted past his eyes, letting the breeze ruffle his clothes and hair and trying to focus on nothing but the sound of the song playing in the car, the slow acoustic shifting into something faster and dreamier as Jason navigated his way around the city traffic and turned off towards Salford Quays.
“He keeps things from me,” Mark said after a few minutes had passed. He bit at his bottom lip and looked down at his hands, avoiding Jason’s eyes. Jason didn’t reply, though, simply tipping his head in acknowledgement of the statement but keeping his eyes on the road. Mark drew in a deep breath. “He keeps things from me, even when something isn’t his secret to keep.” He closed his eyes. “But I’m not allowed secrets. And having them is what makes him doubt me, you know?” When he opened his eyes again, he risked a glance over at Jason, whose expression was quiet and neutral. “There’s only so much you can take feeling like a disappointment to someone. There’s only so many times you can be told you’re the problem before you start going crazy.” Mark shook his head. “And there’s so many problems…what’s the point anyway?”
Jason looked over at Mark, concern on his face. When Mark looked up at him he felt tears prickling the backs of his eyes. He didn’t know what he would have done if he didn’t have Jason in his life; the comfort of his presence was almost overwhelming, and it occurred to him dimly that maybe, if he’d had Jason in his life back when he was nineteen, he wouldn’t have got into half as much of a mess as he did. Maybe he’d have written fewer songs, but Gary Barlow might love him more. Mark looked down at his hands again sharply, playing with the ends of his sleeves and still biting on his lip. Beside him Jason was quiet, licking his lips once more as he looked back at the road, his expression still thoughtful. They were pulling up towards the apartment building, and the way the fading sunlight played off the Salford glass made everything feel strangely ethereal and magic.
As Jason pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine, he sighed softly, pausing for a moment with his hands still on the steering wheel, as though gathering his thoughts. The moment was full of that brotherly mix of sympathy and frustration that he had always given Mark so freely, and if it hadn’t been for the heaviness that had settled in Mark’s chest it would almost have been enough to coax another smile out of him. Then, finally, Jason looked over at him, turning in his seat to face him properly. And although Mark couldn’t quite look him in the eye, he could still make out the bright blue of Jason’s calm, piercing gaze.
“You know, sometimes there aren’t as many problems as you think,” Jason told him, his voice low. “Sometimes…everything just starts further back, with one thing, one moment. If you stop for a second and just filter it down, you might realise there’s more point to talking it over than you realise.” Jason was looking at him so intently, but Mark couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes, shaking his head instead and looking away quickly. Jason’s forehead creased into a frown of concern.
“I tried talking, Jay. It didn’t fix it.” Mark swallowed hard. “Because even though I love Gary Barlow, Gary Barlow doesn’t love me. Not really.” He sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m broken. I don’t work properly. And neither does he. And two broken things…they don’t make a whole.”
Mark felt Jason place a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he still couldn’t look at him. Instead he squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly, waiting for Jason to draw his hand away and get out of the car, waiting for him to say he knew Mark was right and he’d known it all along. Jason saw everything, he had to have seen through his and Gary’s pretence of the perfect romance. But instead, Jason left his hand in place, giving Mark’s shoulder a small, firm squeeze.
“Broken isn’t a definition of a whole person, Marko: take it from someone who knows. Everybody’s broken…at some point you have to figure out the pieces and make something new.”
Mark looked over at Jason sceptically, and Jason offered him a kind smile. “Hey, I know it’s not easy – you know that I know. It took me long enough to figure out. But I did, though. And it started to dawn on me that…sometimes you just have to let it go and accept that you’re broken – but that that’s not all you are. You have to just decide that there’s a person you used to be and a person you are now, but that that’s not the end of what you have to offer. To your own life or someone else’s.”
“What if the person you want doesn’t see it that way?” Mark asked in a croaky voice. “Not everyone in the world is Howard,” he added sadly. Jason chuckled, the sound fond and gentle, and he rolled his eyes slightly.
“And thank God for that: the man’s a nightmare – believe me.” Mark managed a small, wonky smile and Jason shrugged, rolling his eyes with rueful exasperation. “I could bang you and Gary’s heads together sometimes, you know that?” he told him with an affectionate smile. He shook his head and sat back with a sigh. “Ok. Enough soul-searching for now. You look like you could use a good meal and some banter, and lucky for you Howard Donald specialises in both.” He nodded his head towards the apartment building. “Come on – let’s head up before my husband completely destroys my kitchen; you can eat and I can clean, ok?” Mark managed a small laugh, giving Jason a tiny nod of agreement. Jason nodded back, eyes twinkling. “Good. And when you’re done eating, you can tell me what the hell happened between you and Gaz tonight,” he added. Mark couldn’t help but let out a small, shaky laugh.
“You tricked me,” he protested softly and Jason shrugged.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m just the same old Jay, always needing someone to save,” he said, rolling his eyes and offering Mark a wry smile. Mark smiled back softly, shaking his head.
“No. You’re just…Jay. That’s the best thing about you, you know? You’re just Jay. No games, no demands. Just heart and soul…and a strange need to perform handstands in public places.”
“And here I thought my handstands were the only reason we were friends.”
***
Gary paced up and down the flat, turning his mobile over in his hand but finding he was not quite able to bring himself to actually swallow his pride and just give Mark a call. He’d watched him from the bedroom window as he’d stood on the pavement outside their home, shivering slightly in the evening air, looking so small and lost. Gary had been about to run out after him and make one more attempt at reigning their argument back in, at coaxing him back inside so they could talk, so he could try to get his point across better this time, in a way that wasn’t so harsh and accusatory. But then he’d spotted Jason’s car. It had been the same as when he’d watched Howard opening up the shop that morning: the feeling of total displacement, like he was trapped behind a two-way mirror, watching them live their lives without him, leaving him isolated and unneeded. And yet, even as he had looked down at Mark throwing his overnight bag into Jason’s backseat, some part of his brain wasn’t processing everything that was happening; he was still holding his breath, waiting for Mark to turn around and come back home. He kept going to the windows every time he thought he heard a car, kept imagining the sound of a key in the lock or thought he felt his phone vibrating in his hand. He jumped at shadows. And he fully expected Mark to walk through the door before it went dark.
In the end it was Jason who texted him. Sweet, stupidly loyal Jason Orange. Surprising how the fight with Mark almost paled in comparison when he thought of his argument with Jason. He had no idea how to explain himself, how to make up for all the years of doubt which Nigel had managed to deflate in a sentence, his tone dismissive like it hadn’t changed a thing. And yet there Jason was anyway, lighting up his phone screen with – of all things – an apology for not being able to talk Mark into coming home. Gary closed his eyes and chucked his phone down onto the coffee table, falling back against the sofa cushions with a strangled yell. How could it only take him forty-eight hours to destroy his life? Because sure, maybe Nigel had handed him the bombs, but he had to own up to being the one to detonate them, and now he had no idea how to begin the clean-up. For all Jason’s kindness, he couldn’t face him after what he’d done – and if the thought of facing Jason was scary, the thought of facing Howard again was outright terrifying. And as for Mark, where could he begin? Taking it all back would just be a lie – he was still wounded at the thought of Mark in that studio, writing without him, and he didn’t know how to shake that. But when he tried to reason it out in his head, he knew he had no right to feel so betrayed.
His phone lit up again and Gary leant up, peering down at the screen. His eyes widened in disbelief when he saw Nigel’s name on the screen: Hate to do this to you Gary, but urgent business in London. I won’t be around for a week or so. I’ll let you know when I’m back up North and we’ll set something up. Nigel had always been good for performing a hit and run.
***
The hoodie was soft, clean and comforting. Mark pulled the well-worn fabric over his head, closing his eyes for a moment as he let out a breath. Being one of Howard’s, the hoodie completely dwarfed Mark’s smaller form, the sleeves pooling dramatically at his wrists, but there was still something strangely reassuring about the scent of the material, freshly washed as it was; the smell of the fabric softener reminded him of rainy weekends when he was a kid, the same mixture of safety and familiarity coming back to him so strongly his lips curved into a slow, nostalgic smile. He supposed he looked somewhat comical, between his damp hair, the hoodie sleeves bunched up in his hands and the tracksuit bottoms – an old pair of Jason’s – rolled up multiple times at his waist. But for once he didn’t mind. His case was full of odd, uncomfortable and mismatched items which he’d thrown in without really thinking it through, but there was something genuinely sweet about Jason’s knowing smile and the way he’d wordlessly gone and rummaged through his and Howard’s wardrobes whilst Mark had showered, knocking on the bathroom door to let him know he’d left the clothes outside for him.
As Mark emerged from the bathroom he could hear the sound of Howard and Jason’s voices, low and rough and playful, their laughter crackly and warm. The radio was humming away in the background, and the occasional splashes and clanks suggested the pair were attending to the dishes left over from dinner – a tasty concoction of Howard’s making that Mark would have enjoyed a little more if Howard and Jason hadn’t been firmly, but gently, insisting he tell them everything that had happened between him and Gary earlier. Mark hadn’t been able to read their expressions as he’d told them the whole sorry story, and after a while he’d begun to mumble his explanations to his plate, studiously avoiding their gazes; that had been when Jason had kindly changed the subject to something lighter and, eventually, suggested Mark would feel better after a shower and a change of clothes. As was so often the case, Jason had been right; though not a complete fix, Mark had to admit he felt slightly less like he might break any moment, and that was a welcome relief.
“Have you ever noticed how your definition of wrong is usually just ‘not how you’d do it’?”
“No, my definition of wrong is usually whatever way you’re doing something, Donald.”
“When you talk like that I start to think you don’t love me.”
“Howard Donald, if I didn’t love you then you’d be out this apartment in a heartbeat and I wouldn’t spend half my life wiping fingerprints off every reflective surface in sight.”
“Not my fault you like living in a palace of glass, you know.”
“Of course: we could’ve lived happily ever after at your place instead, if I’d somehow managed to cram my body into that shoebox you called home.”
“Actually, I think I would’ve had a lot of fun trying to cram your body into that shoebox I called home.”
“I don’t even want to know how you’re making that sound dirty.”
“Your mind made it sound dirty, love: I’ve got the soul of a saint.”
“Which means I have to have the patience of one.”
Mark grinned fondly as he listened in on Jason and Howard’s bickering. He could hear the clank of plates and the swishing of water in the sink, punctuating every barb and dig, and as he came out of the corridor he realised why. Both Howard and Jason were spattered with suds from the washing up liquid, and as they stood side by side at the sink, they elbowed and jabbed at each other, flicking water and laughing softly. Howard was making a poor attempt at drying, and Jason leant over to inspect the plate he was placing on the drainer. “You missed a spot,” he remarked, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as he ducked away from another flick of soap suds from Howard.
“You’re a control freak, you know that?” Howard asked, his tone rough but playful and a grin on his lips. Jason beamed back at him innocently, giving a casual shrug.
“So I’ve been told.” He lifted a plate from out of the sink and handed it to Howard, who took it without needing to look. “Which begs the question: what do I see in you?”
“A sexy body and a cracking knack for telling jokes?” Howard suggested. Jason splashed him and they both smiled at each other, Jason arching an eyebrow in challenge.
“Are you absolutely sure you can hear yourself when you talk, or does the sound just never make it through all those layers of un-combable curls?” he asked, and Howard narrowed his eyes at him.
“Are you making digs about my hair?” he shot back, and Jason smiled back at him pleasantly, standing up on his tiptoes just slightly and flicking some water straight into Howard’ face.
“Anything that needs that much hairspray to keep it going, I’m going to be questioning the manageability of.”
“Oh you are going to pay for that one, Orange!” Howard exclaimed, scrunching up one eye and wiping the soap suds from it enough whilst reaching out with his other arm and grabbing Jason around the waist. “I always win and you know it!”
“Don’t you ever get sick of saying that, coz I know I get sick of hearing it,” Jason said archly, struggling slightly in Howard’s grasp, elbowing him off him.
“I wouldn’t have to keep saying it if you just knew when to give up, love,” Howard replied, making another grab and biting back a grin as Jason dodged out of the way with ease.
“If you wanted someone who knew when to give up, why’d you fall in love with me?”
“Coz I like a challenge – now stop struggling and c’mere!” Howard splashed more water in Jason’s direction, not quite catching him as he ducked just in time.
“Where’s the challenge in that, Donald?!” Jason shot back, getting another flick of soap suds in somehow amidst the chaos.
The two struggled for a moment, laughing and jabbing each other back and forth, still managing to get splashes in at each other every now and again, and Mark simply stood watching them for a moment, trying not to laugh as Howard began trying to tug Jason back to him once more. It was an insight into their world away from other people’s eyes; not too different from their public personas, the same battle of wills playing out the way it always did, just with even more flirtation in between.
After a minute, Mark cleared his throat, and the laughing pair fell back against each other, turning around quickly and attempting to smother their laughter. Jason’s eyes glittered as he swotted Howard off him.
“Now I know why you didn’t want me to help with the washing up,” Mark grinned at them, clambering up to sit at the breakfast bar. Jason rolled his eyes.
“No, that’s because I’ve seen how you wash up, Mark Owen: unbelievably, you’re worse than this one,” Jason told him, his smile mischievous. Howard flicked him with the dishcloth and Jason stuck his tongue out at him, snatching the cloth out of his hands before turning pointedly back to Mark. “Feeling any better?” he asked, his tone bright and kind. From anyone else it could’ve been patronising, but from Jason it only made Mark smile softly. He offered him a one-shouldered shrug.
“A bit. Well, no, a lot, actually. But there’s only so much warm water and a hoodie can do to stop me going over everything in my head though, you know?” he sighed. Jason nodded, tipping his head to one side in thought.
“Brew?” he offered. Mark’s smile widened.
“Would you mind?”
“Course not. I’ll even let you put in your own sugar,” Jason told him with a wink. Howard waggled his eyebrows at Mark comically, nodding his head in Jason’s direction.
“Eh, he’s never said that to me you know,” he joked. Jason suppressed a smile, glancing over his shoulder at Howard and narrowing his eyes at him.
“Shut up, Trouble, and finish off the dishes.” Howard pulled a face.
“Oh now you trust me to wash the plates the ‘right’ way,” he teased. Jason threw the dishcloth at him, and as Howard plucked it from his face the two shared an amused smile before both turning back to their tasks.
“You know, I remember the moment I first thought you two were going to last,” Mark said after a moment, his head on one side. Jason and Howard both turned to glance back at him curiously, before exchanging a worried glance of their own. Mark ignored their concern, looking down and drawing in a deep breath. “I was in the back room with Gaz messing about on the piano – we were letting you pair work on the stock-take whilst we argued about some chorus or other.”
“Some things never change,” Howard remarked idly, leaning back against the counter as he dried his hands. Jason smothered a smile, placing a mug of tea and a sugar bowl in front of Mark and rolling his eyes.
“You were saying, Marko,” he prompted, pulling himself up to sit on the counter. Mark smiled, cupping the tea in his hands and busying himself with shovelling in the sugar, looking down into his mug somewhat shyly.
“It was funny, you know: you two could always keep up that rhythm when you talked, like it was a tennis match, but with in-jokes and wind-ups. Like you’d known each other forever.” Mark flicked a glance up at Jason, who was watching him quietly. “Me and Gaz have always loved you, Jay, but we couldn’t ever keep up with you, you know?” he said. Jason smiled, eyes shining as he looked over, briefly, to Howard before quickly turning away before his smile grew too wide. “I was sat in the back room just listening to the two of you go on at your own little stand-up routine. And I suddenly thought: I’ve never heard Jay laugh like that before. It was like I was hearing you for the first time, almost – like when you play a new song on your best headphones and hear all these extra notes. And the more I listened, the more I realised that, on some level, Howard must’ve known it too, because the more you laughed the more he’d go. This bloke who only ever mumbled to everyone else became the life-and-soul just like that, and it made me smile. Because I knew it was good – it was supposed to be like that, it was going to be something made to last.” Mark sighed, shaking his head. He took a sip of his tea, closing his eyes and squeezing them tight, taking a moment to gather himself. “But with me and Gaz, it’s never been that clear at all.”
“Marko-” Jason began to protest, but Mark cut him off with a shake of his head.
“No, it hasn’t. Not really. I can’t think of one moment where I knew we’d be ok – not like with the two of you.” Mark swallowed back the tears which were threatening him, shivering slightly as the wave of emotion made its way down his spine. “You know, sometimes…sometimes I’ve wondered if me and Gaz only ended up together because it made sense, because you and Howard were together and it just…made things simple. Rounded things off.” He gave a sad, rueful smile. “Sometimes I think we’re just each other’s cosmic consolation prize. We don’t belong together, we’re just together for the sake of having a relationship.”
When he looked up, he found both Howard and Jason were looking at him with marked concern, and he shrugged somewhat helplessly. “Sometimes it just feels hopeless – like we’re pretending to be something we’re not because it’s better than being alone.”
“Marko, you can’t believe that: you and Gaz have been half-nuts over each other since the first day you showed up on Oldham Street,” Jason told him softly. Mark looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
“But it didn’t go anywhere.”
“Maybe not right away,” Jason admitted with a small, fond chuckle. “But believe me, it almost did plenty of times: I wanted to throttle the pair of you half the time.” Mark couldn’t help but smile slightly.
“He’s telling the truth you know,” Howard put in. Mark looked over at him, raising his eyebrows slightly. Howard flashed him a mischievous grin in response.
“The parts of our conversations you weren’t eavesdropping on? He told me the whole story: the visits to the shop, the songwriting sessions, the lunchbreaks at the caff where he had to play chaperone because you were both too shy to just admit you wanted to see each other and whenever you were left alone you’d both sit there twiddling your thumbs like little awkward schoolkids.” Howard’s grin widened as he exchanged a glance with Jason then shrugged, looking back at Mark, eyes alight with friendly amusement. “Our second date wasn’t even supposed to be a date: Jay showed up at my door and told me you pair were driving him crazy, mooning over each other but doing nothing about it, both pretending you hadn’t kissed when you were both in front of him then confiding in him behind each other’s backs.” Howard shrugged, leaning back, his smile softening. “I took him to my DJ gig with me: one of the best gigs I’ve ever played and he even kissed me in the booth. Whole club was saying how jealous they were the whole night. I still probably owe you and Gaz ‘Thank You’ cards for that,” he added then, looking down with shy laugh. Jason’s expression was shy too, but he covered it with a roll of his eyes.
“The point is: you two might not have been simple, but there has always been something between you that was special – neither one of you would have been so scared if it wasn’t.”
Mark nodded, but his expression was still sceptical. He wanted to believe Jason, but from where he was sitting he just couldn’t reconcile his and Gary’s history of crossed wires and false starts with the picture of romance he had in his head. “You both build up romance so much in your heads, you know that?” Jason said, as though he was reading Mark’s thoughts. His voice was low and gentle, and when Mark glanced up at him with a frown he simply watched him quietly with those bright, piercing eyes of his. “Love isn’t about how good you are at making the story perfect, and if you think How and me have a perfect story then you obviously have forgotten how we even ended up together – crossed wires, resistance, uncertainty…sound familiar?” He arched an eyebrow, his lips quirking up at one corner, and Mark laughed slightly, shaking his head.
“It’s not the same though. You still got your kiss in the rain. But Gaz and me, we-”
“Want the same things out of life. Care about the same things, share the same values. You both look at the world from a really similar point of view.” Jason sighed. “That’s what counts, you know. Not the stories you haven’t told each other or the parts of each other’s lives you don’t open up about so easily. When it comes down to it: you do know him, in the ways that count. The other stuff can come later, as long as you know the life you’re trying to get to at the end of it is the life both of you want.”
For a moment, Mark considered the thought. He tried to think back over all their conversations, all the times their values and ambitions had been challenged.
“Maybe I used to think that,” he half-whispered. “Maybe before…before the stuff with Rob came up and before he started talking about you and Nigel and your past.” Mark huffed, shaking his head and closing his eyes, trying to clear his mind. He took a long gulp of tea. “We want the same things in life. We look at the world the same way. We believe in the same things.” He looked up at Jason then, his expression lost and his eyes unusually dim. “But every time any of those values or hopes get tested? We fall apart. And we fight. Or we just walk on eggshells for a while to make sure we don’t.”
“So what?” Howard put in, his voice softer than Mark had ever heard it before. He looked up, brow furrowed, and Howard shrugged. “People fight and fall apart and avoid things they don’t want to talk about all the time. Whether or not you want to keep pushing? That’s what matters.”
Mark smiled a sad, lopsided smile, looking away. Howard and Jason were all push – even their idea of romance pushed; they liked challenging each other, they liked having something to fight for. They even liked having things to bicker over. But Mark and Gary liked comfortable, cosy, sweet. Did that count as a shared value? Mark worried at his lip and tapped his thumb against his mug. “Look, don’t get me wrong: Gary Barlow has been a prize prat this past week, and I fully intend to tell him so – whether Jay wants me to or not,” Howard added suddenly, before letting out a huffy sigh. “But he’s human. Jay can be a prat sometimes too. I can be a prat a lot of the time. But you sulk, you sort it out in your head and then you look at it all differently in the morning.” Howard shrugged. “This doesn’t have to be something that undermines your whole life together, you know?” Mark let out a hollow laugh, slumping a little across the breakfast bar.
“That’s probably a lot easier to say for a bloke whose relationship couldn’t even be undermined by his husband going missing,” he murmured, wincing slightly at the clumsy way he’d let the words slip out and looking between Howard and Jason guiltily. They didn’t look at him, though – they glanced at each other.
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Howard’s lips for a moment, his eyes intense. Then slowly he looked down, his eyebrows knitting into a frown once more.
“Look: in a battle of Jay versus the world? I will always be on Jay’s side.” He looked up at Mark again, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “Don’t matter if we’re arguing, don’t matter if we’re not talking, don’t matter if he’s being a bastard to me about something stupid. It don’t even matter if I know he’s wrong. I’m on Jay’s side no matter what, all he has to do is take my hand and tell me we’re off to war, then I’m ready. It’s not even about the relationship at that point – it’s about the fact Jay doesn’t deserve half the crap he gets thrown at him, and husband or not I’m not putting up with it.” Mark flicked a quick glance at Jason, just catching his small, shy smile. “But that’s not the point,” Howard added quietly. “This right now? It isn’t Gary Barlow versus the world. It’s maybe Gary Barlow versus Nigel and history – and me if he keeps on the way he is. But at the heart of it, what this comes down to right now, is Gary Barlow versus you. He’s an idiot for saying what he said, but at the same time, Marko, the only person who can decide whether or not it undermines your relationship is you.”
And Mark knew he was right. He could’ve chosen to fight his corner harder. He could’ve chosen to stay at the flat and hear Gary out. He could’ve tried to keep a clearer head. But he’d just felt too much: too hurt, too angry, too confused. The sound of those words coming out of Gary’s mouth still rung in his head – brittle and off-key. He flinched and blinked back an unexpected onslaught of fresh tears. Howard was right, he was letting this undermine his and Gary’s relationship. But the alternative seemed unbearable: keep listening to that sound, keep feeling...just keep feeling. Feeling everything. Feeling too much.
Mark swallowed hard.
“If we really belong together, if we’re supposed to be the loves of each other’s lives…then why does it hurt so much? Why does it feel like the most un-survivable sort of pain every time we argue, even if it’s just about stupid stuff?”
“Papercuts, Marko,” Jason replied. Mark looked up at Jason with a small frown, and Jason smiled back at him quietly, giving a quick shrug. His head was tipped just slightly to one side, and as Mark met his gaze he found himself surprised by how much those blue eyes could express with just one quiet look: it was a look full of everything – sympathy, encouragement and understanding all at once. Mark felt like his whole body ached, but Jason’s smile was still soothing somehow, like the coolness of water on a burn.
“Papercuts?” Mark repeated, brow still furrowed. Jason lifted both his hands, briefly waving his fingers elegantly. His ring caught the light with the movement. He leant back and gave a small nod.
“Papercuts – that’s what it all comes down to,” he said softly. “Look, you know when you get a papercut on your finger: it hurts like mad and you feel the whole finger must be about to fall off because of it. But it’s not. It’s a tiny cut and it’s healed by the next morning.” He shrugged again. “But the thing is, that’s where all the nerve endings are. It makes everything feel worse than it really is.” Jason’s expression clouded, and he looked down. “Fighting with Howard about a last minute change of plans or a lost car key hurts. The feeling when we fight about the stuff that actually matters? It’s unbearable.” He gave Mark a small sympathetic smile. “We’ve all been there, Marko: sometimes, when you really care about someone…having them say something to you you don’t like…it feels un-survivable. It feels like everything inside you is on fire. Except in the centre of your chest…where everything just goes cold.”
“That sounds familiar,” Mark conceded quietly, taking another sip of his tea. Jason nodded.
“Ok. But…you know, if you get a paper cut you don’t chop off your whole finger and lose all hope,” he pointed out. “The nerve endings are there for a reason. Gaz isn’t just anyone, you know? He gets to say things to you no one else could – good and bad. He can say things to you he shouldn’t say and still be forgiven.”
Mark looked at Jason thoughtfully, licking his lips before he spoke again, in a low, careful voice.
“So…what if it was Howard?” he asked. He sat up a little, meeting Jason’s eyes somewhat cautiously. He felt strangely nervous asking: as though he knew the answer but didn’t really want to hear it. Jason and Howard exchanged a glance, and Mark looked over at Howard too, eyes wide, imploring and uncertain. “What if it was Jay?” he asked. “Who told you you were a liar and a cheat and he wished you didn’t have a past? Who said he couldn’t trust you or believe in you enough for things to be ok?”
Howard opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, shaking his head slightly and offering Mark a helpless shrug.
“I don’t know,” he sighed, looking over at Jason again, who offered him a tiny smile. And Mark could read that smile all too well. It was a smile that said Jason knew exactly why Howard couldn’t answer, that said Jason was grateful to Howard for tactfully not saying the one thing they all knew was true.
“But he wouldn’t say those things, though,” Mark said slowly, his voice croaky. “And neither would you.” His lips twisted into a devastated little smile. “There could be photos, recordings, witnesses and a signed confession, but if one of you looked the other one in the face and told them there was some other sort of explanation, then it’s over. There’s no issue any more. You’ve always believed each other – you’ve always known each other, on some level. Right from the start, it’s always been the same.” Mark closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “But me and Gaz…”
“Marko-” Jason started, then cut himself off with a heavy sigh. “You don’t know Nigel, ok? You don’t know what it’s like to have him…” Jason swallowed hard, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling. His usually fluid body was suddenly rigid, his muscles tense, and he seemed to hold his breath for a moment, gathering himself. “Ok. So…to this day, I don’t know how he found out about my dad: I never told him, but somehow he knew the whole story within weeks of me joining the band. He knew all our weak spots – and when he thought one of us was about to step out of line, or when he wanted to remind all of us that he controlled our whole lives, he’d use whatever weapon he knew would hurt most.” Jason rolled his eyes dismissively, but his face was still unnaturally pale and solemn. “I was still dancing as often as I could, even after I joined the band – I still took any job I was offered because I needed the cash and…it was nice to go back to that environment where I knew for sure I belonged.” He shook his head. “It drove Nigel mad. Looking back I can see why: it was because it was giving me some sort of life away from him, it was taking away that little extra bit of control he had over the others where he was more or less at the centre of their whole world. I never told Nigel what jobs I was doing or where they were, but half the time he still found out. Sometimes he’d even show up, try and make a bit of a scene and piss off everyone I was working with in the hope they’d associate me with him and never book me again. But I had no contract locked in with Nigel at that time, and everyone knew it. So we got stuck this ugly pattern of him trying to piss off everyone around me and cut me off, failing, getting more pissed off at me and wanting even more to cut me off. God only knows how it didn’t send us both our separate ways much sooner, thinking about it.” Jason gave a rueful smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “One night I was at this club for a TV job – I’d done a couple of pieces for this program all about the break dancing scene in different cities up and down the country and they’d ask me back whenever they came to Manchester. I was looking forward to it, actually; they were great people and we always had a laugh on these night shoots, messing about, all us dancers posing and joking around with each other.” Jason pulled a face. “It had been a crap day with the band at rehearsals, to be honest. Nigel had just threatened to throw me out. Again. We’d spent a whole day trying to work out some upbeat number, and Gaz just could not get it right. Back then he used to hate trying to do anything upbeat – you think he prefers ballads now, but you should’ve heard him go on back then whenever Nigel begged him for ‘something you can dance to’ to liven up our set. Nigel was getting ratty over how bad this song was…but he couldn’t take it out on Gaz and risk losing the relationship he’d built with him, so instead the rest of us got it in the next. Especially me, of course: I was always the problem somehow.” Jason blew out a quick, sharp breath and leant his head back. “I was so glad to get out of there that night. And I think Nigel must’ve worked out there was something going on that I was looking forward to, although I still don’t know how he found the club. He had plenty of contacts though. I probably should’ve known he’d show.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mark could see Howard tensing, his fist clenching and unclenching a couple of times before he abruptly folded his arms, turning his eyes determinedly to a point on the kitchen wall. It told Mark that, not only did Howard know this story, but also that there was no way on earth it ended well. “Nigel walked in about half way through the shoot. Started going round telling everyone he was my manager and watching the filming from the bar, always making sure he knew I could see him. By the end of the night the whole crew hated him – none of them trusted him. The director even offered to stay when he saw him hanging around waiting for me after everyone else was going home…maybe I should’ve taken him up on the offer but…no one’s good at asking for help when they’re nineteen, I don’t think.” He smiled faintly. “I’m still crap at it now.” Mark smiled slightly too, flicking another glance at Howard, whose face was still fixed in a tense frown. “That night I told you about at the show, when Gaz walked in and Nigel had me up against the wall? It wasn’t the first night it had come that close; it was the first time he’d hurt me, but…Nigel found every excuse he could to put his hands on me.” Jason closed his eyes, swallowing hard. Mark could see the sheer effort it was taking him just to hold himself together without shuddering or breaking down. And yet, just as he had in the shop before, Howard kept his distance – still all-too aware there were some stories which Jason simply couldn’t tell when he could feel anyone, even Howard, touching his skin. “Once Nigel had got me alone he got me by the arm – just hard enough that he knew it’d hurt me more to try and struggle than to just stand there and take it.” Another pause. Jason took another breath, and this time Mark caught the slight tremor. “He leant in close and started whispering in my ear: he made it clear exactly what offer he was putting on the table in terms of what I could do to help convince him to make my place in the band more secure.” Mark felt bile in his throat and a cold chill went through him.
“God, Jay-”
“When I told him no his grip on my arm just got tighter. He got even closer in, to the point there was condensation forming on my neck from where he was breathing on me. He told me I had pretty lips, but that they were full of poison, that that was why people always left me. He told me it was hardly surprising no one stuck around in my life – told me everyone would always leave me in the end and that I should’ve made the most of the security he could offer in terms of the band. He told me ‘You should’ve made the most of me, Jay, because now you’ll always be alone. That’s what happens to kids whose own fathers don’t even want to know them’ and then he let me go so quickly I almost fell over. He walked off like nothing had happened and he never spoke to me about the offer again.” Jason shook his head slowly, squeezing his eyes tight shut. “But I know he knew those words didn’t stop going round in my head. He’d smile at me sometimes, in a way that just said he knew exactly what I was thinking…and he was so proud to have put that thought there, and even more proud that I couldn’t get it out.”
“Jay, that’s awful,” Mark breathed. Jason looked over at him with a sad whisper of a smile.
“No, the awful part is that last month, me and How were arguing over some daft last minute change to his work schedule, and I looked him dead in the eye and I told him to go.” Mark’s eyes widened slightly. “I said ‘I know you’re going to leave me anyway, so just get it over with already’ and I told him that I knew that’s what he wanted because everyone leaves me and he was no different.” Mark looked over at Howard in alarm, and Howard raised a small, wry smile, a strange mixture of sadness and fondness lighting his eyes as he shrugged and exchanged a glanced with Jason.
“He went to bed, assuming I’d done as I was told and was already gone – I thought he could use the rest so I just kept my head down and kipped on the sofa,” he put in. “Next thing I know it’s three in the morning and he’s dragging me up and telling me to come to bed.” Howard shrugged, an impish grin briefly crossing his features. “Sounded like an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he added, meeting Jason’s eyes. Jason shook his head, rolling his eyes and smothering a smile before looking back over at Mark.
“The point is: all these years later, that voice…there’s still an echo of it. I still remember all those things he told me and I still remember the way he looked at me that night, giving me this bizarre sermon on ‘pretty lips’ and how they poison everything. And some part of me believed him. Even though the logical part of my brain knows it’s ridiculous.” Jason sighed, shrugging again and looking across at Howard, his face no longer haunted and grey, a new tenderness coming into his eyes. “And I accused Howard. And I called him a liar and a sneak and I told him to go. And I haven’t spoken to Nigel in years, but I still let myself lose it anyway.” Howard reached across the small space between them, and instinctively Jason moved his hand, letting Howard take it and watching with a small smile as he leant over and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Then Jason’s eyes returned to Mark. “Gaz screwed up, Marko. There’s no getting round it. He should never have said those things, especially not to you. But like I said: I last spoke to Nigel years ago, and I lost it, and I said things I shouldn’t have said. For Gaz? It’s only been a matter of hours, you know? That’s as fresh as it gets.”
Mark nodded slowly, turning the idea over in his head. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t take a little of the edge off Gary’s words. He shivered slightly, the image of Nigel Jason had conjured up even more chillingly sinister the more he thought about it. This shadow of a figure from the past – sketched out to Mark in just a few short stories – seemed somehow to have seeped into his life without him even realising until the blackness was all around him. Struggling just made the grip of it tighter.
“You didn’t see the way Gaz looked at me though, Jay.” Mark traced a pattern on the side of his mug. “You didn’t see that look in his eyes,” he added in a murmur, his voice croaky and broken, like he hadn’t used it for a year. He didn’t want to admit any of this out loud, he didn’t want to say the words because that meant admitting the truth to himself. “He looked like he was afraid of me. Like the person I am scared him more than anything else and there was no getting past it.”
Mark brushed quickly at a rogue tear as it slid down his cheek. He heard the dull thud of Jason sliding down from the counter, and when he looked up he saw him come around to sit beside him at the breakfast bar, placing a gentle hand on his forearm.
“It’s ok,” Jason told him softly, brushing his thumb reassuringly against his arm. His mum used to do that, Mark recalled dimly – when he was little and was still scared of the dark.
“But it’s not, you know,” Mark said tightly, swallowing more tears. “It’s not ok.” He was still a little bit scared of the dark, he thought absently. He looked up into Jason’s face and gave him a watery smile. “I know no matter what, you would never look at Howard that way – you couldn’t even if you wanted to.” He shrugged helplessly, and he saw in Jason’s eyes that he couldn’t argue the point. “I almost thought we had that once. You know, that thing you and Howard have – where you just know it’s safe. Where you don’t have to hold everything in all the time.” He felt more tears escaping, and he was grateful for Jason’s hand still firm and kind on his arm, the repetitive stroke of his thumb soothing. “The thing is, you have a place, because of that. The place where it’s all ok. The person you are is just…ok, you don’t have to hold anything in – someone else has got your back no matter what you say or do, they know you too well to let you fall. And when you have that…it’s ok to push that boundary, you know? To say the stupid thing, to fall apart and screw up…to let go and be the person you are, even the bad bits.” Mark shook his head. “And the worst part is…I don’t think I’m built to cope without it, you know? I…I can’t cope. I just…”
Mark trailed off, unable to keep speaking without his tears cracking his voice. He tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling and trying to swallow down the lump in his throat. Beside him Jason didn’t say a word, but he kept his hand on Mark’s arm, kept stroking his thumb back and forth with perfect, steady rhythm. “I thought…I thought for a moment we’d found it, you know?” he whispered after a minute had passed. “God it sounds awful to say, but-” He glanced over at Jason somewhat sheepishly, and Jason raised his eyebrows expectantly. “When you were gone, Jay, we were so close…God, I can’t say that, it’s…it’s awful, but…” He moved his mouth but no words came, and Jason gave him a quiet, easy smile, tipping his head lazily to one side.
“It’s fine, I’m over it – I promise,” he said, like it was a phrase he was growing used to repeating. Mark glanced over at Howard, his eyebrows quirked in sceptical query, and Howard offered him a dry smirk in return.
“He’s telling the truth.” He shrugged. “As over it as anyone ever gets,” he added then. Mark smiled slightly and nodded, glancing down, still not sure he should be talking about it in front of Jason and Howard, as though their happiness was somehow to blame for his distraught state. Then he felt Jason give him a nudge, and he looked up in surprise.
“It’s ok, you know: to find some sort of comfort in the midst of a crisis,” he pointed out gently. “And who else was going to understand you better at that time? Howard?” Jason arched one eyebrow, the serious look in his eyes briefly replaced with something more mischievous. “He’s not your type – and anyway, he had other things on his mind,” he added. Mark let out a snuffly laugh, looking over at Howard, who grinned back at him kindly.
“He’s got a point,” he said brightly. Mark laughed again, brushing at the tear-tracks on his cheeks and blowing out a breath.
“I don’t know…I suppose that was it, you know? We were the only two people in the world who understood exactly what was going through our heads.” He smiled sadly. “We coped the same way. We thought the same way. We felt the same way. And when one of us couldn’t cope? It was ok: the other one knew what to say.”
“Four letter words,” Jason said quietly, knowingly, and Mark looked at him in confusion. Jason smiled.
“A Howard Donald Theory, but for once he might be on to something.” Off Mark’s expectant look he shrugged and nodded his head towards Howard, who was looking shyly down at the floor. “Sometimes, when something is really special? The only way to really explain it is with four letter words,” Jason elaborated. “Talk, know, stay, safe, hope, home. Life.” He shrugged. “Love.”
“Rain,” Howard put in softly. He and Jason looked at each other for a moment, and though Mark couldn’t quite judge the expressions on their faces, he still felt a slight shiver go down his spine.
“I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone like that,” he whispered. “Gaz, in moments. But not enough.” He licked his lips and found they tasted of salt. “I always fall down when it comes to the rain,” he said thoughtfully. He looked over at Howard. “I’m not brave like you.” Howard smiled dimly.
“Oh, I had my moments,” he sighed. “It’s a funny thing: knowing full well you’re capable of living without someone but not really wanting to. I love Jay so much – the way I feel about him, about being around him, just fills me up, to be honest. Like I can feel every single cell in my body kicking off. Trying to think about living without that: it’s like that moment at the end of a concert when the lights go up and you’re left stood there like a lemon, blinking and bewildered and gutted. Your ears are still ringing but you know it’s over.” Howard glanced at Jason, then Mark. “A part of you still hopes the band will come back out and play another song, you know?” He shrugged. “There’s probably a difference between being brave and being stubborn. I like the music too much. I like feeling it in every cell in my body; makes my world a more colourful place.”
As the three of them fell into silence, Mark tried to think how loving Gary made him feel. But all he could come up with at that moment was the fear: fear of not being enough, fear of being broken, fear that the real world wasn’t the place for a love-song romance. He tried to think of a moment when he’d felt lit up, felt his cells vibrating. Felt music. And suddenly, unbidden, an image of running down a steep, grassy bank, laughing and yelling at Robbie to slow down came into his mind. They hadn’t been drunk, for once – well, not entirely. Robbie hadn’t even been high on anything, Mark didn’t think. They’d snuck into the park at night for a midnight picnic – it had been Mark’s birthday and Robbie hadn’t been able to afford a proper present. What he’d come up with was better. He’d got a bottle of cheap fizz from somewhere, stolen no doubt but Mark had tried not to think about it; most of the contents had exploded over the two of them when Robbie opened it, and he’d proceeded to chase Mark around beneath the muzzy starlight of the city park, spraying him with what remained. And somehow, Mark couldn’t remember how, Robbie had stolen his coat from him, and it was a freezing night and all Mark could do was laugh and chase Robbie back, criss-crossing the park, laughing and yelling until finally Robbie jumped out at him, grabbing him up and swinging him around, both of them laughing like crazy. And Robbie had kissed him and in that moment – Mark knew – he had felt that every-cell-vibrating feeling. He even felt a ghost of it again now as he thought back to the taste of that kiss: cigarettes and cheap champagne.
“I think maybe I loved someone like that once,” he murmured into the quietness of the room, only dimly aware he was speaking the words out loud. “For a few weeks, before it all got out of control.” There was nostalgia in his smile. He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a long breath. “I don’t think I was built to cope with…that much all at once.” He scrunched up his face. “Maybe I was just too young, I don’t know.”
When he looked over at Jason he found that kindly, understanding look of his was on his face. In the dimness of the kitchen his blue eyes were dark, but they still glittered away like always, seeing everything.
“You and Rob?” he asked softly. Mark’s lips twitched up ever so slightly at the corners and Jason gave a small nod.
“I think maybe you only get one shot at that kind of love though,” Mark said then. He bit at his lip. “No one’s ever going to get more than one love of their life, you know?” He pulled a face and looked away. “Defeats the point a bit, that, I suppose…if it’s not once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever bought into that,” Jason replied. Mark looked over at him sceptically. “I don’t like the idea that fate has more say in what I do in life than me. If everything’s just fate, what’s the point of having an opinion on it in the first place?”
Jason shrugged, laughing slightly at Mark’s cynical expression. “What?” he laughed.
“You don’t believe in a ‘love of your life’ story designed by fate?” Mark said.
“So?”
“So: Howard is right there,” Mark pointed out. Jason’s eyes glimmered with amusement.
“And? I chose the bugger, not fate. I don’t go round cursing fate every time he makes a mess of my kitchen – I know it’s my own daft fault.” Mark looked over at Howard, wide-eyed. He was expecting to find outrage, hurt, or at least mild confusion on his face, but instead Howard was smirking.
“Don’t look at me: I don’t believe in that stuff either. Jay is the love of my life, but I still chose him. He’s the love of my life, but I don’t think he’s the only person on the planet who could’ve been, if I’d made some different choices here and there.” Off Mark’s surprised look Howard’s smile softened. “Hey, I loved Vic just as much as I love Jay, once, you know? That doesn’t make Jay my consolation prize – I swear on my life.”
Mark looked back over at Jason, concerned somehow that he might have trodden on some landmine in their relationship. But Jason smiled, unconcerned and content, and offered Mark a one-shouldered shrug.
“It’s not an issue, Marko,” he said softly. “I know all Howard Donald’s stories: I don’t think there’s anything he could come out with that would shock me.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“No,” Jason told him simply. “I’m not one for fate taking decisions out of my hands either so…why should I be pissed off with Howard for feeling the same?” Out of the corner of his eye, Mark caught Howard’s fond smile as the two looked at each other for a moment.
“Just because I loved someone else before, it doesn’t mean I have any less love left for Jay, you know?” Howard put in. “Me and Vic were a proper double act in our day, and I proper loved her like crazy – but the longer we were together the more mad we drove each other. We wanted different things out of life; the person I was and the person she was…it wouldn’t have mattered how much we loved each other, we never could’ve found what me and Jay have.”
“But how do you know?” Mark asked.
“Because the more time went on, the more we wanted to change each other – to keep that love a good thing, a happy thing, we knew we didn’t each other to be…different. I wanted her to stop trying to build some sort of tick-a-box life with all her ducks in a neat row in the suburbs. And she wanted me to grow up I suppose: get a proper job and stop daydreaming. We used to drive each other mad, arguing round in circles, never getting anywhere. Our lives were pulling away from each other the whole time.” Howard looked at Mark’s bewildered expression and smiled lopsidedly back at him. “It’s never been like that with Jay: we’ve always pulled the same direction overall, even when we’ve disagreed on some detail or other – we can figure things out, because there’s always enough natural give and take and growth and change that…it’s not as big of a deal, we don’t need each other to change in some big, fundamental way to cope. It’s the difference between enjoying yourself having a dance with someone, even though they’re getting the steps all wrong and treading on your toes…and then dancing with someone who knows the right next move and can flash you a smile when you hit you final pose in sync.” Mark looked at Howard blankly and he chuckled. “It’s like listening to a cover version of your favourite song, and you’re singing the wrong harmony part but it’s still fun, compared to listening to the original at full volume.” Mark grinned.
“Ok,” he nodded slowly, thoughtfully. Then he looked back at Jason once more. “And none of that bothers you? Not even a bit?” Jason smiled.
“Everyone’s got a story, you know? So I never loved anyone as much as How: that’s my own fault for never letting anyone close enough. Just because he’s loved that way before and I haven’t, it doesn’t make everything between us some do or die scenario. The choices I made in my life made me who I am, and some of those choices happened to lead me to Howard at the perfect moment. Howard made choices that led him away from Vic…and then to me. And I know the life we both want is enough to make that last.” Jason tilted his head to one side, making a point of meeting Mark’s eyes. “And your life led you to Rob, once upon a time. And then you grew up. And you became someone else. And your choices helped you find Gaz.” Mark looked down, trying to ignore Jason’s piercing stare but feeling it prickling his skin nonetheless. “What you have to do is work out the life you want, Marko. And if anything in that life is made better for having Gaz in it, for allowing enough give and take to make it the life you both want. Because everyone has a story that comes before the romance, but the romance only means something if it works in the story you both want to write afterwards.”
“After the three minute love-song’s over,” Howard put in, his tone both kind and firm.
Mark looked over his shoulder, through the vast windows, avoiding Howard and Jason’s concerned gazes and trying to clear his head. Outside the lights of Salford Quays were coming on, winking and shimmering into the inky blue sky, and the tears in his eyes made the glimmering lights crush into each other in kaleidoscopes of colour.
“I know you can’t miss something you never had…but that’s how I feel.” He sighed. “I feel like I’ve lost something I didn’t even have…or didn’t know I had ‘til it was already over. I feel like I miss Gaz, but I’m not sure he was ever the person I thought he was in the first place.” He blinked away the tears and looked back at Jason. “I feel like I just want to start over, Jay. I feel like I can’t cope with feeling this broken anymore.” He sniffed. “He makes me feel broken. And I need to get away.”
Jason regarded him for a moment, his blue eyes sharp and knowing. There was sympathy on his face, and understanding. But there was also very genuine worry; his forehead was creased into the slightest frown, and he studied Mark’s face in that intense way he had when he was juggling too many concepts at once in his brain.
“Ok,” he said softly after a while, giving a small, almost imperceptible nod. Mark caught the brief glance he shared with Howard, but he wasn’t sure what the look meant or if it mattered. “So take some time, make some space. Get out of Manchester for a while.” Jason laid his hand on Mark’s forearm again and met his eyes. His expression could’ve seemed stern to someone less used to the severe lines of his pretty, angular face, but Mark saw the kindness in it, saw that natural light Jason had always possessed. “But don’t make any decisions tonight. Sleep on it. Don’t base your feelings on your whole relationship on one awful night.” He smiled slightly. “I know you can’t stand awful, Marko. But sometimes it just happens. You just have to dust yourself off and keep going, you know? Maybe with Gaz, maybe not – but that’s a conversation for another day.” Mark managed a nod, but didn’t trust himself to speak. Jason seemed to understand, and he offered Mark another gentle smile, giving his arm a squeeze. “Ok,” he said decisively, sitting up and looking over at Howard. “You: clear your stuff off the sofa. I’ll go get some blankets and pillows.” He hopped down from the stool, then turned back to Mark. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in Grace’s room tonight, Marko?” he asked. Mark managed a slightly stronger smile at that, chuckling somewhat shakily.
“Oh no, no way am I falling into that trap: I’m not risking Grace’s wrath if I mess up her room somehow. I know that kid – she’ll definitely find out.” Jason laughed.
“Probably true, but I’d stick up for you,” he said.
“I wouldn’t,” Howard joked, sticking his tongue out. Jason smothered a smirk, giving a dismissive roll of his eyes instead and then heading off down the corridor to go and retrieve some bedding.
As Howard crossed over to the sofa, starting to gather up his computer and various tangles of cables, Mark slid down from his place at the breakfast bar.
“Did you ever doubt it? What the two of you have?” he asked, coming over to perch on the sofa’s arm. Howard didn’t answer at first; his brow was furrowed, and he looked down at the wire he was coiling up with an odd intensity.
“Honestly? Not really,” he sighed after a while, setting the wire down on the coffee table. He looked up slowly, his expression still clouded and thoughtful. “But there was this one time…” He sat himself down on the sofa’s opposite arm, blowing out a breath. “You love me, you have to know you’re going to need to be approved by Gracie – and Jay always has. And when you love Jay, you have to accept you’re going to have to find some sort of way of winning over his whole tribe, right down to the step-siblings and the third cousins and the kids who grew up in the house next door.” Howard smirked slightly, giving a roll of his eyes. “My family and his family are a lot alike, actually: messy and loud. It made it easier.” Then he sighed. “I didn’t really think Justin had a problem with me until about the third or fourth time we met. It was some big family thing – his mum’s birthday or Simon’s maybe. The point is, Jay and me had been going out a while by then so I didn’t think much of it. Jay and some of his old crew were up dancing at one point – Jay was on at me the whole rest of the night for not having the bottle to come up and dance with them, but the truth is I just was so desperate to watch him there was no way I was budging. And trust me: Jay knew it – you know that look he gets in his eyes when he feels someone watching him dance, like a challenge he can’t refuse? All over his face that night. And I told him as much. It was daft banter and it went on the whole night, him taking the piss out of me for not dancing and me joking about how much he loves an audience.” Howard rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know how me and Justin ended up outside, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to leave us both for too long without Jay around to buffer, coz he’s probably the only person on earth who can stop either one of us putting our foot in it with the other. Anyway, the point is, we were talking and we’d probably had a few too many and Justin decided to take the chance to finally actually tell me what he thought of me without risking Jay’s wrath. He started telling me all this stuff about how he knew me and Jay wouldn’t last, and I wasn’t really listening to start off with because everyone else in the family had basically told me the opposite and…I knew what I felt when I was with Jay and that was all that mattered. But then he told me ‘You’re in love with the person you let him be – but Jay can’t survive that way’ – and it threw me. I asked him what he was on about and he told me that I was a rough person: rough edges, scraggly personality, messy words, too gruff and stubborn. And he said that Jay wasn’t put together that way, Jay was all clean lines and ticked boxes, that he was crisp and fresh and honest and that left him open to being messed up by someone like me, because I spilled over and Jay just had to adapt to fit the new space. The way he saw it, I was all force and Jay was all stillness – I was a disruption.”
“Like skimming stones on water?” Mark suggested. Howard nodded.
“Something like that: the force of my personality was disrupting Jay’s, was his argument. And Justin didn’t think that was sustainable, he told me that he thought – sooner or later – Jay was just going to get exhausted by it and we’d be history.” Mark scrunched up his face.
“But Jay is all force! Force of will, force of nature, force of…good.” Howard smiled slightly.
“Oh I know.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, though, for a moment I thought…Justin is his twin brother, I just told myself he had to have more idea of what Jay was and wasn’t capable of.” Then Howard’s smile briefly returned, his crisp blue eyes suddenly sparkling. “That lasted about half an hour. Then Jay took me back here with him and we sat up ‘til dawn arguing about music and when he was starting to fall asleep in my lap he looked up and told me he loved loving me because I was maddening and it was giving his brain good exercise.” Howard shook his head fondly and Mark laughed.
“He’s got a point,” he teased and Howard grinned.
“He always does,” he shot back.
Then Howard’s expression sobered again and he let out a huff of breath. “I didn’t let myself doubt it again, no matter what Justin said. I think Justin just wanted to pretend Jay didn’t have that feisty side in him because when he’s not feisty he’ll go along with everything Justin wants just to keep the peace. I’m a troublemaker, I know that – but Jay needs to break the rules sometimes to keep him sane, you know? He spends so much time holding in, holding things together – but everyone needs to breathe out sometime. So, I encourage his instinct to pull away when he needs it instead of just going with the flow: what Justin doesn’t realise is that’s probably stepped a fair few arguments overall.” Mark nodded.
“He didn’t do that so much before you: give himself a break, I mean,” he said softly. Howard nodded slowly.
“I’ve never doubted what me and Jay have ever since.” Howard looked down then, a pained expression crossing his face. “Well, I don’t know…maybe when he was missing. Just for a moment. After the note…the police told me there was probably not much hope. Justin was absolutely fuming at me, thought it was all my fault and that he’d never see his brother again. He said the same thing he said that night: ‘I warned you, I told you you’d wear him down and you didn’t listen and now it’s over.’ And for a second I believed him. Then I remembered how that night he’d said it last had actually ended. Jay smiling up at me with his hair all mussed and his eyes all heavy and half-asleep. And…it was pure, unguarded, wonderful Jay, that night was. It was Jay without any defences. And there was no way I could believe the same bloke who mumbled to me that he loved loving me because it wasn’t easy would turn around one day and decide it was too hard.” Howard looked back over at Mark with a rueful smile. “You’re allowed the odd moment of doubt, I think. But it’s maths: do the moments of doubt outweigh the moments of love.”
“The four letter word moments?” Mark asked and Howard chuckled.
“Yeah, four letter word moments.”
“Ok, you pair, shift off that sofa so I can sort it” Jason’s voice made both Howard and Mark jump, and both men glanced at each other then back at him, trying to assess how much he might have heard. But Jason’s expression gave away nothing as he threw a pillow for each of them to catch and then began unfurling a duvet, covers and pillowcases “This room gets freezing at night, even in summer – I know because I’ve spent too many hours under Howard’s terrible influence, talking ‘til all hours,” he was saying, taking back one of the pillows and beginning to stuff in into a pillowcase. Mark raised his eyebrows, wondering if that was some hint, but Jason simply looked up at him with a soft smile. “Besides, I know what you’re like: I’ve put you up on my sofa enough times to know how deep you like to burrow.” Mark laughed softly, glancing over at Howard, who shrugged, then back to Jason with a fond smile.
“Thanks, Jay. I know I keep saying it but…you really are a good mate.”
“I’m mostly a pushover,” Jason replied with an airy smile. “But still, it’s nice of you to say.”
***
“How’s he doing?” Jason asked as Howard returned from the kitchen with a glass of water.
“Spark out,” Howard replied with a smile, setting the glass down and climbing back into bed. “You did the right thing, you know – not forcing him to go back. He’s exhausted. Let him think about it in the morning.” Jason nodded and Howard looked over at him with concern. “Seriously, Jay – don’t beat yourself up about it. They’re both our mates, but…they have to figure this one out, ok? You can’t keep yourself up fretting over it,” he said gently. Jason rolled over onto his side, smiling up at Howard quietly.
“I know.” Off Howard’s sceptical look he chuckled and shrugged. “I do. I know.” Howard looked down at him piercingly and Jason pushed himself up just long enough to press a kiss to his cheek. “I promise,” he said firmly.
“So what’s bothering you then?” Howard asked, sliding down so they were facing each other across the bed.
“What makes you think I’m worrying, Howard Donald?” Jason narrowed his eyes at him, a mischievous smile playing on his lips that made Howard grin despite himself. “This is just my natural face,” Jason added.
“Don’t try and trick me with the ‘natural face’ line: I know your natural face by heart. It’s gorgeous, smiling and looks me in the eye.”
“Are you saying I’m not gorgeous to you right now?” Jason questioned, arching an eyebrow. Howard leant in so their foreheads were touching, kissing the tip of Jason’s nose before pulling back to look him in the eye.
“You’re always gorgeous, Jason Orange. And right now you’re smiling. But the giveaway is you’re trying really hard not to look me in the eye and we both know it.” Jason laughed softly, nodding.
“Ok. Maybe that’s true. But I’m not fretting about Mark. Or Gaz.” He shrugged. “They’ll figure it out somehow: it might take a month, it might take a year, but I know those two…they’ll get there.” He rolled on to his back then, looking up at the patterns the city lights made across the bedroom ceiling. Howard saw the colours reflected in his eyes, which always looked so pale in the half-light of their room. Faint and fascinating. He propped himself up slightly, a frown furrowing his features.
“So what’s wrong then, darlin’?” he asked softly, reaching across to rest his hand on Jason’s stomach, stroking his thumb absently across the warmth of his skin.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Jason rested his hand over Howard’s, brushing the pad of his thumb against it thoughtfully. “Sometimes I just need to think, you know?”
“So what are you thinking about?” Howard asked in a whisper, twisting his hand to hold Jason’s, bringing it up to his lips to press a kiss to the back of it. “I want in your head. Always.” Jason looked back up at the ceiling, smothered a small smile. “I like it in there, you know: it’s beautiful and infuriating and it fascinates me.”
Jason was quiet for a moment, still looking up: Howard could see his eyes dancing with light, and when he finally looked back across at him there was a pink, delicate curve to his lips that made Howard’s breath catch. “Start talking, love,” Howard said, narrowing his eyes playfully, and Jason chuckled, pushing himself up and pressing a kiss to Howard’s lips. Howard felt the static prickle across his skin, the familiar sensation of every cell in his body coming to life at once; like something had burst inside him.
“I love you, you know that?” Jason told him, briefly cupping his face in his hands, keeping their lips close for a moment longer before he finally pulled back. Howard smiled softly, offering a shy shrug.
“Well, I was hoping,” he said and Jason laughed quietly, shaking his head and falling back against the pillow. He watched Howard for another moment, and Howard let him, reaching out to take his hand again and interlacing their fingers.
“Did my brother really tell you you weren’t in love with the real me?” Jason asked at last, looking up at Howard from the corner of his eye. Howard smiled sheepishly, glancing away.
“So you heard that then,” he mumbled. Jason smiled, narrowing his eyes at him.
“I hear everything,” he teased, giving Howard a nudge with their clasped hands. Howard laughed softly, nodding and rolling his eyes.
“Of course.” He sighed. “It doesn’t matter, you know.”
“It matters to me,” Jason told him gently, pushing himself up and meeting Howard’s eyes, his gaze intent and honest. “He’s my twin, not my spokesperson – and he needs to start realising there’s a difference.” Howard quirked an eyebrow.
“You really think he’s going to break the habit of a lifetime?”
“The habit of a lifetime is him not letting me have my own life – the spokesperson thing only started after I met you.” Jason gave their joined hands another tug, causing both of them to instinctively move their bodies closer together. “You should’ve told me, you know.”
“It was so long ago…and by the end of that night, I’d almost forgotten he’d even said it.”
“I meant that he brought it up again.” Howard looked down and Jason gave his hand a squeeze. “I chose you. And I will keep choosing you until everyone else in my life finally gets the message that this relationship is where I belong. And no, it wasn’t fate, or destiny, or whatever else could make it seem inevitable and indisputable. But it’s something better than any of that, ok? It’s a decision. A conscious decision that I made and that I will always make to be with you.” Howard felt the force of the smile before it reached his lips, and when he looked back into Jason’s face he could feel all the air in his body tightening into a ball in his chest. “Justin got one thing right: I find you exhausting and frustrating, and totally ridiculous. But Mark’s probably right – I didn’t laugh the same way before you. I didn’t feel the same way before you.” He shrugged. “That’s what’s important. Not whether or not my brother gets his own way at our birthday party that I don’t even want.” Howard chuckled, shaking his head slightly and pulling Jason to him, delighting in the sound of his laugh as he rolled against him.
“I love you,” Howard told him firmly, kissing the top of his head as their bodies crushed together. “And for the record, I’ve never needed anyone else’s approval except yours when it comes to the hows or the whys of it all. I love you, and I want you…and that’s all that matters at the end of the day.” He encircled Jason’s body in his arms, smiling as he felt Jason’s arms winding around his neck. “And I want it on record, for the daft romantics of this world, driving themselves to distraction: I don’t love you to pieces, or to the moon and back, or whatever other guff they want to put in greetings cards. I love you because my life was going just fine without you, but it’s so much better for knowing you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had…and you’re sexy as hell.” Jason laughed against him, pulling back enough to look into his face.
“Oh really?” he asked, eyes glinting, and Howard grinned back wolfishly, nodding.
“Really really,” he said, his voice gruff. And Jason smiled back at him, pushing himself up along Howard’s body.
“Back at you, Donald,” he murmured, burying his hands in Howard’s curls and drawing Howard into a deep kiss as the two of them rolled back across the bed.
***
Mark woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon and the feeling of sunlight on his face. For a moment he was disorientated, aware of the fact he was facing the wrong way to be lying in his own bed back at the flat and confused by the sound of quiet voices, bickering good-naturedly not far away. He squinted against the sunlight and rolled over, taking in his surroundings and slowly letting his brain catch up to him. He pulled the duvet cover more tightly round him as memories of the previous day pricked at the corner of his mind, twisting his stomach into uncomfortable knots. From inside his cocoon of freshly laundered fabric, Mark listened to the calming hum of homely activity going on around him: the sound of the fridge door opening and closing, the sizzle of cooking food, the sound of plates and mugs being moved around and the constant, low babble of Jason and Howard bickering.
“Stop laughing!”
“I’m not laughing. Go on, no – carry on with your completely ridiculous, unbelievable story.”
“It’s not unbelievable, it happened!”
“Then why have you never told me about it before?”
“Because I knew you couldn’t handle it – I knew you’d just mock me out of hand.”
“You married me, Donald.”
“You think that’s an excuse for everything.”
“You looked at every sceptical remark I had to offer and you still proposed: that makes one of us a sucker and the other one free to mock whatever daft story the other one comes out with.”
“That’s not how I saw it at the time you know.”
“Your problem is you don’t understand the true meaning of romance.”
“And your problem is you’re a sceptical bastard: I know what I saw.”
“You know what you think you saw.”
Mark chuckled slightly, burrowing down under the duvet a little further and closing his eyes. They were still going, he could hear the muffled sound of a scuffle and the unmistakable laugh Jason only reserved for Howard. He let the peace of it wash over him, taking the moment of unexpected calm to assess how he felt. Was he less devastated than last night? Perhaps. Was he any more certain about his future? He was sure the answer was no.
He peeked out from under the duvet, watching Jason attempt to keep Howard away from the bacon sandwich he’d just made and stifling a laugh.
“Is that for me?” he asked hopefully. He was aware a tuft of his hair was probably all Howard and Jason could really see of him, and he struggled for a moment to untangle himself from the duvet.
“No way. My husband, my home, my bacon,” Howard was declaring in the background.
“Did you put that in our vows?”
“It was between my demand for a new speaker system and your clause about me never making you that weird cocktail with the Campari in it ever again.”
“So glad we went for the traditional service,” Jason was nodding as Mark finally pushed himself up and came over to join them in the kitchen. “Morning, Marko,” Jason added then, turning to Mark with a bright smile. “Here you go: eat it before the human hoover gets his paws on it,” he said, handing Mark the plate and elbowing Howard jokingly in the ribs.
“Joke’s on you, Jay: I know for a fact there is more bacon and I’m not going to stop pestering you ‘til you let me have it,” Howard put in. Jason smirked, rolling his eyes but obligingly heading back towards the fridge.
“So, any thoughts on what your next step is?” Jason asked Mark over his shoulder.
“Some. I don’t know. I didn’t really get all that far…all I know is…I need to get out of Manchester. I need to get away from Gaz for a while, just clear my head and…think.” Mark sighed, setting down his sandwich. “Actually, I was talking to Jamie the other day and…he’s going to New York in a couple of weeks. He’s staying with our friend Emma.”
“Emma ‘Human Sunshine’ Emma? The girl who came over last year for your birthday and got Gary to dance? In public?” Howard asked. Mark grinned.
“One and the same. She’s amazing.”
“She still trying to make it on Broadway?” Jason asked. Mark nodded.
“She’s going places, I know it,” he said. Jason smiled.
“I don’t doubt it – she’s something else,” he said.
“I thought I might tag along…stay out there for a while, just ‘til I can get my head sorted.” Mark looked down, playing with some crumbs on his plate. “What do you think?” he asked. There was a pause, in which Mark caught Howard and Jason sharing a glance. Howard shrugged and Jason bit his lip, and for a moment Mark thought they were going to tell him he was crazy. Some tiny part of him wanted them to tell him he was crazy. Because picking up and going off to New York – with Jamie, one of the very people in his life Gary was so suspicious of – seemed strangely final, even if it was supposed to be anything but. Then, Jason sighed, matching Howard shrug and looking over at Mark with a small, lopsided smile.
“I can’t say we won’t miss you,” he said gently. “But…I think, maybe it’s exactly what you need.” Then his smile widened and he rolled his eyes jokingly. “I mean, I probably would’ve gone with the Lake District or some quiet bit of Scotland – but you’ve always been better at sweeping gestures than me,” he added then, and Mark couldn’t help but laugh. Howard chuckled too, shaking his head.
“Oh no you don’t, Jason Orange – not even the Lake District, do you hear me? You don’t get to go anywhere ‘til I get my bacon sarnie!”
Chapter 8
Grace sat on the small window ledge in her bedroom, watching a plane climb up into the wispy clouds of the Manchester sky. She glanced at the clock on her phone and then looked back up as the plane disappeared from view, wondering idly if Mark was aboard, off on his way to New York. The air was crisp and crackly, and Grace knew Manchester weather well enough to know that meant rain was coming – she wondered if she should have made her bid for escape at the airport when she had joined her dad and Jason in waving Mark off for his New York getaway. She didn’t know much about New York, but it looked fun enough in the movies, and anything had to be an improvement on an afternoon with Tim. Besides, anywhere was fun if you were with Mark. Pulling her knees tightly to her chest and resting her chin on them, she let out a wistful sigh and peered down towards the road, watching for any sign of Tim’s car. Her mother’s house was in one of the quieter Manchester suburbs; all she could hear was the sound of lawnmowers and birds twittering, the vaguest babble of conversation drifting up from a front garden a few houses down. It was peaceful and summery, and though she wasn’t the biggest fan of the suburbs, she couldn’t deny that in that moment there was something vaguely comforting about being somewhere so calm..
Her phone beeped with a text and Grace quickly picked it up to see who it was from. Her dad: If you come back covered in paint, I’ll know it went well. She couldn’t help but laugh, rolling her eyes slightly; her dad was playing dirty tricks with that. The possibility that this day could ever hope to end that well was absurd, of course.
It all went back to the first day she and Jason had ever spent together without her dad – the first key difference between that day and this one being that Jason had not had to be nagged or cajoled into it the way Tim had. In fact, much like everything had with Jason, the day had just sort of…happened. Grace had been waiting to be picked up by her father one Saturday morning when, in his place, Jason had rolled up, giving her a smile and a shrug and saying she was stuck with him for the next few hours. Her dad’s flight home had been cancelled and the next available Frankfurt-to-Manchester hadn’t been until late that night. So off the two of them had gone; Jason had talked to her about penguins and ice skaters with the same easy, earnest interest he talked about music or philosophy with adults as he had driven the two of them to his mum’s, where he had been due to show up on his own in order to help her redecorate her living room. Jason had apologised for not being able to offer Grace a more exciting Saturday, but he had also handed her the role of being his assistant, saying it in that way of his that made everything seem exciting, and Grace had known he would have nothing to be sorry for. No one could make a day painting walls sound fun the way Jason could – the most impressive part, however, had been when it turned out it was every bit as fun as he had made it out to be. She could still remember lying on Jenny Orange’s living room floor beside him, spattered with flecks of cornflower blue and French grey, laughing ‘til her stomach ached. She had been so bad at wall-painting with the roller that she was speckled with colour from head to toe; it had gotten matted in her hair and stained the mismatched collection of old clothes Jenny had managed to find for her to paint in. But Jason and Jenny had still let her keep trying to master it, teasing her harmlessly as splatters of colour were sent around the room by her liberal use of the roller. Jason had followed behind her, rectifying her work and telling her stories whilst Jenny had made them a small feast of a lunch, which they’d eaten picnic-style on the living room floor, lying back against the plastic sheeting which was covering the floor and playing at picking out constellations in the paint speckled ceiling, giving them all absurd names and trying to outdo each other with just how ridiculous they could get. Grace hadn’t wanted to change out of her paint-covered clothes, not even when it was time to go to the airport to pick up her dad. She still remembered the look of deep affection and profound amusement which had spread across her father’s face the moment he’d spotted her and Jason amidst the crowds in arrivals, covered in paint dashes and spots from head to toe. Tim didn’t have a hope of competing with that – it wasn’t her being stubborn or not giving him a chance, it was just something she knew with the sort of conviction that was perhaps beyond her years. Some moments just couldn’t be recreated. It was that simple.
Before Grace had the chance to reply to the message from her dad, her phone buzzed once again, the screen lighting up with Jason’s name this time. The message was pure Jason, a blend of simplicity, honesty and kindness which Grace couldn’t help but smile at: Whatever happens, at least you tried. Hope you have fun. Call us if you need us. J x. Grace drew in a deep breath. She still didn’t want to be forced to spend the day with uptight Tim, desperately trying to make conversation, but somehow the thought of her dad and Jason being just a phone call away, always rooting for her, was enough to make her feel better. Nevertheless she couldn’t help but grimace as she looked once more at the time on her phone. Tim was now, officially, Really Late. She couldn’t exactly criticise him for that, of course: she and her dad made lateness an art form. Yet she still couldn’t quite stop herself from thinking that Jason had never once kept her waiting without at least letting her know how long he might be – her mum would roll her eyes if she dared go downstairs and point that out though, and she was tired of feeling like she was somehow making Jason seem like part of the problem in her mum’s eyes.
The sound of a car caught her attention, and she set her phone down on the window ledge, leaning forwards slightly in order to peer towards the end of the road. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment as she realised it was Tim’s unwieldy black Range Rover turning in to their road; she had been willing him to flake or cancel. As he pulled up in front of the house, she noticed he was on his phone, talking in that clipped, moody tone of his that he used for work but had a habit of forgetting to turn off even outside of the office doors. He climbed out of his car somewhat distractedly, glancing at his watch as he strode up the driveway. The sound of his voice came in through the open window, and Grace tilted her head to one side, trying to listen in.
“I was hoping to work on it over the weekend, but Vick’s arranged this stupid thing with her daughter and I can’t get out of it without looking like a dick.” Grace wrinkled her nose in distaste, sitting up somewhat indignantly. “I know – I actually snagged an invite. I left it open-ended so I wouldn’t have to explain I was going to be off taking some little kid out for ice cream or whatever it is she’s got her heart set on…oh, she knows how to get her own way, alright. She’s a troublemaker who’s giving her mum grief for not being as cool as her dad, but she hasn’t got a clue. You should hear the stories Vick’s told me about Daddy Dearest. Sounds like a prick to me…a DJ, so he says…Tell me about it! Is that even a legitimate job for a bloke over the age of twenty-two? Yeah, waste of space if you ask me – and if this husband was so great as she makes out then I don’t think he’d be wasting his time with him to be honest, but each to their own.” Grace felt the prickle of tears at the backs of her eyes: hot, angry, resentful tears. She felt hurt, but also mad – Tim had no right to talk about her dad or Jason, especially not to someone she didn't even know, and they weren't even there to defend themselves. He had never even bothered to get to know her, never mind either of them, and what little he did know was not enough to pass judgement. “I’m not even doing it for Vick, to be honest, I’m doing it for a quiet life. Never date a woman with a brat and an ex-boyfriend for baggage, Karl, I’m telling you now, it’ll be a never-ending saga. But I’ve put too much in at this point to do the sensible thing and walk away.” A pause followed by a nasty laugh cut through the stillness of the summer air and Grace felt her lip curl. “Oh Vick’s fine as long as you get her away from the kid – I don’t know why she doesn’t send her packing to her dad’s if he’s supposed to be so great, but Vick’s adamant she's not as bad as all that, though I don't think she would tell me even if she was, too busy trying to pretend having the kid wasn't actually the giant mistake anyone with eyes can see it was; she’s been properly held back because of her and we both know it…”
Grace bit down hard on her lip and pushed herself quickly off the window ledge, jumping down to the floor with a heavy thud. She couldn’t listen to anymore without losing it, and there was no way she was going to let him make her look like a brat to her mother by getting her wound up before she’d even left the house. As she all but ran out of her bedroom, she could just hear the sound of his sharp, cool laugh coming in through the window, and she rolled her eyes – this was going to be the longest afternoon of her life, she could just feel it.
She wasn’t entirely surprised that Tim was still on the phone by the time she made it down the stairs, past her anxious mother, and out of the front door. He didn't spot her right away, and he only looked up when he heard the door bang closed, somewhat begrudgingly returning her nod of greeting before angling his body away from her and lowering his voice. If he was trying to hide the fact he was still complaining about her, Grace couldn’t help but think there were subtler ways of doing it – she rolled her eyes and headed straight for the car, pretending not to hear Tim telling his friend he had to go because ‘the gremlin had arrived’.
Tim was a tall, bear-like structure, with a sharp hair-cut and a wardrobe full of designer clothes. He looked as though he’d been cut out of a catalogue: handsome in a strangely boring, practical sort of way, his expressions varying degrees of intensely brooding and his outfits that bit too slickly put together, like they never actually got lived in. He seemed to like to come across that way – like a man with no past, no story. It was something Grace found difficult about him, because she loved stories and always had done. Her memories of the early days of knowing Jason were filled with fraying jumpers and laughter and conspiratorial winks; he had always been a person with a past, with a home and a family and a story, and, even before she had adored him for it, she had been fascinated by him because of it. As Tim pocketed his phone and opened the car door, Grace regarded him thoughtfully out of the corner of her eye: if she could find some trace of a story in him, if she could just put him into context somehow, then maybe there was some hope for a truce. But she wasn't going to hold her breath.
“So…” Tim sighed. His expression was a curious mixture of discomfort and irritation and Grace almost felt sorry for him; maybe he really was just awkward with kids after all. “Your mum suggested shopping,” he ventured after a beat. Grace bit her lip, considering the prospect of schlepping around the shops with a bored-stiff Tim and shuddering slightly. There was no way that that was a day trip they were going to forge an understanding out of.
“Maybe,” she said, tipping her head slightly.There was another option – a suggestion of Jason’s, not that she thought it would be wise to mention that to Tim. “Or we could go to Dunham Massey.” Off Tim’s blank look Grace shrugged uncomfortably, suddenly shy. “It’s that old stately home place near Altringham.” Tim nodded slowly as though he had heard of the place and Grace felt a little bolder. “They’re having a summer fair this weekend – there’s going to be this big tea party in the gardens and there’s face painting and cool stalls and things.”
“Outside?” Tim asked sceptically. “I heard there was a storm on the way this afternoon, and that sky looks pretty angry to me.” Grace sighed and slumped back in her seat slightly.
“There’s stuff inside too,” she mumbled feebly.
“Oh fine, anything for a quiet life,” Tim muttered, shaking his head slightly.
“We don’t have to,” Grace pointed out, trying her best not to sound as indignant as she felt in the face of his overly put-upon expression. “It was just an idea. If you want to do something else we can, I don’t mind,” she protested, but Tim had already started the car.
“No, no – I think we both know your mum’s expecting me to make sure whatever Grace wants, Grace gets.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grace asked, feeling defensive, but Tim simply shrugged.
“It means whatever it means. Let’s just get this day over with, shall we?”
Grace bit back the snappy retort she wanted to make about him managing to miss the point of why they were even on this trip and forced a smile, determined to at least try, to make her dad and Jason proud of her if nothing else. They were barely five minutes in and already she felt like she was walking on eggshells; she wondered if she should’ve tried to persuade Mark to stay in the country a little longer so she could have employed him as a mediator for the afternoon – she had never known anyone who could break down people’s defences the way Mark could, there was just something powerfully genuine about him that melted even the frostiest of people in seconds. She glanced over at Tim, trying to judge his expression and failing – she felt as though she was in trouble for something, but she couldn’t think what it could be. Perhaps even Mark might have struggled with someone as tense as Tim always was: he was the sort to make snide remarks about his patterned shirts and his stacked heels.
The atmosphere in the car was almost unbearable, and Grace wasn’t sure she could wait the twenty minute drive to Dunham Massey to diffuse it.
"You know, this has got to be one of your mother’s more ridiculous ideas,” Tim muttered suddenly, taking Grace by surprise. She looked over at him, eyebrows raised, and he glanced back at her, shrugging. “What? Surely that’s one of the few things we agree on here, isn’t it?” he added then. Grace opened her mouth to disagree, then quickly closed it again, somewhat shocked to realise he had a point.
“I guess so,” she admitted slowly. “But I know it means a lot to her…and maybe it might work. We already found something we agree on, right? I mean…that’s a start,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug. “Mum just wants us to get on, we don’t have to be best friends or anything.” Tim rolled his eyes.
“Oh, and I’m sure having not wanting to have our weekends ruined by each other in common is just the sort of solid result she was looking for,” he said, his tone heavily loaded with sarcasm. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here – I could be at the testimonial match at Old Trafford with my boss. Do you have any idea how much that would help my chances of promotion?” Grace scrunched up her face in confusion.
“You have tickets to the football and you’re not going?”
“Don’t be stupid: it’s a company box. The boss invited all of us to come. Champagne, a game and a chance to suck up to some of the company’s top brass.” Tim’s face was contorted into what looked like a grimace of pain and Grace could only frown in response, even more confused than she had been before.
“But then…we could still go, couldn’t we? You just take me with you.” Tim laughed sharply and Grace flinched.
“Are you kidding?! What a waste of a spot in the box that would be!”
“I watch football with my dad and Jay sometimes,” Grace told him with a wounded glare, but Tim simply laughed again, shaking his head like she was the slowest person he had ever had to try to explain anything to.
“Doesn’t make a difference – I’m not explaining that to the boss. He doesn’t know about you and I want to keep it that way. And in any case, it's a testimonial game: the whole point is you go to appreciate all the old players out in force alongside the top names of the moment, and you wouldn't even know half of them.”
“You could just tell me about them, you know, it's not that hard. And anyway, what do you mean you mean your boss doesn’t know about me? Can't you just explain?”
“It means what it sounds like, kid. I can’t have my bosses knowing I’m lugging some woman’s kid around. All they know about your mum is that she’s pretty, smart, has a decent job and is going out with me. I wouldn’t even know where to begin explaining all the bloody baggage she comes with. After all, explaining you is one thing, but explaining you means explaining your mum and dad’s situation somehow or other – and I don’t want to know how that might affect how they think of me and my life choices, not if they find out I’m putting up with all those stupid ones.”
Grace felt a lump forming in her throat, hot and uncomfortable. Stupid life choices – was that was she was? Or her dad? Or both? She looked over Tim anxiously, trying to read his expression, but his face was unreadable, the same terse, serious expression on his face as always. Grace tried to even out her breathing: one thing was for sure, she was not going to let Tim see her cry. “Look, I don’t want to sound harsh, kid, but come on: we don’t like each other and it’s not changing, there’s no point us making room for each other in our lives because they’re not going to cross over any time soon. Your mother’s only forcing the issue because Saint Jason and your dad seem to make the rest of us look like a waste of oxygen and it's making her think she's a step behind or something.” Tim rolled his eyes. “Must be nice, up on that pedestal of theirs.”
Grace was blinking back tears furiously now, but her expression was hardened, her mouth a stern line that made her look older than her years.
“You can't say that about them, not ever – Jay and dad are nice to me, and so is mum when you’re not around. It’s not their fault that you think being nice to kids is some massive chore or something,” Grace told him sharply, and she glared over at him as she spoke, gritting her teeth. But Tim simply laughed dismissively, glancing over at her with his eyebrows raised.
“If you only knew,” he smirked, shaking his head. Grace’s frown deepened.
“If I only knew what?”
“The truth about your father.” Tim shrugged. “From what your mum’s told me, he’s hardly perfect – maybe Jason really is a saint. Or just a daft prick who doesn't mind being walked all over.” Tim shrugged again, like he was simply telling her about something on TV the night before, his expression placid and detached. But Grace felt the words like outright blows, disbelieving but still somehow curious.
“Mum and dad were best friends for forever, they still are – stop lying,” she shot back, aware of the slight catch in her voice as she spoke. Tim shot her a pitying look.
“Kid, your dad messed your mum up good and proper, make no mistake. He wasn’t always ‘Dad Of The Year’ material and he didn’t always have some goody-two-shoes husband running round cleaning up after him either.”
He chuckled, shaking his head, and Grace felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted desperately to get out of the car, to make him stop talking, to run away and find her mum and get her to tell her how Tim had got it all wrong. “Listen, I know he’s your dad and all, kid, but come on – you must know he and your mum split up for a reason. They wouldn’t even be in touch anymore if they hadn’t ended up with you. Not part of their plans at all, ending up stuck with each other forever. Your mum had cut your dad loose for good when she found out about you – showed up on his doorstep and told him how things had to change and why and, fair play to the bloke, I suppose he stepped up. Eventually. Took his time mind you, by the sound of it.”
“You weren’t there, how do you know?”
“I’m just telling you what your mum told me, kid. And she told me plenty more.”
“Shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I bet you tell Saint Jason that all the time, when he sticks his nose into your mum and dad’s business like it’s his place, or he chats away and sounds off on your life like you're not just some kid whose dad he ended up shacking up with.” Tim rolled his eyes dramatically. “Give me a break, kid – no bloke in his right mind wants to get shackled with that kind of baggage unless they get some weird kick out of the drama. You know, you might like me more if you fawned over him less.”
“Shut up!” Grace burst out. “Don’t talk about Jay. Not ever. And don’t talk about my dad and don’t talk about my family and just go away and go to your stupid football match,” Grace sniffed, wiping away the traitorous tears escaping down her cheeks.
Tim’s expression clouded and he glanced at the clock on the car’s dashboard.
“Your mum would kill me,” he muttered. “And then she’d probably let your dad kill me a second time, because God only knows why but she actually lets him pass judgement on me, even after the shitty job he did of being her partner.”
“Stop it. You’re wrong.”
“And I’m wrong about him getting drunk and partying and flirting with everything that had legs and cheating on her left and right before moving here, there and everywhere until he met his precious husband and finally decided to be a real man and settle down, because it finally suited him to grow up?” Tim sneered. “Give me strength.”
“Shut up! You don’t even know him, you don’t know anything!”
“Oh, I know I’d have been up at Old Trafford by now, on course for my promotion and enjoying my life if your mum had never laid eyes on your dad. I know you shouldn’t be here because you were a stupid mistake whose entire existence has knocked your mum’s life off course and is about to screw up mine. I know that your stupid fixation with this precious Jason is all just a ploy to make your mum feel even worse about herself because you just want to live with your wonderful father; because I mean, really, the way you exaggerate this bloke is too good to be true, kid, you really over-egged it there. I know a lot, Grace Donald. I know plenty. I see the way you play your mum, and your dad, and this tedious arse Jason – but it won’t work on me. You’re a spoilt brat who can’t cope when an adult actually dares to treat you like your age and doesn't just let you have free reign.”
Grace was shivering. She felt rooted in place, certain that if she moved she would just collapse. She didn't want him to see her properly bawling, it somehow seemed to just prove his point about her, yet she was sure she was about to lose it and she was desperate to hold it in. It was starting to rain – just spits and spats but enough to make the scenery outside the window start to blur, and Tim flicked on the windscreen wipers, peering up at the sky casually, like nothing about the conversation had got remotely out of hand. “Knew it,” he tutted under his breath as thunder rumbled overhead.
She almost felt numb. She knew there were still tears on her cheeks but she wasn’t sure she was actually crying anymore. She blinked, bewildered, looking around at the streets they were on and trying to recognise some landmark or road name through the blur of grey Mancunian rain. She just needed something to reassure her that she could get out of this car, anything that could tell her how close she was to home, or rather, how close she was to Salford Quays. She was breathing too quickly, her heart racing in a panic of hurt, fear and determination, and something about the heavy thunk of the windscreen wipers made her more anxious and agitated. She needed to get out – she wanted to just roll right out into the puddles on the tarmac and run. Tim was muttering something about traffic – the only trace of his outburst left on his face was the slightest curl of his lip. He had said those things then, she hadn’t imagined it; he thought that little of her, of her dad and of Jason, and worst of all of her mum. She swallowed down a fresh wave of tears and tried to push it all out of her head. She couldn’t think about it right now, she had to focus – she had to get away. And then, finally, through the raindrops she saw it: a sign for Humphrey Park station. Somewhere she knew. Somewhere she’d been with her dad and Jason; that alone was comforting somehow.
“Drop me off here.” Tim paused for a moment, shooting her a sceptical look.
“What?” he asked through a nervous laugh, his expression turning to confusion.
“If I’m ruining your life so badly, then missing your stupid football match will only make it worse. So drop me off. Old Trafford is right over there, you could go without me.”
“You can’t be that dumb. Come on, kid – you wouldn’t last ten minutes in this city on your own.”
“I’m fine. Anyone who bothered to know me would know that. Drop me off. Go to your stupid match. I want to get out.”
“What are you going to do, run and tell Jason on me?”
“Just stop it! Let me out!”
To Grace’s surprise, despite his scornful laugh, Tim pulled off the road, finding somewhere to stop and looking over at her expectantly.
“This good enough for you, kid?” he asked as they came to a stop. Grace tried to steady herself and the tense silence of the car was, for a moment, only broken by the wet thwumping of the windscreen wipers and the slight harshness of her breathing.
“Perfect,” she managed after a while, trying to keep down the sudden wave of nerves which was hitting her. She was suddenly starting to doubt herself – but she refused to let Tim see it. “Let me out now. I’m going home,” she said defiantly. Tim snorted, flicking the unlock button for the passenger doors and arching an eyebrow at her.
“Go on then, little girl in the big city – prove me wrong. If you need me, I’ll be sipping champagne in a corporate box at Old Trafford. Happy?”
Grace was, like her father, a sucker for a challenge – it didn’t matter how scared or upset she was, she could never bear backing down. She felt herself shaking just beneath the surface of her skin, like something inside her was crumbling away, but on the outside her expression was fiery and hard as she stared Tim down. She knew he was expecting her to change her mind, say she didn’t mean it and just ask him to take her home. And some part of her was desperate to do just that. But then she thought of the idea of it, the way the words would stick in her throat as she said them. She thought of explaining it all to her mum, with Tim right there listening in and twisting it all. And she knew she just couldn’t face it, not right now.
“Enjoy your match,” Grace told Tim sullenly, twisting in her seat to push open the heavy passenger door. She felt the panic rise again as she jumped out into the rain, tears pooling once more in her eyes and her legs getting splashed by mucky rainwater as she landed in a puddle. But she still slammed the door behind her with force, folding her arms and looking up at Tim through the car window. For a moment Tim just looked at her sceptically, but then, to Grace’s surprise, he had shaken his head and revved the car’s engine. To her even greater surprise, he actually drove away.
For a moment she watched the traffic helplessly, half-expecting him to reappear. But when he didn’t, she reached instinctively for her phone – and that was when she realised: she’d left it in her room at home, up on the window ledge. Her heart lurched against her rib cage, and she felt breathless and weak. The rain was getting colder, soaking through her jacket, and she looked around at the passing cars and the pedestrians huddled beneath umbrellas, stamping past her through the puddles, all moving around her like she didn’t even exist. And according to Tim she shouldn’t – she shouldn’t exist, her existence was a mistake and an annoyance and a cause of problems and pain. She didn’t think that was something she would ever have believed, but alone on the pavement in that moment she suddenly did. She could taste the rain on her lips, she could feel it dripping off the ends of her curls. And she thought about all the things Tim had said and she wondered if they were all true.
But then she thought of Jason. Of his steady calm and his way with words. Of the way he always knew she could do anything she set her mind to. Of how he would listen to her when she told him this story – and make her hot chocolate, and squeeze her hand, and call her sweetheart, and smile, keep her safe until her dad got home from work. Above all, she though of how he would just…believe her. Looking down along the road towards the station, she thought of the glass and the lights of Salford Quays, and of going round town with Jason and her dad, following them on and off buses, trams and trains as they negotiated their way around Manchester with nonchalance and instinct. And finally her thoughts turned back to that morning, in the dim sunshine outside her mum’s house, and to the money in her pocket that her dad and Jason had pressed into her hands before dropping her off, Jason smiling knowingly at her as he’d said ‘In case of emergency. Even if the emergency is just your need for some more postcards for your wall’ and winking at her conspiratorially from the front seat.
She could cry later, she decided – and she definitely would. But for now it was raining and she needed a plan.
***
“Gary, my love, all I am trying to tell you is that there are other ways of looking at the situation. And perhaps it’s time your started.” Dawn was standing in the middle of the kitchen, her hands on her hips as she blew stray strands of hair out of her face, whilst Gary sat at the kitchen table, staring into his tea with a glum, faraway expression on his face that was starting to feel all-too familiar to him. He was a natural pessimist at the best of times – and this was anything but the best of times.
“How many other ways of looking at it can there be: if someone needs to get away from you so badly they fly to another continent, then I think you have to at least consider the possibility that the situation has gone beyond something you can salvage with a bit of talking.”
Gary slumped back in his chair with a heavy sigh, glancing down at a scratch on the kitchen floor (Mark, a spider, Cadbury and a purple plastic spatula the collective cause just three weeks earlier), a thoughtful frown settling on his face. “Not that I’m even convinced I ought to try and salvage anything from this, after the way we’ve been with each other just lately. I just…don’t even know what I think any more. Or who I believe.” Dawn huffed out a cynical laugh.
“Oh, you’d better know who you believe by now. How can you trust a word this Nigel bloke tells you after the whole business with Jay?” she demanded. Gary winced.
“Don’t remind me.”
“I’m sorry, Gary, I just…I think you need to try and get things in focus a little better rather than wallowing in the misery of it like this – as though it’s all just useless anyway so why bother. You’ve hardly left the flat for a week except to walk Cadbury, and you ask me for news about Jason like you couldn’t just pick up the phone and ask him yourself – which we both know you could, Jay would just start talking like the old friend he is to you and that would be that.” She sighed, coming to sit with him at the kitchen table. “Look, I meant what I said: there are other ways of looking at Mark leaving, ok? Starting with the fact Jay hasn’t left, and is still opening up that shop of yours every morning like nothing in the world has changed.” She leant in and Gary found he couldn’t help but meet her gaze: she had a beautiful, soft-edged face and she smelt of wildflowers in summer. He’d known her long enough to know that the tougher she was on you the more she loved you, but that didn’t always make it any easier to take. She was pretty and delicate looking, but she was made of steel. She quirked an eyebrow at him, her eyes piercing as they met his own. “And anyway, you’re sitting here trying to tell me you don’t know how you feel about Mark, but that look in your eyes when I told you he was off to New York this morning was giving me a different story and we both know it,” she told him briskly. “You looked like I’d just told you the earth had stopped turning.” If Gary was honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely sure the earth hadn’t stopped, after all, it had certainly felt to him like the ground beneath him had juddered to a halt.
Gary closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. He was trying to keep himself in check, to keep himself stable and rational and in control: he couldn’t cry, he didn’t deserve to cry when he had been the architect of his own misery, it was too self-indulgent.
“But Mark didn’t just go, Dawn, you know?” Gary whispered. “He went across an ocean. Without so much as a word.”
“And if you decided on a Barbados getaway tomorrow, you’d be straight on the phone to Jay to make arrangements for the shop?” Dawn shot back archly. Gary attempted to glare at her, but it was futile in the face of her kind, knowing smile. “Thought not,” she chuckled, sitting back in her chair. “Perhaps it says more about how much you mean to him, rather than how angry he is or how over he thinks things are between the two of you, had you thought about that?” Gary opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking somewhat sheepishly over at Dawn, who lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Look, I get it, but I think you’re just not seeing things clearly enough right now to judge them properly. You’re so focused on the fact he’s gone, so fixated – as though he’s never coming back. But the fact is, you don’t even know why he decided he had to leave or why he chose the place he chose.” Dawn gave Gary a small nudge. “I talked to Jay though,” she said. Gary couldn’t help it; his eyebrows raised in curiosity, and Dawn’s smile was almost amused. “He says Mark has a friend over there – Emma, I think he said? – and another friend who was already planning a trip. He also says Mark practically clung to him and Howard like a little kid on his first school trip when they dropped him off at the airport this morning.”
Dawn shrugged, tipping her head to one side in thought, her blonde hair swishing prettily across her face and falling in her eyes – she made no move to brush it away, instead frowning as though she was trying to concentrate on something. “To me that sounds more like someone who thinks he needs to go. Don’t you think? And when you look at it that way the distance is almost a compliment: after all, if someone has to, not just leave Manchester, but cross an ocean, just to try to stop thinking about you, then I’d say you’ve made quite the impression on them. That maybe the only way they have left to clear their head is to go somewhere so far away, because you have changed too much of the way they see their world and their life, and they need to get away from that impact to look at it properly and to really think clearly about it all.”
A part of Gary wanted to believe that. Another part of him couldn't help but wonder what Nigel's assessment of the situation might be if he were actually around. But of course, Nigel was never around when his bombs exploded – he knew exactly how far back to stand and watch, and Gary knew, deep down, he revelled in that destruction. That was what bothered him about Jason: the bombs he had planted in his life had not wreaked the havoc he’d been hoping for, not with real permanence – Jason had survived too well, and there was just no fun in that as far as Nigel was concerned. Which begged the question, Gary knew, why he was still finding it so hard to let go of the things Nigel had said to him about Mark: he knew he loved Mark, he was fairly confident he trusted him, but what Nigel had tapped into was something else – it was the fact he wasn’t entirely sure he could understand Mark, or what Mark saw in him, which made it difficult for him to ever feel fully sure of him. Gary wasn’t good at not being sure. He liked everything to have a place, a box it fitted into. Mark, however, didn’t have the sort of solid edges that that required – he was always full of unexpected, impossible things, he was always changing shape. Mark had too much to give and Gary didn’t have enough boxes to keep it all in.
“I miss him,” Gary murmured absently into the quiet. Dawn smiled.
“I know you do, my love.”
“I miss him so much it hurts – like someone’s poured acid down my throat.” Gary leant forward, tipping his head down and staring resolutely at the wood grain of the kitchen table. “I miss him so much, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough. To make up for the things I said or for the way I found it so easy to doubt him. I don’t think it’s ever enough – there’s no words to make that better, no matter how much I might love him. And I can’t make the worries I have not true.” Gary swallowed down hard. “He’s gone, and I don’t want him to be. But I don’t know what I’d say to him even if he wasn’t, even if he was here right this moment. We’re both too selfish and we’re both too different, and no matter how much we love using words in songs, we just don’t know how to talk.” Gary finally let a tear escape, and he felt Dawn’s slender fingers against his skin, brushing it away. “I was always in awe of the way Jay could talk – he’s the only person I’ve ever known who can talk like he can, like it’s an art form. I’ve always wished I knew how to use words like that, string them together so perfectly, without a melody to help give them weight. If I could do that then maybe I’d feel more like I stood any chance of fixing this.”
Dawn placed a hand on his arm and squeezed, and Gary was grateful for her quiet sympathy. He knew it was not sympathy borne out of understanding, because he knew just how exasperated she was with him for his housebound moping. But Dawn had one of the kindest hearts he’d ever known, and she would never judge just because she didn’t understand. “I’m sorry, you know,” he said quietly, looking across at her with a tight smile “About being such crap company, I mean,” he added, quirking an eyebrow in what he hoped was a self-deprecating expression. Dawn gave him a wry smile in return.
“I knew what I was letting myself in for when I dropped by,” she said kindly. “After all, you weren’t exactly on top form last time I was here, and then when Jay filled me in on the New York thing…I knew I had to tell you. Jay said he would’ve broken the news but he couldn’t get you to pick up the phone for him and neither could Howard, and he wasn't sure a text would really be the best way of breaking it…” Dawn shook her head and let out a sigh of frustration. “I couldn’t leave you in the dark about it, though. So here I am.” Gary nodded, looking away self-consciously.
“The worst part is the trouble he must’ve gone to: he didn’t just come over and pack a suitcase, he worked out a time when I wasn’t home, then came over and packed a suitcase and went to the trouble to make sure not one thing in this flat was left out of place. I didn’t have a clue he’d been here, Dawn. Honestly.”
“Dare I suggest that he did that because he thought he might change his mind about going, if he saw you, or if you got wind of what he was planning and confused him with some last-minute plea to stay? There’s something to the whole ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ cliché, you know. And Jay said he wasn’t going to try and stop Mark from going because he could see all over his face how desperate he was just for a bit of time and space to think.”
Gary nodded vaguely, his mind only half on the words Dawn was saying. It was the mentions of Jason and Howard, surprisingly, which stung the most. He hadn’t really taken a moment to assess just how much he would lose if he ever lost Jason – it wasn’t a thought he’d ever considered in all the years they’d known each other. No matter what doubts he might’ve had, he’d always somehow managed to take it for granted that Jason would always be there. When he needed him. When he was ready for him. When he wanted those words that could fill up whole nights, from sundown to sunup, with hardly a break for breath. He’d never thought about the way Jason could take him out of himself, even when he didn’t want it – the way he could force him to see things from a different point of view and change his perception of the world and the people around him for the better. He hadn’t thought of the way Jason brought people and laughter, colour and love and honesty into every room with him – the way that that energy and rhythm he possessed had helped pull other people into their world and keep them there. It had been all too easy to think of the things Jason didn’t bring: fame and fortune, recognition for his music. The things that had mattered to Gary back when the two of them had first met. It was starting to dawn on him now that he wasn’t that person who had first met Jason Orange in an audition room anymore. He needed more from his life than Nigel’s promises, he valued different things and understood the importance of good foundations more. He was no longer the blinkered, ambitious young kid who could live with the smell of smoke from all the burned bridges that selfish ambition – and Nigel’s tactics – inevitably left behind. He should have thought about Jason more, over the years, he realised. He should have reassessed his significance.
“Jay always could see through things,” Gary said suddenly into the silence. Dawn looked up at him with curious surprise, but Gary still avoided her eyes, staring into the middle distance absently. “It’s what’s helped him survive all the crappy things that got said and done those days when he was in the band,” Gary added then, shrugging awkwardly. “I think a part of me assumed he knew I didn’t believe the whole version of events with him and Nigel the way he’d told it. Because he always knew everything else I didn’t say.” Gary smiled sadly, shaking his head. “But the other thing about Jay is that he likes to see the best in people – he can look at you and see a person you didn’t even know you could be. So I suppose he just…saw the best in me. Believed in me more than I deserved. More than I did him. Because that's the way he is, is Jay. He sees light in things. Even storms and arguments and sticky clubs at 3am. He saw a version of me who was only half-there.” Dawn’s lips tipped up into a half-smile.
“You should tell him that. I think he’d appreciate it: you said it yourself, words have always been his thing. It might be nice if you gave some to him for a change, instead of the other way around.”
“I doubt Jay would welcome my words right now.”
“Oh, we both know Jay will always welcome anyone’s words, if offered in good faith. And your words more than most.” Dawn elbowed Gary lightly in his side. “He’s worried about you, you know. He thinks you’re going to do your wallowing act and convince yourself you’re a failure. He’s seen you go all shut-in before and he doesn’t want history repeating just because you’re human and made a few mistakes.”
“A few mistakes is an understatement for what I did, Dawny, and we both know it: I had almost my whole world tied up in the four of us and that shop and, maybe I let Nigel hand me the matches, but I was the one who lit the fire and let it burn.” Gary looked down into his long-cold tea with a sigh. “Howard would agree with me on this one: Jay has been burned too many times, and me turning on him was the last thing he deserved after everything else.” Dawn rolled her eyes at him, throwing her hands up despairingly as she leant back in her seat.
“Gary Barlow, would you listen to yourself? Jason Orange is a man who will decide for himself whether or not to stick his hands back into the fire, and Howard knows that as well as you do. Besides – Howard is your friend too, Gary. Protective he may be, but he’s not unreasonable.”
For a moment the two of them lapsed into silence again, Dawn still watching Gary with a mixture of frustration and concern. Gary felt like he wanted to cry and to scream and to run out of the building all at once, but for some reason his body had gone numb, a heavy stillness settling in his limbs and a hollow feeling forming at the back of his throat. Somehow that emptiness was worse than tears – it forced him to think too much about that argument, about how he had managed to look Jason in the eye and tell him he was high and mighty and not to be believed. It was like his past self was some strange entity he didn’t recognise, some distant person he was trying to communicate with, but who was standing too far away to hear his screams.
“You know, my love, you are right about one thing: you’re responsible for your own downfall. But not in the way you think,” Dawn said after a while, and Gary looked up at her in surprise. Her voice was soft but stern, her expression carefully neutral. “If you stay in this flat, and you keep ignoring his and Howard’s calls, and you keep telling yourself Mark Owen is a lost cause…you will make it true. Their lives will be forced to go on whilst yours doesn’t move. Because the only thing worse than someone who takes the wrong action and hurts your feelings, is someone who lets fear and doubt mean more to them than love – someone who lets a little bit of hardship make them take no action at all.” Dawn shrugged. “I’ve had friends do that to me before: throw the grenade by mistake but not care enough to push past their own embarrassment and shame to come and help me with the clear-up. It hurts, Gary. When someone who you have chosen to trust, to care about that much and bring into your family, just lets off the bomb and then hides away, hoping that by the time they come back it’ll be ok enough that they can pretend it never happened at all. But the truth is it won’t work that way. You leave it too long and that friendship will forever be changed.” Dawn glanced away, her expression wistful and the corners of her lips downturned. “Trust me: you start to feel more hurt by the silence than you ever did by the fight that started it all in the first place.” She took a deep breath and met Gary’s eyes once more. “I know Jay is resilient. I know his capacity for forgiveness. But he’s only human: he can only stretch so far before he breaks.”
Dawn smiled then, her expression clearing like a summer sky as she shot Gary a sidelong glance. “Jay was on his own at the shop when I stopped by today; Howard has a gig in Liverpool tonight apparently. He told me Howard was driving there and back and he wasn’t expecting him home ‘til three or four in the morning. I told him I’d cover tomorrow at the shop if he wanted and, you know, it was the first time I think I’ve ever heard him take up an offer of help that quickly in all the time I’ve known him.” She arched an eyebrow. “He’s exhausted…and not even denying it.” Dawn tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, a quieter sort of smile settling on her lips. “I do think he’s looking better, though. More than, actually. I mean, since everything that happened with that woman he has been so much less like…well, like Jay, I suppose. But just recently? He’s been smiling properly again. It’s nice to see.” Gary smiled, nodding absently.
“Don’t tell him that, whatever you do – daft beggar thinks he was fooling us all with his ‘I’m fine’ routine, but I know Howard was keeping a close eye on him, and that it came to a head between them more than once. I reckon there’ve been a few hushed heart-to-hearts at ungodly hours of the morning between them two, sorting through the whole mess.” He sighed, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Because that’s what they do, Howard and Jay. Talk it over. Like it doesn’t even matter if it all comes spilling over and makes a mess.” Dawn laughed softly.
“That’s because it doesn’t, my love. Messes can be cleaned up, you know. All it takes is the willpower and the patience to work out the cause so you can find the right tools to put it right.” Gary looked over at her, eyes narrowed.
“Don’t think I don’t see what you did there,” he deadpanned and she laughed, her eyes sparkling and her smile one of pure kindness.
“Listen, I’m not going to tell you I think any of this is easy or clear cut. I know you and Mark have your problems to sort out. But don’t you think it’s worth at least trying before you just give up?” she asked carefully. “Mark’s not going to be in New York forever, you know,” she added then, more softly, placing a hand on Gary’s shoulder. Gary smiled up at her tightly, putting his own hand over hers and giving it a squeeze.
“Maybe not. But it’s what conclusions he might come to whilst he’s over there that I’m worried about, Dawny. Because everything I gave him to think about before he left was terrible – I didn’t trust him, I used music against him in the worst way. And I know if…if someone did that to me, if he had done that to me…”
“Hey, you don’t know what conclusions Mark is going to come to in New York, and you also don’t know what conclusions he left with either. But you do know how you feel. You know what you could do about it. I know Jay has a number for him in New York for starters.”
“I couldn’t,” Gary said quickly, giving a sharp shake of his head and leaning forward suddenly. Dawn arched an eyebrow.
“There’s a difference between ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’, my love,” she said quietly. Gary looked down studiously into his tea, unable to meet her gaze. “I could say the same of your insistence about not being able to look Jason in the eye as well,” Dawn told him softly.
When Gary didn’t reply, Dawn simply sighed, placing a firm hand on his arm. “I know that the thought of facing him must be tough, after the things you said to him and what you found out from Nigel. But you know Jason – he’s always going to look at things from a different point of view than you think. And he will listen to anyone’s side of the story, if they just take the time to tell it to him.” She gave his arm another squeeze. “No one knows better what that man is like than Jason, no one understands more clearly just how easy it is for him to get in your head. I know I don’t know the full story, but I’ve heard him mention things, I’ve put some of the pieces together here and there…and you were all just kids, Gary. It seems to me like Nigel used that. He knew you looked up to him and he used it to his advantage – probably because he was worried how much you looked up to Jay too. I don’t think he’s the sort of man who enjoys sharing power and influence.” Gary squeezed his eyes shut, but a tear still escaped, rolling down his cheek and coming to rest at the corner of his mouth. He could taste the salt of it. Dawn leant in and pressed a kind kiss to his cheek. “Jay will listen, my love. And Jay will forgive. And Jay will not lose a friendship to that man – I promise you.”
“And Howard?” Gary managed to ask in a hoarse whisper. Dawn laughed fondly.
“Oh, Howard is a loyal old dog. And he doesn’t take losses easily.” Dawn rested her head on Gary’s shoulder. “I don’t think you have to worry about Jay and Howard. They’ll listen, and I doubt they’ll hold a grudge over the fact you’re only human.” Gary noted, dimly, the fact she made no mention of him not having to worry about Mark. “Now come on, Gary Barlow: no more sitting around being miserable. You need fresh air, and Cadbury needs a walk.”
***
Jason glanced at his watch as he stepped out of the lift, doing some quick mental arithmetic to work out whether Howard would’ve reached Liverpool yet. He was fishing around in his pocket for his keys when he spotted the small figure hunched up in front of the apartment door, and he came to a sudden stop, blinking in surprise. It was the slight frame of Grace Donald – damp, rain-spattered and sniffling – that sat on the ground in front of him, and it took his mind a moment to catch up with what he was seeing. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, taking in the guarded, tense expression on her face and feeling every protective instinct he had suddenly spike. He crossed the space between them in two strides.
“Gracie?” he asked in disbelief, and Grace all but jumped, looking up at him through wide, sad eyes, her face red and tear-stained. “Sweetheart, what on earth are you doing here? You’re soaked through.”
Jason’s voice was soft and tender as he knelt beside her, and she looked up at him bewilderedly, as though she could hardly believe he was even there. He shrugged his jacket off instinctively, moving to wrap it firmly around her shoulders, and Grace took it immediately, grasping it around her tightly – she almost smiled at the familiar scent of Jason which lingered on the fabric, like toast and camomile and drying raindrops. “Better?” he asked as he caught her eyes. Grace’s lips twitched up again and she managed a nod. “Ok. Now talk to me,” Jason said, shifting his weight so that he was sitting next to her on the floor. Grace swallowed.
“Tim told me that I ruined everything and that I shouldn’t even exist,” she managed shakily, and she looked up into Jason’s kind-but-confused face as though she were trying go judge whether or not he believed her. “I wanted him to stop so I got out of the car, but I didn't think he'd go, not really. But he did.”
“Ok…wanted him to stop what, exactly?” Jason asked slowly. His face was full of tenderness; for someone who talked so much, there was always a certain intensity to the way he listened, and Grace was somewhat fortified by it. There was a tremendous whirl of conflicting emotion building in her chest, and she felt herself wavering close to crying again. Somehow looking strong mattered less now that Jason was in front of her, though: he wouldn’t question her strength or her maturity, he wouldn’t judge or ask stupid questions, he wouldn't dismiss her as some silly little kid. He would be there for her. He would listen to the story she had to tell and he would see through to the meaning of it in a way no one else could. He would understand. She took a breath, brushing flyaway strands of hair off her face.
“Tim kept saying all these bad things,” she managed to mumble. She looked up at Jason through damp lashes, a terrific sadness in her eyes.. “He said dad and you were awful and that I didn’t know anything, and then he left me at the side of the road and didn’t come back.” Grace’s voice cracked. “So I got the train back here and waited for you,” she added feebly. “He was being so mean though, Jay. You should have heard him. And even though I was trying he said I was bad and called me a mistake because I’d ruined everyone’s lives. So I had to get away.”
As she felt herself starting to cry again, she was immensely grateful to feel Jason’s arms wrapping around her, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck as he squeezed her close. Though Jason was slight of build, there was something sturdy about him: a solidity and a safety to the weight of his arms and the feel of the muscle there. She was grateful for the careful way he hugged her.
“Shh, come here,” he was murmuring into her hair, his hand rubbing her back, and even though she could hear from his tone that he was still slightly unclear on what exactly she was talking about, he wasn’t going to force the story out of her until she’d calmed down. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to think of nothing but the feel of his jumper against her skin, the dull thud of his heartbeat by her ear. His there-ness was comforting. It wasn’t just about the feel of his arms her around her, it was also about the immediacy of his willingness to do whatever he could. “Thank God I closed the shop up early, eh?” he was mumbling. Grace smiled slightly; even if she had had to wait hours longer she would’ve done, because it was more than worth it to know he was there, there to be honest with her and to somehow help her make sense of her awful afternoon. But it did matter: that he wasn't just there, he wanted to be there.
To her surprise, it didn’t actually take more than a minute for her to feel steadier, the tears quickly drying and the hiccups of sobs turning into even breathing once more. She’d got herself to the apartment door on adrenaline, and had kept herself calm through sheer force of will as she’d waited, not wanting to draw any attention from anyone else in the building in case they insisted on her calling her mum. When Jason had appeared, it released all that tension in something of a torrent the moment she’d heard his voice, but it was nothing compared to the force of hearing the rough warmth in his tone as he whispered a nonsense of comfort into her hair. She pulled back just enough to look up at him, and he tipped his head to meet her eyes, cupping her face in his hands and brushing gently at the tear tracks on her cheeks with his thumbs. “Better?” he asked in a low, caring voice, and Grace managed a nod. It wasn’t much better, not really – she still felt that uneasiness and nausea in the pit of her stomach, she could still hear Tim’s voice in the back of her head. But it was a start. Jason gave her a slight nod back, and somehow Grace knew that he had read the fragility in her expression – his bright, perceptive eyes shone as he studied her face and blew out a breath. “Ok,” he said , slowly, like he was gathering himself. “I know it's upsetting, sweetheart, but I just need you to tell me again what happened, from the beginning. Tim was telling you what, exactly?”
Jason carefully shifted his weight so that they were sitting side by side again, both with their backs pressed firmly to the apartment door. “And how did what he said end up in you sitting here in tears?” he added then, quirking an eyebrow. Grace tugged his jacket around her even more tightly and pulled her knees more closely to her chest. She felt suddenly shy and foolish; she felt childish in a way she never usually did around Jason. He nudged her slightly, leaning in. “It's just us talking, Gracie, same as always. So come on, start at the beginning. And go slow,” he said gently. “Words come more easily when you start with the basics, I think. What were you talking about when it started?” Grace nodded slightly, managing a tiny, grateful smile and drawing in a deep, steadying breath before speaking.
“It started because he wanted to go to the match, but he didn’t want to bring me,” she mumbled somewhat awkwardly. It sounded ridiculous, she supposed. But Jason didn’t laugh or scoff or frown at her. He didn’t make a sound. Patient as ever, he waited for rest of the story. She glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes. “I said I didn’t mind going and he laughed at me,” she said. Jason nodded thoughtfully and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
“This match – you mean the testimonial at Old Trafford?” he asked quietly. Grace sniffed and nodded.
“He said I was a waste of a ticket because I wouldn’t understand. His boss had one of those fancy boxes so he said that he couldn’t take me even if he wanted to because it would be too embarrassing for him to bring me. He said it was my fault if he didn’t get promoted – because I was why he couldn’t go and impress the people there.”
Jason nodded again, leaning his head back against the door with a slight frown of concentration as he processed what Grace had told him.
“He thought it was embarrassing to have a kid there, or embarrassing to have you there?” He asked, voice crisp and calm. Grace looked up at him from the corner of her eye, taking in the the brightness of his eyes as he looked back at her knowingly.
“Both. But mostly me,” she managed in a small voice. Jason’s expression didn’t change, but Grace thought she saw a flicker of something fierce in his eyes.
“Because he thought you wouldn’t behave or because he didn’t want people at work to know he was going out with someone who already had a kid?” Jason asked her then. Jason could do a lot with a few words – something about the way he took in the world, the sounds he heard and the things he saw that no one else ever did. He could even work with words left unsaid, when given a chance. He made it look simple, that understanding way of his. But Grace knew – today more than ever – that not everyone in the world could master that kind of open heart and mind. Not everyone in the world could see past a bit of Mancunian summer rain. She rested her chin on her knees, feeling a little of the tightness in her chest ease.
“He said he didn’t like his boss knowing that mum had made bad choices and he said I was proof she had – he told me he didn’t want to explain about dad to anyone from work, and when I asked him what he meant he said dad used to be awful and he told me him and mum didn’t want me because they didn’t even get on.” Grace closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “He told me I messed up their lives, and his, and yours. He told me I spoilt everything.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Jason whispered.
“When I told him I wanted to go home we stopped on this road and I got out and he drove off,” Grace managed, her voice once more beginning to crack.
Grace hiccuped again, another sob escaping, and Jason’s arm was around her in a moment, pulling her close against his side as he kissed the top of her head. His skin was warm against her own. Once more she felt the sturdiness of him overwhelm her: he felt like home, even sitting on the floor outside the locked door he felt like home. He felt like family – and somehow the power of that was stronger given the knowledge she was not, in fact, his flesh and blood. He chose her. Tim couldn’t be right about her ruining lives, because someone like Jason had chosen her – right? “I’m sorry for coming here,” Grace blurted then, pulling back to look up into Jason’s kind, if slightly surprised, face. “I left my phone at mum’s and I recognised the station Tim left me by so I just came here. Because I wanted to be home and I didn’t know another way.” Grace winced nervously. “I’m sorry,” she murmured again.
“Hey, no apologies, ok?” Jason’s voice held a sort of kind firmness to it and Grace looked up at him wide-eyed. His face crinkled into a quiet, caring smile and he brushed her cheek with his knuckles affectionately. “Now you listen here, Grace Donald: this place is your home. That’s the beginning and end of it. And anyone who makes you feel like that shouldn’t be true is someone who doesn’t know you properly and who doesn’t understand what it means to be family.” He ducked slightly to better meet her eyes. “That’s true regardless of your dad, as well. You are family to me. And this is your home where you will always belong.” She managed a smile and he gave her a firm nod before crushing her once more against his chest. There was something strangely touching about the way he let her elbow dig into his ribs at an awkward angle. “I promise, ok?” he said, his voice rough and rumbly as it vibrated against her ear. She smiled into the fabric of his jumper, just about managing a nod against his shoulder. “You did the right thing by getting yourself somewhere safe, Gracie – you’re a smart kid,” he told her then, pulling back so as to look her in the eye once again. “Now, I need you to promise me something in return, ok?”
Grace looked up into into Jason’s face uncertainly, her forehead creasing into a frown of concern, and Jason looked down at her unwaveringly, his eyes glittering and his expression earnest. “Don’t let Tim’s hang-ups get into your head. People you let into your head like that can dig in and stay there far too long if you let them – what you need to understand is that none of his actions are anyone’s fault but his own. He thinks of things in terms of ruined plans and poor choices because of his problems and his emotions. But the people who are important don’t see things that way. No one ever gets to live their whole life according to plan, but sometimes life can surprise you for the better. People who don't see that hurt themselves more than anyone else, because they're the ones who miss out.”
“But he said mum told him things,” Grace protested in a small voice.
“Maybe she did – on a bad day or in an offhanded way that didn't mean as much as he thought.” Grace looked at him in surprised but Jason smiled and shrugged. “People say things all the time without thinking about how they might sound later, Gracie. I say things about your dad that could get taken out of context or twisted if they were heard by the wrong person. I’ve said things to people I care about that have come out wrong because I’m in a mood. But you should never mistake something said in anger for how someone really feels - judge their feelings from how they treat you, nothing else. And remember that your mum and dad both adore you: that much has never, and will never, be changed.” Jason’s smile widened slightly. “And I’ll let you in on another thing, Gracie: they both think you were the making of them.” Jason arched an eyebrow at her, and Grace couldn’t help a small smile coming to her own lips at last. Jason lifted his shoulder in another half-shrug. “Ok, so maybe you came as a bit of a shock. But plenty of people don’t plan for the stuff that happens to them. That’s not the important part. People don’t plan stuff all the time, but they don’t always regret how it turns out. Plenty of people plan for other stuff that never happens; doesn’t always mean they miss it.” Grace looked up at Jason somewhat sceptically and he laughed, nudging her with gentle teasing. “You think my mum planned to have twins?” he asked, raising his eyebrows teasingly. “She certainly didn't plan to have twins who were as much trouble as me and Justin. But she still loves us, and she wouldn't swap us for the earth either.” Grace let out a sniffly laugh. “I never planned to work at Barlow’s either – did you know that? And when I did I told Gaz I’d just help out for a couple of weeks.” He grinned. “I swore up and down I’d never get married,” he said, his smile wonky and wry. “And anyone who knew me before I met your dad would probably have sworn it up and down too,” he added with a rueful chuckle and self-conscious glance down. “I made a lot of plans to do with being on my own because I thought that’s how I was best off.” Grace smiled when he looked back at her knowingly. “Now, you of all people should know my life’s not ruined because things didn’t work out that way, Gracie. I didn’t plan it. But it happened. And I think, so far, it’s worked out better for me than the way I was going. Much better, actually.”
Grace was almost grinning, and she nodded, ducking his gaze shyly.
“So you really don’t think Tim was right? About dad and what mum said? About any of it?” Jason paused, letting out a heavy sigh. A sigh that told Grace he knew something – something that Tim might have been basing his assessment on. She felt a brief flicker of panic in her chest as she waited for his reply. Jason was honest, but he was also cautious; Grace knew he wouldn’t lie to her, but she also knew he wanted to try and save her any more hurt, and she could tell there was something he wasn’t saying.
“Sweetheart, I don’t know what your mum might or might not have told Tim, ok? All I know is your mum and dad have both changed since the days when they were together and that neither one of them could ever imagine what their lives would be without you, because they wouldn’t want to. You dad’s told me that enough times.” Jason smiled sympathetically. “And if that sounds like a non-answer, Gracie? That’s because it is, honestly. But only because I don’t think you need to be thinking about all this right now.” Jason kissed her forehead and touched a gentle finger to her chin, tipping her head to look him in the eye. “I know how your dad used to be – I’ve heard him talk about his life with your mum, before you and before me. But I don’t see how that story would change anything right now. The truth still stands: Tim was wrong. And all you really need at the moment is a change of clothes, a hot meal and some time curled up on the sofa watching bad TV.” He looked at Grace pointedly, and she looked back at him somewhat sceptically at first. “Don't give me that look, Grace Donald,” he teased, smirking slightly and leaning in conspiratorially. “All that can be arranged, ok? I’ll even let you help me cook and make a mess of my kitchen.” Grace hesitated and Jason rolled his eyes affectionately. “How about if I add in the fluffy winter throw cover and full control of the remote?” He waggled his eyebrows and Grace laughed slightly. “Does that sound like a good idea?” he asked, and Grace considered it for a moment. It was hard to resist the offer, but she still hated knowing there was something that he wasn't telling her. But, over time, she had come to know that Jason always had his reasons, and she trusted him to talk to her properly when he was more confident of her wellbeing. Whatever story he knew could wait: right now she desperately wanted to get off the floor and stop thinking about the horrid words Tim had said.
Slowly she nodded and Jason’s smile widened briefly, something mischievous dancing in his eyes. “Good,” he nodded back, sitting up a little. “But first we have to let your mum know you’re safe and sound.” Grace’s eyes widened.
“But Jay, Tim’s her boyfriend! What if she’s cross with me!” she protested. Jason’s expression was soft and he tilted his head to one side to meet her gaze.
“She won’t be, Gracie, I’m sure of it.”
“But what if she makes me go back? And Tim’s still there?”
“I will tell her you want to stay here and I will ask her if it’s ok, ok?” Off Grace’s sceptical look he sighed. “She’ll want what you want, Gracie, given what's happened – and I’ll make sure she understands your reasons. Then I’ll call your dad and let him know what’s gone on, so you'll have him in your corner too. No one’s going to make you do anything that’s going to upset you more, Gracie, not after the day you’ve had. I’m sure your mum will understand.”
“But what if Tim’s told her something really bad about me and made it seem like it’s my fault he left?” Jason’s sharp blue eyes seemed to spark then, and he leant in – Grace felt the fierceness of his protection acutely. She felt the very corner of her lips twitch up without permission and she knew he saw it.
“I promise you, sweetheart: there is no excuse for leaving a kid at the side of the road and telling them they’re not wanted in their own home, especially not when that kid is as warm-hearted, as funny and as bright as you. You’re a pleasure to be around, Gracie – nothing Tim says to your mum will make that any less true, in her eyes or anyone else’s who knows you.” His expression changed then, and he leant their foreheads together, his smile almost impish. “Now do you want to sit out here on the floor all day or do you want to come in and find out if I have all the ingredients for the Orange family Cure-All Hot Chocolate recipe ready and waiting inside?” Grace felt a choked laugh bubble up out of her, and she beamed at Jason as he arched an eyebrow at her expectantly.
“Thank you, Jay,” she said quietly. Jason smiled softly.
“Hey, I haven’t even said if I’ll even make you that hot chocolate yet, for all you know it could be a DIY job from here on out,” he replied, flashing her a conspiratorial wink that somehow made her feel like maybe everything really would be ok.
***
Mark looked around the tiny room with tired, curious eyes, plucking his hat from his head and setting it down on top of his suitcase.
“So, this is it: home sweet home,” Emma announced, entering behind him. “It’s smaller than my mum and dad’s dog’s kennel, but for a New York waitress-slash-actress it’s practically a palace,” she beamed, flicking on the lights and then coming to stand with Mark in the middle of the room. “Actually, come to think of it, it’s probably even smaller than Jay’s sofa…my sofa here must look like doll’s furniture in comparison,” she added with a grimace. Mark managed a small laugh.
“Don’t worry about it. I get lost on Jay’s sofa, me – your sofa’s much more my size,” he smiled. Emma smiled across at him sympathetically and Mark reached out to give her hand a squeeze. “I am so grateful for this, you know – I know it’s last minute, and I could’ve just stayed at a hotel like Jamie, but…I just couldn’t afford it on such short notice.”
“Hey, don’t be daft, Markie – I’m happy to have you. I just wish I could offer you more than a tatty sofa and a lift that smells like something died,” Emma told him with a self-deprecating chuckle, and Mark’s eyes briefly lit up. Emma had always had a way of lifting his spirits, dating right back to the days before Jason and Howard and Oldham Street. Before Gary Barlow – even before Robbie Williams. Emma was his oldest friend: he’d known her since they’d both been in the same production of ‘Oliver!’ as kids and she was both the sweetest and the strongest human being he had ever met. There was a sort of childlike innocence in their friendship, still clinging on from that first meeting, and just being around her made Mark feel lighter than he had in months; a little less broken, a lot less world-weary. She was exactly who he needed right now.
He wandered across to the window, peering out at the grey New York skyline and trying to work out what time it was there, feeling a little groggy and overwhelmed. Though how much of that was down to the jet-lag and how much was down to his muddled thoughts of his life back in Manchester he couldn’t be entirely sure. “Any message from Gary?” Emma asked him somewhat cautiously. Mark closed his eyes, giving her a sad smile and one shouldered shrug.
“I don’t even think he knows I’m not in Manchester. He’s not talking to Jay or Howard. And if he noticed my stuff missing from the wardrobe then he wasn’t curious enough to call me.” He leant back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “A part of me hoped he would, you know. I was still thinking, right up to the departure gate, that I was going to get my dramatic movie airport scene where he ran in and told me not to go.”
“And would that have changed anything?” Emma asked him softly, her voice quiet and kind. They both knew the truthful answer to the question; Mark felt the ache of it in his chest.
“It would be something, though,” he murmured, swallowing down the lump in his throat. Emma nodded slowly. Her expression said ‘So that’s a no then’ but she let the words go unsaid, perching on the arm of her tiny sofa with a little sigh.
Mark wrapped his arms around himself, shivering slightly in the draft that came through the window. “God, Emma, you should’ve seen the look on his face when I came home that day, the day we fought,” he croaked. “Like I was something dangerous – like everything that makes me who I am was suddenly some kind of a weapon. It was awful.” He sniffed. “I can’t stand awful.”
“People always fear what they don’t understand,” Emma told him thoughtfully. Mark looked up, meeting her eyes, and she gave him an apologetic smile. “Markie, I’m not going to pretend I don’t know you hide things from him: I know you don’t like talking about you and Robbie and the things you got up to back in the day. There are things about you Gary doesn't understand, because he has never been given a chance to.”
Mark flinched slightly and Emma sighed. She tucked her hair behind her ears and leant forward, a serious expression forming on her pale, pretty face. She was fine-boned, with rosy cheeks and perfect pink lips, and on the rare occasions she wasn’t smiling she looked almost like a china doll, solemn and beautiful. “Listen, I’m not saying you don’t have good reason to not like talking about it; about the mess you were and the mess he was and the way you and Rob just…were so brilliant and so disastrous all at once. Anyone would be guarded about something that wild, that intense – especially with someone whose opinion matters so much. But there comes a point when the people close to you know there is something you’re holding back, and the things they imagine are usually far worse than whatever the truth might be.” Emma quirked an eyebrow, meeting Mark’s gaze intently. “No one likes the spectre of a secret – things might be easier living outside of that shadow, don’t you think?” she asked cautiously. Mark shook his head, looking down at his feet.
“I’ve told him enough,” he said quietly. “And in any case, he knows I would’ve told him the rest if he’d just…made me feel like he actually wanted to know. Instead, with how things are with us now…he just makes me feel like knowing that stuff would mean we’d be over anyway.” Mark’s voice cracked on the words. “There’s so much I would’ve told him if I thought it might’ve helped,” he whispered. “Because I do love him. I just don’t know how it works.” He crossed his arms over his chest protectively, closing his eyes tightly once more. “I love him but I think my love got broken a long time ago and I can’t relearn how it’s supposed to go. The whole time I’ve been with him, it’s like I’ve been trying to learn to crawl – only I’ve been entered into a marathon already and what I know just isn’t enough to make it through.”
He blew out a long breath, trying to get the thoughts straight in his head; he’d spent every hour of the flight chasing these thoughts around, but the best he could come up with was all mixed up in the notes and rhymes of the lyrics of a song, and for once he just wasn't in the mood for songwriting. He wanted to be able to talk not sing, but that ability seemed to be beyond him and Gary. “Most of the time I was happy. But I spend so much time trying to be happy and sunny I think I might’ve fooled myself, you know? And I think now…now is when I’m starting to lose hope. Because I think maybe all the important stuff went over my head, and I’ve left it too late to process it all.”
They both fell silent for a moment, listening to the sound of the city outside and letting the thickness of the air settle around them. “I messed up, Em.” Mark felt a tear roll down his cheek as he looked over at his friend. She stared back at him with a profoundly sad, sympathetic expression, the corners of her lips downturned as he looked up into her eyes intently. “I messed up. And he messed up. And all I wanted was for him to stop me. Come and find me. Come and tell me he was sorry and it’d all just be…ok.” Mark felt a sob escape, and Emma pushed herself up from the sofa immediately, coming over to join him by the window. She leant beside him, resting her head on his shoulder; she had to stoop to reach.
“I’m so sorry, Markie,” she murmured. Mark squeezed his eyes shut. Emma smelt of strawberries and vanilla and Mark couldn’t help the corner of his lips briefly curving up.
“It’s not your fault I’m a mess,” he whispered.
“You’re not a mess, babe,” she told him, her tone genuine and earnest. “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever known. And you have the best heart,” she added, kissing his cheek then resting her head back down. “I think sometimes the world’s just too messed up for you – I think you look around at all the things that aren’t perfect and it brings you down to the point you can’t cope.”
“Rob wasn’t perfect, but when we were together…”
“Sweetie, you gave your all trying to fix him though, and it nearly destroyed you when it didn't work.”
“Gaz isn’t perfect either.”
“But you’ve always wanted to believe he is.”
“I’m not perfect.”
“No. And you exhaust yourself trying to be.”
Silently Emma took Mark’s hand in her own, lifting it up and kissing the back of it, then holding it to her chest. Mark could feel her eyes on him, her concerned gaze somehow stifling. As much as he adored her, in that moment he wished she would go: he needed someone who didn’t know him, someone who would be fooled with a smile and joke, someone who wouldn’t know he was falling apart. He took a deep breath and it felt like he was breathing in knives. “I wish you didn’t spend so much time mixing up flawed with broken,” Emma said thoughtfully. “Broken implies you don’t work, you’re not right – but that’s not who you are, Markie. You’re sweet and silly and kind. You’re sunlight and stardust and everything in between.” She gave his hand another firm squeeze. “You and Gary don’t have to be broken just because you're both flawed. You just have to work out if your jagged edges can make sense.” Mark let out a hollow laugh.
“You sound like Jay,” he told her. Emma elbowed him.
“If that was meant to be a telling off it didn’t work: he is the wisest person I know and I wish I gave even half as good advice as he always does,” she shot back, and the two of them briefly shared a smile. Emma adored Jason: she found him maddening and funny and the pair loved squabbling with each other over pointless things, then staying up late to discuss the universe. “If I start sounding like Howard, though: then I’ll worry,” she added jokingly. Howard she was less certain of, in some ways. Howard was gruff and shy with strangers – not hostile, just reserved and cautious. He had come along after Emma had already moved to New York, and it was tricky trying to get to know him through her flying Christmas visits and the odd birthday; she mostly knew the mumbling, sarcastic version of him that he became after a few drinks, though she sensed there was a teddy bear underneath who she was close to uncovering, given a couple more trips.
Mark sighed, the sound more wistful than sad this time. Emma lifted her head to look down at him and he offered her a tired smile. “I keep falling, Em. And giving. And losing. And hurting. I feel like I’m breaking, falling apart but just…slowly. Like bits of me keep splintering off and leaving this driftwood version of me behind.” Mark rested his head against Emma’s arm and heaved in another painful breath. “I keep feeling. All the time. And it’s too much…and I don’t know what to do with it. Because Gaz can’t cope – he’s buried under the weight of whatever he’s feeling, always trying to get it out with a project or a song instead of actually processing it. But I’ve got too much going on in my head. And I want it to just heal over, to go away. I don’t want to remember. And I don’t want to feel so much.” Emma squeezed his hand again, closing her eyes and leaning into him a little more.
“You’re overwhelmed, sweetie.”
“Is there any other way to be? When you’re being pulled inside out all the time?” Emma gave him a worried glance.
“Markie, is this just about you and Gary? Or is this part of something bigger?”
“I don’t know, Em,” Mark whispered. “I just don’t know any more.”
Just a few months ago, Mark would’ve said he was happy, that his and Gary’s relationship was finally getting somewhere. But recent events had churned up the earth beneath the two of them, pulling up all their old doubts and fears and bringing them out into the open once more. Everyone had those buried secrets and uncertainties, he supposed – but did everyone crumble so easily at the first sign of them the way he and Gary did? They were two people with pasts which were full, with shadows that followed them persistently; being together without acknowledging that about themselves was perhaps their biggest mistake.
Coming to New York was supposed to help him clear his head, but somehow he only felt even more confused. All he would’ve needed was for Gary to stop him leaving that night, for him to apologise and explain himself. He knew, deep down, that would have been enough to convince him to stay. And maybe then they would’ve stayed up all night and finally, properly talked: talked about all the difficult memories as well as the good ones, talked about the truth behind their music and shared feelings they usually didn’t choose to speak about except when writing lyrics. Music was their little shared paradise, and they had spent too long hiding inside it together, pretending that that was as good as talking. But it didn’t really compete; it just left Gary wondering what ghosts in Mark’s past might have inspired his darker rhymes, and Mark second-guessing himself as he realised all the people in Gary’s love songs were uncomplicated and trusting and sweet. And somewhere along the way Gary had obviously decided he had a stake in every lyric Mark wrote: was that because he was possessive of the writing credit, or possessive of Mark himself? Was it because he feared what might be being taken away from him if writing wasn’t something he and Mark only shared with each other?
Mark turned his head just enough to look out of the window, at the intense hum of New York, and it made him feel so insignificant, forgotten almost. His world had been tipped to an angle, but in New York his world was just a speck in a high-up window, barely visible from the street. And Gary was further away from Mark than he had ever been – literally.
“I know you think you don’t matter,” Emma said suddenly, her voice tentative and soft. “I know you believe that. Because of the way Rob used to forget about you. The way he just left like that.” She sighed. “But it’s not true, you know. It never has been.” Mark closed his eyes, but opened them again quickly when the memory of waiting up for Robbie to come home filled his head. He’d spent a lot of nights alone, waiting up for Robbie to come home. And then one day, he and Robbie had fought and he was left so alone for so long it became obvious Robbie wasn’t coming back home for him anymore. It was a strange non-ending to the relationship that had always left him wondering what exactly it was that had finally pushed Robbie out the door for good. He suspected some part of him had never stopped holding out for an answer, something that might help him work out where he belonged in the world. And who he belonged with.
Emma huffed and rubbed her face, suddenly looking annoyed with herself. “I shouldn’t have brought it up – you’ve got that haunted look on your face that you always get when it comes to Rob,” she sighed quietly, folding her arms and looking away. “I remember how he always used to make everything seem so intense: he swept you up and away, you know? I saw you look at him like he was the whole universe, because he could make a memory out of a bench in the rain with the way he carried on. He was so wild, so funny…so magical, in some ways, like he wasn’t even real. The true definition of larger than life.” She looked at Mark again then. “But sometimes he made you feel like you weren’t enough, like you could never be enough of a presence to match him – because he was high on something and you couldn’t compete with the chemicals, not for him. And I sat up with you some of those nights and…I watched you convince yourself that that was the right way to be. That you should be able to compete with the drink and the drugs and breaking the law.”
“If I was enough, he wouldn’t have needed any of that stuff, Em.”
“Robbie Williams had demons, Markie. And you were the closest anything without chemicals ever came to making him feel at peace with them.”
“How can he have had demons: we were both still just kids.” Mark smiled sadly, his eyes going glassy and far away. Emma made a noise of vague disagreement, but Mark just elbowed her lightly in the side. “You don’t know what he was like when it was just us, Em. He could make adventures out of anything. I’d come home to find he’d made us dens out of sheets in the front room, or he’d come in at night from the market with some fruit he’d never heard of and he’d have us both in stitches trying to turn it into some sort of dessert.” Mark shook his head, glancing down with a sigh. “One night I came home and I couldn’t find him anywhere. And at first I thought the worst because…well, you know what it was like, I suppose. He was going through a bad phase and I was so worried I went out into the street calling his name.” He swallowed. “Eventually I heard this voice out of nowhere – it was Rob, calling back to me. And I looked around, and he was right there watching me, up on the roof of some old shed, right at the bottom of the garden of this derelict house. He pulled me up with him and told me he was sorry that it was probably going to collapse any moment but he just had to show me the stars. He told me it was a late birthday present for me, because he knew he’d screwed up my real birthday by getting drunk and storming off, and he had to make it up to me by showing me the sky from somewhere dark. Not so much light pollution, you see. He was looking up at the sky with this wild expression on his face – like he’d never seen the stars before. He told me ‘My present to you is the universe, Mark Owen, because it’s the only thing that comes close to explaining what you are’. And we stayed up there ‘til it was going light.”
Mark was quiet for a moment. A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered that night; one of those memories that came out of nowhere, but still held the same power as it had at the time. Mark had always thought how sad it was that the happiest moments were over so quickly, chased away by the time the sun was rising the next morning, already made into a ghost the second you stopped holding your breath and let the minutes pass again. “Rob offered me the whole universe.” He closed his eyes. “Gary Barlow wanted to pull the whole universe out of me and keep it for himself so he could put it in his songs.”
“Don’t think like that, Markie,” Emma said, her voice hushed and pleading. “Please don’t look at it that way.”
“Gaz uses me.”
“Rob used you, sweetie,” Emma replied, firm but tender. She laid a hand on his arm. “Rob used you as his sidekick and his emotional punching bag, he used you to try and make his own life better. He used you to add wonder and light to his adventures in the hope that your magic, your goodness, would be enough to take his demons away. He used you as a crutch. And even though he gave you plenty of good memories along the way, even though he loved you – when it came down to it, you were just another one of his addictions. He used your heart and when he realised he’d used too much and it wasn't enough for him anymore, he walked away.”
Mark winced at her words, scrunching up his face and turning away from her slightly, but Emma leant in closer. “Misguided though he may be at times, Gary Barlow has never used you. With him you are always going to be an equal, Markie. Someone every bit as good and every bit as flawed as he is – someone who understands him on every level that matters, like music and heartbreak and friendship. Love. And if you both want to be, you can be equal in give and take. Because you love him. And I know he loves you.”
“He hurts me too though.”
“People we care about can do that a lot more easily than strangers, though. And don't forget: Rob could be wonderful to you, when it suited him. But, Markie – he could also be awful.”
“There’s that word again,” Mark murmured, opening his eyes and glancing over at Emma warily. She gave him a tight smile and squeezed his arm.
“I’m sorry…I just…I can’t sit here and not give you my honest opinion. I wouldn’t be being a good friend to you if I wasn't honest.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to let you leave New York making any big decisions about your future which might in any way be based on you looking back on your past through this rose-coloured filter. You look at too many things that way as it is and it always hurts you.” Tilting her head, she fixed him with a firm, piercing look, reminding him, for a moment, of Jason with the enigmatic, yet somehow still caring, smile she gave him. “Nostalgia can be a powerful thing, you know: it can make you forget how that addict ex wasn't just exciting and wild, he was also dangerously unpredictable and always got you hurt along the way.” She lifted one eyebrow pointedly then. “And maybe it can also make you forget how that boss you had who seemed to be one of the first people to believe in you and your dreams wasn't as much of a friend and mentor as you thought. Mix nostalgia in with a few lost dreams, and I think it might just help someone forget that that same boss hurt a lot of people, often in your name, because he was really just a master manipulator who abused a position of power over some innocent lads who just wanted a bit of fun and a bit of fame.”
Mark’s chest was tight and his mouth was dry; though the apartment was quiet, inside his head a melee of voices fought for attention, memories and music mixing in with his thoughts. He looked up at the ceiling, his eyes straining to find something to focus on that might somehow clear his mind a little. His body felt shaky and he shuddered slightly, pulling his arms around himself more tightly as though he were trying to keep all the thoughts inside.
“So what do I do, Em? Where do I go from here if back is wrong but forward is all messed up?” Emma looked back at him sadly.
“I wish I could give you an answer, sweetie. But it’s just not up to me – and deep down you know it too. This is your decision to make; your battle to fight, not mine or Jay’s. We can only help so much – we’re outsiders, we don’t know everything there is between you two and that means that there’s no right answer for us to give you on what you should do, you know? All I can tell you is that…when Gary Barlow needs forgiveness – if he wants forgiveness – then it can only come from you, no one else.” She leant in. “But for all his questions, for all his doubts and fears and poorly-chosen words…he had the decency to tell you. He loved you enough to not disappear in the night without an explanation, to not burn the whole house down and then simply walk away.” She shrugged. “I know Rob didn’t ever take anything you didn’t freely give. But maybe Gary hasn’t been given the same chance yet – the chance to take all you have to offer, unreservedly, no secrets. And maybe if he was given that kind of chance, he would give far more in return than you even know yet.”
***
“…and, like I told you before, Howard Donald: there’s no need. Gracie’s fine, Vicky knows what’s gone on and has given Tim his marching orders and there is absolutely nothing that can be achieved by you driving all the way home from Liverpool without even getting paid. You do your gig – everything else can wait ‘til morning…” Grace watched from the sofa, smiling at the ongoing negotiations between Jason and her dad. Jason was laughing, pulling himself up onto the kitchen counter and leaning back with a sigh. His eyes were closed and there was an amused – if somewhat despairing – smile on his lips as he listened to whatever it was her dad was telling him. Jason always had an easy elegance about him, but this was something different – this was just easy. Free. Peaceful. He was in his ‘off-duty’ clothes, all worn and faded fabrics that hung loosely from his slim frame: a pair of old tracksuit bottoms that were slightly too long and curled up at the ends from being dragged along the floor for years, teamed with a shabby old band t-shirt several sizes too big for him. It made Grace smile. This was the Jason only she and her dad ever really got to see: contented, imperfect and unguarded. He didn’t look like he’d been cut from a magazine the way Tim did – instead, to Grace, he just looked like home. “…Flattery will get you nowhere, Donald,” Jason was smiling quietly, tipping his head back, eyes still closed. “Oh really? And who would that be helping, exactly?” He let out a low hum as he listened to her dad’s reply, stretching idly, his smile turning crooked. “I love you too. Drive safe and I’ll see you when you get in.”
As Jason set down the phone, Grace quickly pretended to be watching the television, pulling the soft grey throw cover Jason had wrapped her in a good hour or so earlier up to her nose and burrowing down. “You’re not fooling me, Grace Donald: you’re as bad as your father for eavesdropping and we both know it,” Jason called over as he jumped down from the counter. Grace suppressed a smile, looking down with a shrug.
“I don’t think it counts as eavesdropping if you know I’m listening though,” she said, looking up at Jason from the corner of her eye. He quirked an eyebrow at her, leaning against the breakfast bar so as to see her better.
“Sometimes I think that father of yours is a bad influence on you.” His lips twisted into a fond smile. “But on the other hand, I have absolutely no desire to change either of you – so maybe I shouldn’t be passing judgement,” he added then, eyes twinkling. Grace smiled back at him, a fresh wave of gratitude for him hitting her.
“You don’t even want to change that I always mess up you and dad’s plans and that you don’t have a proper spare room anymore?” Grace asked, aiming for lightness but knowing Jason caught the edge in her question all the same.
“My friends know I still have a perfectly good sofa. And most of my plans with your dad tend to fit you in just fine, Gracie – and even when they haven’t, it’s never been hard to make room,” he told her, his voice low and warm. Grace smile slightly, glancing away and giving a vague nod.
For a moment the apartment was quiet, the faint sound of Manchester drizzle on the windows the only noise. Grace chewed her lip, her thoughts turning back once more to the events of the afternoon. She could feel Jason watching her, his gaze thoughtful and piercing, and when she looked over at him from the corner of her eye she could just make out the slight groove in his forehead; her dad called it his ‘I Know Your Secrets’ frown, and it was usually the look Jason gave right before handing out hushed truths or solid advice. “Ok,” Jason said suddenly, slapping his palms down against the breakfast bar and pushing himself upright. “Let’s do this,” he said firmly, blowing out a breath. Grace looked over at him curiously.
“Do what?” she asked, her voice small and cautious, and Jason smiled back at her warmly as he crossed the room, flopping down on the sofa beside her.
“Talk, Gracie,” he told her simply, fixing her with a kindly, knowing look and offering out his arm. Grace regarded him uncertainly for a moment, pulling the throw around herself before pushing her weight along the cushions and curling against Jason’s side.
As she laid her head against Jason’s chest, she took a moment to close her eyes, enjoying the safety in his solidity once again. Jason was always so calm when it really mattered; quiet, measured and firm. Grace remembered overhearing her dad talking to his sister about Jason once, a fond laugh in his voice as he’d told her that he was like the point at the centre of a cyclone where there was little more than a gentle wind in the air; his hair just ruffled in the breeze of the chaos around him, you only got to see the damage to him later, when the storm was long gone. And maybe he’d absorbed some of that stillness into his soul over the years, maybe that was what made him seem so sturdy, so stable in the midst of a crisis. He wasn’t afraid in any way that showed on the surface – it made things seem less scary, to be able to see his neutral, careful expression and the steadiness of his stare. “When I was growing up, my mum used to talk to me a lot about all the decisions and plans we make, the ones we think are going to work out and the ones we know never will. She always said to me that it was really just a myth that everything happened for a reason – that some things just happened, and there was nothing we could do about it, it’s just because we’re human that we try and impose some sort of sense on things. The problem with that is that…sometimes, we don’t know the reasons all the people involved are imposing on something from their point of view. We only have half the story and we make assumptions based on it that aren’t necessarily true. People are messy, though. And life is messy. And the truth is never as simple as you think.” Grace lifted her head slightly, just enough to look up at Jason, who met her eyes immediately.
“That doesn’t sound that comforting to me,” she pointed out, her face scrunching in confusion, and Jason let out a low chuckle, inclining his head as if to agree.
“Maybe not out of context,” he said softly. “But to a kid whose dad left one day for no reason, and wasn’t seen again for a very long time? There was something reassuring about knowing there was no one definite cause or reason for the way things turned out.” Grace glanced down, nodding slightly, her expression thoughtful as she rested her head back against his chest. “What mum was telling me, in a roundabout way, was ‘It wasn’t your fault’,” Jason added, resting his head back and shifting his position just enough to reach up and gently begin to stroke Grace’s hair. “Sometimes, when you’re trying to pick out a reason for something that complicated, that doesn’t have any real obvious cause, the easiest answer to come to is that it must be something you did.”
“Is that what you thought?” Grace asked quietly. “Did you really think it was your fault your dad left like that?” Jason’s fingers briefly stilled, the ridges of his fingerprints tickling lightly against the edge of her ear.
“Maybe if my mum and dad had just split up, I wouldn’t have spent so much time wondering. But when my dad left, he didn’t come back for a really long time, you know? He didn’t keep in touch, he didn’t ask after us, he never even let us know where he was. I think that was the part that made me think I must’ve done something wrong – for my own dad to not want to know me anymore.”
“But…it was more complicated? There was no really good reason for any of it, just a bunch of stuff your dad thought that made him think it was better for him to go?”
“More or less. It took me a while to realise it, but that’s pretty much the story.”
The two of them were quiet again, both staring into the middle distance, lost in their thoughts. Jason began stroking her hair once more and Grace felt her lips quirk up on one side. “You know, Gracie: it’s not your fault either,” he said, his voice a distant murmur. “Not everything happens for a reason – it’s just easy for Tim to try and put the blame on you for the fact that…life is full of random things that we can’t change or explain. His life has been altered by a mixture of his own choices and uncontrollable events set in motion before he got there, and that doesn’t give him anyone good to blame so he put it all on you, because you were the one in his path at the time it all came to a head. And your mum…she knows there were a lot of things that went on between her and your dad, and there was no one moment that meant they wouldn’t work out together in the long term – but I think sometimes, the bad memories stick because they give you more of a sense of vindication, like the nostalgia can’t hurt you so much because you have all those perfect reasons to give for why you’re so much better off with your life the way it is now.” Jason gave Grace’s cheek a quick graze with his knuckles. “I won’t tell you that you didn’t come as a surprise to them, Grace – your dad told me before we’d even started going out that he had never seen himself having a kid, it wasn't something he planned for. But sometimes, that total randomness of the world throws something at you that you get to decide on a reason for, to make up your own, perfect reasons for. Your mum and dad decided the reason was to rebuild the friendship they’d neglected, and to change the course of their lives for the better.” Grace nodded slowly, unsure, her forehead creasing into a small frown. She swallowed down the lump she felt building in her throat.
“But they didn’t want to know each other anymore before that? All those things Tim said are true?”
Jason let out a long, heavy sigh, his head tipping back. Grace felt his fingers still once more against her hair, and when she twisted to look up at his face, she saw he was biting his lip. “Is dad a bad person?” she added, in an even smaller voice, and Jason lifted his head, looking down at her sadly.
“Sweetheart, your dad has never been a bad person and he never will be – I wouldn’t have married him if he was, and your mum wouldn’t have been his best friend for all those years either.” His expression was earnest and intense, and Grace managed another small, uncertain nod. She wanted to believe him, but there was something about the way he said it that made her feel he was keeping something back.
Jason seemed to sense her disquiet, still looking down at her intently, worrying at his bottom lip. “Gracie…it’s not my story to tell…” he sighed.
“But you know something? Tim was talking about something that really happened?” Jason closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face and letting his head drop back once again. “Jay,” Grace said in a plaintive whisper. He sighed, almost wincing.
“Your dad would be the first one to say he could be wild, back then,” he said carefully, his voice distant. “You know what he’s like, Gracie – he’s cheeky and he’s a wind-up merchant and he likes entertaining people. That much hasn’t changed.” Jason licked his lips. “When he’s at a gig, he feels more like himself than he does in normal situations, it helps him let his guard down, something about the dancing and the music. And when his guard is down he can’t resist being loud and funny. Charismatic, larger than life. He’s got the sort of sense of humour that comes across flirtatious and interesting even when he isn't trying to be. A lot of people get drawn into that. Sometimes some of them take it too far, though. And back then, your dad wasn't always so good at spotting it.”
“Didn’t mum like that stuff about him?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe she did before they started going out. Maybe she liked it right up until they started pulling away from each other – wanting different things and arguing over it a lot.” Jason shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, I only know your dad’s side. But I also know your dad is loyal. And honest, and kind, and lots of other things that mean he wouldn’t ever do something to deliberately hurt or upset someone who means as much to him as your mum. There were misunderstandings and there were fights about whether or not he’d ever get a more normal job and stop travelling. Move to the suburbs and stop telling rude jokes in front of all her sensible nine-to-five job-having friends, that sort of thing.” There was a smile Jason’s voice now, and it made Grace smile too. Jason tucked her hair behind her ear and turned his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye. “I know your dad got himself in a lot of messes he probably shouldn’t have, stuff that did nothing to reassure your mum that he cared about her the way he said he did, despite all their differences. And I know that your mum once got him fired from a really good gig and he wouldn’t speak to her for a week after because he felt like she didn’t appreciate how much of a part of him his music is, and that he once forgot her birthday because he got a last-minute booking in Germany, leaving it to her to try and explain to everyone at her birthday dinner. But I also know none of that stuff really mattered. They were things that were made worse by them both trying to hold together a relationship that couldn’t really work without them changing the people they had become. They grew up a lot when they were together. It didn’t work. But underneath it they were still best friends. Finding out about you was what made them stop still long enough to remember that.”
Grace nodded slightly, playing with the end of the throw cover and looking out of the apartment’s vast windows. The rain was still spitting lightly on the glass, and outside the sky was slowly changing colour as the night began to creep in – the Salford lights were beginning to come on around them, casting pretty shadows across the apartment. The first time she’d ever come to Jason’s top-floor apartment, she remembered how she’d thought it was a magical wonderland of a place; it was something to do with the hazy way the light played off all the shiny surfaces, and the way being able to look down on the city from the large windows made you feel as though the outside world couldn’t touch you, like the apartment somehow existed outside of it, suspended above the distant rush. She supposed that was what had first drawn Jason to it too. But in that moment she felt like she had pulled a little bit of the outside’s chaos in with her when she’d turned up on the doorstep covered in rain; a small part of her still couldn’t help but see some small amount of truth in what Tim had said. She did get in the way. She did change things. She did bring complications where they didn’t need to be.
She flicked up a glance at Jason, who was watching her quietly, an unreadable expression on his face, the light catching in his eyes and making them sparkle.
“What about you?” Grace asked him then, looking up at him with apprehension. Jason tilted his head, his eyebrows knitting into a small frown of confusion.
“Me?”
“You and dad would be able to go to all his gigs together and you could go away to places for longer and Gary wouldn’t have to double check all the time if you can make it to play with the band on whatever date. You could just do the things you wanted to do. And you wouldn’t have to worry about me. You wouldn’t have to try so hard to save money all the time either – I know you think I don’t hear you and dad talking about the rent and stuff, but I do and I know it’s my fault.” Jason let out a small chuckle, shaking his head and leaning in to press his forehead against hers.
“Sweetheart, we’d also have more money if I gave up living in this place or your dad stopped his obsession with owning all the latest technology. Most of the best things in life are free, but not all,” he told her through a laugh. Grace gave him a tiny, unconvinced smile, looking up at him through her lashes. He sat back a little and brushed her hair out of her face, his expression kind, though there was a knowing glint in his eyes. He sat so their faces were level, meeting her eyes intently and touching a gentle finger to her chin. “Do you want to know something else, Gracie?” He quirked an eyebrow. “I can tell you, almost definitely, that me and your dad wouldn’t even be me and your dad if there had never been a you,” he told her, firm and quiet. Grace scrunched her face up in confusion.
“What do you mean?” Jason gave a one-shouldered shrug, suddenly nonchalant.
“Gracie, I don’t think that any part of my life could be improved if you weren’t around. And I know that the chance of me being with your dad at all – never mind being married to him – would be slim to none if you had never come along.”
“Why?” Grace asked him, and Jason smiled slowly, inclining his head.
“Your dad is never going to be the sort of bloke who’d be happy working nine-to-five in an office. He’s always going to get restless if he doesn’t get out of Manchester in a while and he’s always going to enjoy nights out telling awful jokes and being daft with all and sundry. But before you were born…he could be a lot wilder at times. The lifestyle he was living before he had any real reason to calm down and stick around in one place – it was crazy, sometimes. And dangerous and lonely and not always pleasant. He’s told me himself he didn’t always keep the best friends: party-people aren’t the most reliable people to be around, and he found himself pushing it just for the sake of fitting in.” Jason shrugged. “I’m not going to pretend he didn’t have all the same qualities I love him for now – he was still the honest, loyal, funny, maddening human being I know now, I know that from how his mates talk. He still would've been someone I would’ve enjoyed talking to, because I love people that down to earth and that sharp who have that many stories. But…he would never have stayed still long enough for me to feel like I knew him, like I could trust him with my secrets and all the parts of my life I had got used to coping with alone. He’d just have been another person I felt I had to be a certain way for; the dependable one to his disaster area.” Jason’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Maybe that’s how some people see us even now, but – with how things turned out? Not so much. Not in any of the ways that count.” Grace smiled too at that, nodding slightly. Jason shook his head slightly. “He’s always told me that, when you were born, he so wanted to be someone you could always depend on. He wanted to be someone’s home. He wanted to be someone who was safe.” Grace’s smile widened slightly. “It was one of the first things he told me, actually. He said he thought it was important I knew, because it's something that's become a big part of the person he is, and is always going to be.”
“Really?” Grace squeaked.
“I promise,” Jason nodded, his voice quite and determined. “He was still the same as he had been before, in a lot of ways. He still wanted a different life for himself than what your mum wanted for her, and he still couldn’t think of a world where he wasn’t a DJ and he never left Manchester. He still had a shocking taste in jokes.” Jason rolled his eyes slightly and Grace giggled. “But he finally had something – someone – to protect. That’s what’s made him more of a fighter. It’s also what’s made him less restless. Well…a little less.” Jason shared a knowing grin with Grace, rolling his eyes fondly. “Hey, we’re both always moving in our own ways – I’m not going to get annoyed with him for not taking some desk job and moving to the suburbs, because I’d lose my mind that way too most likely. But he wanted to become someone better, more reliable, because that's what he wanted you to have: someone to go to, to trust and believe in. He moved back to Manchester to be more present: for you. Everything that brought us together, and that keeps us together now, all those things come down to that. It’s thanks to you he’s looked for a home in his life – I’m just lucky he decided that home could be me.”
Grace barely let Jason finish. It was as though the feelings provoked by his words were too big to fit in her chest, to try to contain in just words – she flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing him tight. It took him a beat, but he quickly wrapped her into a firm hug, and Grace smiled, burying her head under his chin as he tilted them both back against the sofa cushions, leaning back and looking down at her with a laugh. “I’m taking that as a sign you're ok with all that?” he asked, and Grace nodded against his chest, still beaming almost giddily. “Ok then,” Jason chuckled at her, resting his chin back on top of her head. His laughter rumbled against her, and Grace smiled harder than she thought possible.
“You make everything better,” she mumbled into his t-shirt. Jason kissed the top of her head and gave her another squeeze. “You make everything better and you make me happy.”
“Back at you, kiddo,” he whispered. “And don’t ever let anyone make you doubt that again, ok?”
Grace nodded, pushing herself out of the hug just enough to look up into his face. Jason looked back down at her expectantly, eyebrows raised, and Grace opened her mouth, only to close it again abruptly. She licked her lips then tried again.
“Jay?”
“Yes, Gracie?” She leant back a little further and he held her there, balancing her perfectly on his knee and studying her face as she bit her lip. “Go on: ask me anything and I’ll answer truthfully. Cross my heart.” Grace glanced down for a moment, taking a breath.
“Is dad your best friend? Like in the whole wide world?” A slow smile curved Jason’s lips and he nodded.
“Of course. I wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t.”
“And you love him, even when he annoys you…you wouldn’t change him?”
“Everyone changes – people change because of things that happen, the relationships they have. But if you mean I wouldn’t change the person he is deep down? Then no. I wouldn’t want that.” Grace nodded slightly, looking up at Jason from the corner of her eye.
“But then…why? Why are you ok with dad, the way he is and him having me and all the other stuff like his job and things? How come you don’t mind it, but for mum it wasn’t enough, even though he was one of her best friends too?” Jason paused for a moment, his blue eyes bright and fond, the way they always were when he thought about her dad. He smiled, lifting his shoulder in a slight shrug.
“I suppose your mum and dad’s friendship was different in a lot of ways – they met before they’d properly grown up, they met before they’d both really known what they wanted their lives to look like. And when they realised their pictures of the future were too different to work, they walked away.” Jason laughed softly, shaking his head and looking down, his expression almost shy. “Your mum and me are very different people – I’d go every bit as mad as your dad would if you stuck me in the suburbs and told me to get a proper job: staying in this place was actually really important to me, if I’m honest. And even though I know your dad can be a flirt and a menace…I also know it doesn’t matter, as long as he always comes home. Because it’s me he really knows, not those other people. And I know him in return. Every part of him, even the parts that are difficult and daft. Even the parts he would never dream of sharing with the people in those clubs.” Grace gave him a small smile, nodding slowly. “Does that answer your question, sweetheart?” Jason asked her. She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes at him thoughtfully.
“Nearly.” Jason laughed.
“Nearly?” he said, leaning in to butt their foreheads together playfully, tipping her backwards and making her shriek and laugh, scrambling to get back to a more stable position on his lap and settling herself back against his chest, still laughing even as she tucked her head under his chin again. “Ok, sweetheart – ask away,” Jason chuckled, folding his arms around her. Grace smiled, pausing a moment and burrowing down in the embrace.
“Do you remember the first time I came out with you and dad? Like not at the shop, after you started dating?” Jason let out a contemplative hum, pretending to consider the question. Grace twisted to look up at him, and when he met her gaze he poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth playfully, rolling his eyes before flashing her a warm smile.
“Oh I remember,” he said softly, tipping his head to one side in thought. “I think I had about a ten minute window whilst your dad finished up a phone call in which to persuade you to let me stick around.” Grace smirked slightly, pulling a face.
“Like you were even trying that hard,” she dismissed playfully, although deep down she knew that, if he had needed to try hard, he would have done. Jason had always had time for her, had always seemed to have the attitude that she was a person who was important to him in her own right, not just because she came as a package deal with her dad. Jason gave her the smallest of nudges, and Grace looked up at him curiously.
“You know, sweetheart, there was a good ten seconds where I thought you might’ve let things go the other way – you gave me the meanest pout I’ve ever seen from you,” he told her, eyes twinkling. “But…if there’s one thing I know for sure – and it’s something that’s part of why me and you always get on – it’s that you well and truly take after your dad, you know that?” He arched an eyebrow, his lips curving into a fond, crooked smile. “You’re both all front and cynicism, but soft as butter left out in summer underneath.” Jason flashed her a wink and she suppressed a grin. “So: yes, I know the day you’re talking about. And you know what? I seem to remember we made a deal, you and me…” Grace’s smile widened, her eyes lighting up.
“You remember that?!” she asked him, wide-eyed, and Jason smiled knowingly, giving a casual shrug of his shoulders.
“Well, back then you and me didn’t know each other so well, so you asked me a fair enough question: you wanted to know how you could know you could trust me, I seem to remember,” he said, looking at her for confirmation. Grace gave a sheepish smile, looking down.
“I needed to know,” she mumbled. “You made us swap secrets,” she added with a small grin. Jason nodded slowly before playfully narrowing his eyes at her.
“I hope you’ve not told, Gracie,” he teased. She laughed, shaking her head forcefully.
“No way.” Her expression softened then, and she rested her head back against Jason’s chest. “I know you didn’t tell on me either. If dad knew how much I hated his lasagne he wouldn’t make it so often,” she added, rolling her eyes and enjoying the feeling of Jason’s laughter, vibrating through his chest and tickling her cheek.
“He really does love that recipe…for reasons best known to himself,” he remarked, leaning back to look into Grace’s face. “I think we probably have that secret in common to be honest,” he added, waggling his eyebrows jokingly. Grace giggled. “Promise not to tell?” he asked her, raising his hand and holding out his little finger. Grace felt a rush of warmth bubble up from inside her chest, and she quickly sat up, hooking her little finger around his. Then, in a gesture that mirrored almost exactly the one they had made in Jason’s car all that time ago, the two of them leant in, kissing the tips of their thumbs. It had been their secret handshake ever since that day – even her dad and Izzy weren’t allowed to know it.
“Deal,” they said together as they pulled back, nodding at each other solemnly, just about managing to keep down their smiles. Jason let out a low chuckle, pulling Grace back against him in a firm embrace that she accepted gladly.
As Grace buried her face in the crook of Jason’s neck, she let out a sigh, closing her eyes. She felt secure again. She felt sure of herself and her life again. And she felt more grateful than ever that she could count Jason as family. She thought of the ring on the chain around her neck – the one her father and Jason had given her. She’d put it on that morning to bring her luck, and as she had stood out in the rain earlier she had thought for a moment its powers had failed her. But now she was fairly sure she had ended up exactly where she was meant to be. And, in the wider scheme of things, she and her dad had ended up exactly where they were meant to be too: here, with Jason, high up in the sky above Manchester, in misshapen band t-shirts, eating bad lasagne and making up their own rules. That was the life Jason allowed them to have, because of the person he was. He was their person, and somehow, despite the odds, they’d found him.
“Jay?” Gracie whispered.
“Mm?”
“Thank you.” Jason gave her a small squeeze.
“Any time, sweetheart.” Grace’s smile widened and she squeezed him back. He still smelt vaguely of raindrops, mixed in with fabric softener and toast and camomile.
“I love-” She stopped short, pursing her lips briefly. “I love having you around,” she finished stiltedly. Jason kissed the side of her face. “I kind of trusted you always, I think. Even though I said I didn’t.” Her eyelids felt heavy suddenly – the day was catching up to her, and she had to try hard to stifle a yawn. She swallowed, nuzzling down sleepily against Jason’s strong, safe presence, sighing contentedly. “I like that you’re you. You’ve always been you. You mean what you say and all your jumpers have stories.”
“Mm, you and your dad have always loved stories.”
“Me and dad have always loved your stories most of all, though. And we always will.”
***
The apartment was quiet when Howard got in, and everything felt still in the heavy air, which smelt of vanilla and bergamot and melted chocolate – the mixture of scents which could only come from Jason’s favourite scented candles and a fresh batch of Orange Family Recipe hot chocolate. Howard breathed in deeply, a small smile crinkling the corners of his face for a moment as the peace of it all seeped into his bones. He was an anomaly in the clean, calm space – bedraggled and smelling of sweat and booze and cigarettes. But that didn’t change the way it felt to him in the blueish light of the early-morning hours. This place was everything; it was the space in which he was himself in every way. He didn’t look like he belonged, but he felt it – the same way you felt the steady pull of gravity when you were lying in on a Sunday morning. There was a tangle of throw covers and cushions on the sofa, a post-it left on the fridge. Two mugs were standing in the sink. Those were the tells that gave the apartment its lived-in warmth, took away the coldness of the sound of the raindrops on the windows. He closed his eyes and remembered what that sound had felt like in an empty apartment. In an apartment where there was no Jason to come home to. A shiver ran down his spine and he opened his eyes again, blinking as he tried to readjust to the faint light.
He crossed over to the fridge, pulling the post-it off the door and tilting it towards the light coming in through the windows. Jason’s neat handwriting informed him that both he and Grace had had an early night so under no circumstance was he to feel guilty about waking them up to talk when he got in – Grace had even co-signed the note in glittery pink gel pen. He chuckled to himself, pocketing the note and picking up a glass from the draining board. Kicking off his shoes, he poured himself a glass of water from the tap before turning back around to lean against the counter with a sigh. His eyes took in the pictures and trinkets that littered the space; what could have been just another cool, soulless expanse of glass and chrome had – in Jason’s hands – become magical, somehow. He had a way of giving meaning to things, and he never let anything on show come without some attachment to a moment or a memory. Photographs and personalised art prints fought for space on every wall and flat surface, mixed in with the odd music reference and a quirky selection of framed old postcards, tickets stubs and the like, from both of their travels before they’d met. Howard had always been amused by the way their respective collections had covered two completely different corners of Europe; now they were arranged artfully on one side of the hallway, their two journeys working their way towards each other until finally both of their ticket stubs and postcards reached Germany. In amongst the selection, Jason had added photographs of their lives together, shots of the shopfloor, the band together, the two of them with Grace. The central frame was a quote, written out by Jason: ‘But one day you're going to wake up to the smell of a friend making burnt toast and warm coffee, and you're going to smile with relief knowing you made it. Knowing somebody found ways to love you. – Vanessa Hogg’. Howard smiled every time he thought of it – not least because he had always loved Jason’s ability to know a good quote for every occasion, even if half of them were just quotes from his mum.
The static energy of the DJ booth which still skittered through his body was slowly subsiding, the low hum of being home again taking over from the rush of the gig, and he stared out of the windows towards the city beyond. It was that strange time of day – not morning, not night, the time when everything seemed to be suspended. Lights twinkled and winked, reflecting off the Salford glass, and nothing else moved. Up in the top floor apartment, it sounded as if the city was entirely asleep but for him. Howard felt the heaviness of his limbs, felt the ache of his muscles and the dryness of his eyes and he tried to remember what this time of day had been like before Jason, before Grace. No pull of gravity, no low calm. He’d been nomadic and lonely – not unhappy, as such, but perhaps unsettled. He wouldn’t say he had always behaved well – he knew he couldn’t say it. And maybe some of those people whose hearts he had broken (out of carelessness, but never malice) would take exception to it all if they could see him now. See the photographs on every surface, the collection of post-its he kept by his bed, the sight of Jason in one of his old hoodies with the sleeves pulled down over his hands or Grace laughing with him as they fought over the remote. He’d got something out of life that he’d never looked for, never given to anyone, never claimed to want. He was a jammy git – he didn’t blame Vicky for letting some slight sense of resentment show in front of Tim. She had more right than most to be confused as to how their lives had ended up going this way. But Jason was just…the person his heart had recognised. Less love at first sight, more a pleasant sense of ‘Oh, hello – I’ve been waiting for you’. His body felt familiar. His soul felt like home. His apartment felt like a fortress in the sky. Jason was so different from him – but there was also no one in the world he understood better. And the two of them moved the same way. But how could he ever have told Vicky that without sounding like he was gloating? He sighed. He couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that this was his mess: Tim was a shallow arse, in his opinion, and perhaps Vicky shouldn’t have trusted him enough to let her resentments and niggles slip in front of him. But could they really be blamed for that when he was the jammy bastard to screw up every relationship he'd ever had, only to stumble into Jason one day and instantly thrive. Howard rubbed a hand over his face, yawning. He’d had too long a day to let himself start going down this path. He needed to check on Grace. He needed to hear the sleepy way Jason would say his name when he slipped into bed beside him – that drowsy mumble that somehow carried weight and meaning and made everything feel like it would somehow be ok. He gulped down the last of his water and placed the glass in the sink, pushing himself off the counter before padding down the corridor towards Grace’s bedroom.
Howard poked his head around the door to his daughter’s room somewhat cautiously, caught between not wanting to wake her and being desperate to make sure she was ok. The room was lit by the soft glow of fairylights, including a new set shaped like silver butterflies, which Jason must have helped Grace to artfully arrange around the tops of her shelves before she’d gone to bed, given that the last time Howard had seen them they had still been in a heap on Grace’s desk. The room was as cluttered and chaotic as it would have been had Grace been back a few weeks rather than a few hours, and it occurred to Howard that that was probably deliberate: Grace had come here because she had needed to feel like she belonged somewhere, to reassure herself she was safe and secure and wanted – she had probably wasted no time in embedding herself back in the apartment the moment she got the chance. Howard felt a prickle of anger in his chest as he thought of Tim and the things he had said to her – he couldn’t comprehend how callous someone would have to be to talk like that to any child, and talking like that to his daughter was something he couldn’t stand. He was a peaceful person, usually, but when Grace and Jason were threatened he would go on the attack, and somehow he felt like Tim had gone after both of them today. Jason had pointed out that violence wouldn’t change anything, but it was still vaguely tempting to Howard, if he was honest with himself. He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to hunt Tim down and kick him where it would really hurt. But, deep down, he knew Jason was right: what would it fix? He’d have to promptly vacate the moral high ground, and he knew Jason would put up no defence of him should Vicky decide he’d gone too far. Besides, there was nothing he could do that would wound that man the way Vicky no doubt had by dumping him. Men like that could only really feel the pain of injured pride – though even then Howard suspected there would be no genuine remorse over his behaviour. Tim seemed to be a master of self-justification.
Howard pushed himself off the doorframe and crossed the room. Grace herself was barely visible, her bedcovers heaped around her like a cocoon so that only the very top of her head was visible, a shock of curls sticking up on her pillow. He smiled softly as she stirred.
“Hey, sleepy girl,” he whispered, sitting down on the edge of the bed as she blinked up at him blearily.
“Hi,” she mumbled, her expression foggy, though she smiled as he leant in to press a kiss to her forehead. “What time is it?”
“Late,” Howard said quietly, then he pulled a face. “Early,” he amended. Grace nodded, rubbing her eyes. “How are you doing, kiddo?” Howard asked her, brushing back her hair from her face and cupping her cheek fondly.
“Better,” Grace smiled softly, shrugging. “Good,” she added more confidently. Her eyes shone with light and, even through the grogginess of sleep, she looked content in a way that made Howard feel calmer immediately. She was a resilient kid. “Jay told me the real story. About the things Tim was saying.” She was resilient, and Jason was a miracle worker, Howard though to himself. Grace shrugged somewhat shyly then, looking away. “Jay made it make sense. About you and mum and about me, I mean.” Howard nodded slowly, brushing the pads of his fingers tenderly along her cheek.
“And did he tell you that I wouldn’t want to live in a world without you?” Grace’s lips curved up a little at one corner in a lopsided smile.
“He did. And he told me he wouldn’t either,” she explained. Howard’s breath caught slightly, and he turned his eyes up briefly, shaking his head.
“He would do wouldn’t he,” he muttered fondly. “I don’t know how you and me tricked that man into falling for us, but I say we keep him – what do you reckon, Gracie?” Grace giggled softly, nodding.
“I think he can stay,” she agreed. “I’m really glad you met him. And that he's ours: he’s ours and he’s here,” she added then, and Howard flashed her a conspiratorial wink, briefly leaning down to press their foreheads together.
“You and me both, kiddo,” he told her, mischief and honestly mingling in his voice. “I love you both, you know that?” Grace smiled. “But I’ll always have loved you first,” he added then, kissing her nose. “I’m sorry Tim told you those things, but I’m glad you knew you could come here – not just because Jay was here for you, but also because that shows how smart you are, sweetheart. And even though it didn’t work out with you and Tim the way it did with you and Jay…I’m proud of you for trying with him – your mum is too.”
Grace just nodded, looking away, and Howard sighed, grazing his knuckles against her cheek and sitting up. “You know he’s gone and not coming back now, sweetheart? Your mum told him as soon as he got home and was trying to make out you’d run off.”
“He said that?” Howard nodded and Grace pulled a face.
“But she’d already spoken to Jay. And she believed you, because she knows the kind of kid you are and she loves you for it, even if you two fight because of it sometimes.”
“Maybe,” Grace said, her voice small and unconvincing. Howard tipped his head slightly, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“Hey, there’s no maybe about it, ok? And your mum’s going to tell you that herself when we go out tomorrow.” Grace looked up at him suddenly, wide-eyed.
“Go out? Go where? Why?”
“You, me and your mum need to talk and clear some things up, I think – there’s more going on here than just what happened with Tim and I think it’s more than time we got it all out in the open so we can sort it. Don’t you?” Grace was quiet for a moment, a frown settling in on her face as she looked at a point on the wall. “You’ve grown up a lot since me and your mum made these choices for you about where you should live and when you should be with who…a lot has changed for all three of us. It’s time we all owned up to the fact some things just aren’t working with how the three of us all muddle along.”
Grace bit her lip and looked up at Howard from the corner of her eye, scrutinising him intently.
“Can Jay come?” she asked him, somewhat tentatively. Howard raised his eyebrows, surprised slightly by the question. He took a moment, glancing up at one of the many photographs that littered Grace’s room: a blurry picture, taken their first summer together by Mark as Jason whirled Grace around in a playful lift, the two of them dancing together in the sunbeams on a sloping bank of grass at their favourite park, the picnic things abandoned around them. Should Jason come tomorrow? There was so much in that photograph, that stolen moment – but it wasn’t enough for Vicky to learn Grace and Jason’s relationship out of photographs, or at least it hadn’t been so far. Howard sighed. On the one hand, he suspected Jason’s take on things would be useful to all of them, and no one played mediator better in family disputes than Jason Orange, who had trained himself with the Orange siblings’ drama for years. But on the other hand he wasn’t sure how Grace wanting Jason there might make Vicky feel. And yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Vicky needed to see for herself that Grace wasn’t making up the very genuine friendship she had found with Jason – surely it could only be a good thing for her to get the chance to see him interact with Grace, to see, not just how much he adored her, but also how honest it was, how it wasn’t something faked for the sake of keeping Howard happy and Grace quiet, and definitely not something done in an effort to show anyone else up. It was just…Jason.
“Would it make you feel more comfortable to talk about stuff if Jay was there?” Howard asked, slowly. Grace nodded and he bit his lip, nodding thoughtfully. “Ok then, I’ll ask your mum and Jay and see what they think – but no promises, yeah? If either one of them isn’t comfortable with it then you have to be ok with that too.” He leant in once more and pressed another kiss to her cheek. “Now you get some sleep and we’ll go over the details in the morning.” Grace nodded slowly and Howard nodded back. “Good girl,” he said softly.
“Night night, dad,” Grace mumbled, and Howard smiled down at her.
“Goodnight, kiddo.”
Howard pushed himself up off the bed, watching his daughter snuggle back down amongst the covers. She tugged the duvet around her, curling herself up into a tight ball and thumping a dent into her pillow before lying back down properly. “Sweet dreams,” he said softly, giving her another quick wink before turning away. He was about to open the door and slip out when Grace’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Dad?” There was a sleepiness about the question, and when Howard glanced back her he almost chuckled at the sight of his daughter, hooded by bed sheets and looking over at him with heavy-lidded, narrowed eyes, hair falling every which way across her face.
“What is it, sweetheart?” he asked gently, leaning his head against the doorframe. Grace readjusted her head on the pillow slightly.
“How does Jay do it? Make it feel like…even though everything’s wrong, nothing can hurt you?”
Howard paused a moment, taking time to consider the question. He glanced down, tapping his tongue against his teeth as he thought. His mind came to rest on Jason’s piercing blue eyes and his low, careful voice. He thought of the way he talked about things – the way no one else he had ever known could talk. He thought of his endless quotes, his sighs, his words and his stories. The way he moved all the time, but still never felt unstable. He glanced over at Grace once more, his expression thoughtful and quiet, and she looked back at him, sleepy but expectant.
“You know what it means when people say someone was ‘forged in fire’, Gracie?” Grace nodded slowly. Howard’s lips curved into a soft smile. “Well Jay? He was forged in a thunderstorm,” Howard shrugged, his smile creeping in at the edges of his voice. “I think it helps him see clearly when other people don’t…he knows there’s no point in raising his voice, he doesn’t need to try and compete with all the noise.” Grace smiled tiredly, stifling a yawn and nodding.
“That sounds like Jay,” she mumbled softly into the covers, her eyes closing as she let out a sigh. “That sounds like him a lot.” Howard watched her for a moment, a lazy smile on his lips, then slowly turned and slipped out of the room, pulling the door to behind him.
He hesitated in the hallway, raking a hand through his hair and blowing out a breath. He felt the knot of tension in his shoulders begin to ease and he glanced towards the bathroom, wondering if he ought to wash the stickiness of the club’s atmosphere off his skin and try to clear his head a little more. He wasn’t sure how, but Tim had managed to stir up some old fear in his chest, and he didn't want to bring that baggage into the cool calm of his and Jason’s bedroom. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to pull himself together. And that was when he felt the buzz of his mobile in his pocket, and he jumped slightly in surprise.
When Howard pulled the phone out and looked at the message on the screen, he let out a low chuckle, his heart flipping over in his chest. Jason: ‘Come to bed already, love x’ – the words made Howard feel light and giddy, and incredibly grateful. Relief and love and exhaustion flooded through his body all at once, and he pocketed the phone, turning as he did so and carefully pushing open the bedroom door.
“Mornin’, trouble.” Jason’s voice was rough and quiet, but his eyes twinkled brightly and a soft smile was on his lips as he looked up into Howard’s face. He was lying on his side, his arm tucked under his pillow to prop him up a little – he arched an eyebrow at Howard, who grinned back at him stupidly, coming over to the bed and sitting down beside him.
“Mornin’, you,” he replied in a whisper, resting a hand on Jason’s hip and staring down at him intensely. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he asked in a hushed tone. “Your heart is gorgeous, and that mind of yours is brilliant…and there is no way on earth I can have done anything to deserve you.” Jason’s smile was shy but kind, and he moved to place his hand on Howard’s forearm.
“I think we both got a good deal here, Howard Donald: I think that’s kind of the rule we’ve lived our life together by, don’t you?” Howard smiled quietly, inclining his head in vague agreement and glancing down at his hands.
Jason stroked the pad of his thumb across Howard’s skin, watching him in that silent, intent way of his, his bright blue eyes sparkling in the semi-darkness of their bedroom. “What’s wrong, Howard Donald?” he asked at last, voice husky and tender. Howard gave a dismissive shrug, looking back down at him with a fond smile.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine – just tired is all. It’s been a long day, you know?” Jason nodded slowly, pushing himself up a little further and narrowing his eyes.
“Mmhm, and maybe that works on your DJ friends,” he said, quirking an eyebrow. “But this is me you’re talking to, love: you don’t need to pretend in this room.” He tugged at Howard’s hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a tender kiss to his skin. Howard could feel the curve of his smile in the kiss, and it made him smile too, meeting his glittering eyes cautiously. “Darlin’: outside of this room? You can tell whoever you like that you’re okay as many times as you like, and you know I won’t tell them any different…” Howard chuckled softly, shaking his head and glancing away. Jason pressed another kiss to the back of his hand. “But right this moment, love, you’re here with me at three o’clock in the morning: all you need to do is be you,” he mumbled into Howard’s skin, his breath tickling him and sending a thrill of electricity through his body. He looked down at Jason out of the corner of his eye, and Jason arched an eyebrow in challenge. “We found each other in a storm, and we made promises covered in raindrops: it’s too late to try and pretend as though the sun always shines and no clouds ever get in our way. So talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Howard looked away, but he knew Jason caught his smile.
“You’re tricking me with all your pretty words,” he deflected, his voice mumbly and thick. Jason laughed softly, lying back down with a sigh.
“Oh, now you realise how I made you fall for me,” he joked. Howard looked over at him, his gaze intense.
“Oh no, Jason Orange: I fell for you because you made my whole soul light up the moment you started telling me your stories.” Howard leant in and stole a small, chaste kiss. “You make me happy, you know that?” he whispered against Jason’s lips. Jason smiled.
“Welcome home, Howard Donald.”
“Good to be home, Jason Orange,” Howard replied, pressing another brief kiss to Jason’s lips before sitting back up slowly, watching as Jason’s eyes fluttered back open, refocusing on his own. “You sure I can’t just be fine?” Jason smiled.
“You know the answer to that one, love: pretty sure it was even part of our vows.” Howard chuckled, nodding slowly.
“You make a few promises in front of your friends and family and suddenly your boyfriend thinks he owns you,” he joked. Jason suppressed his smile, rolling his eyes.
“Husband, How: that's why all our loved ones were there and why you got cake afterwards,” he corrected gently, eyes smiling warmly. Howard smothered a laugh and Jason squeezed his hand. “Now talk, love.”
Howard sighed heavily, looking over towards the windows and watching the glimmering Salford lights. He felt Jason’s hand come to rest on his arm again, and a small smile formed – without permission – on his lips. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
“There’s plenty of people who’d argue I don’t deserve you, you know. People I hurt back when I was with them. People who…if they knew this was my life, that I smile every morning when I wake up and see you stood in that kitchen, burning your toast on purpose because you’re a perverse bastard who makes no sense and who I adore…they’d say I didn’t deserve any of it, because I never wanted it and I never gave them any hope of having it.” Howard shook his head. “Some days I wonder if I’m just tempting fate every time I kiss you – like I’m waiting for karma to come back at me swinging. Tim’s an arse, but…he wasn’t wrong. About me. I was a shitty person before Gracie. I didn’t mean to be but…I was just careless. I didn’t think things mattered, I was always restless…like everybody always knew I was only ever half-there for anything that wasn’t my work.” He could feel Jason’s gentle fingers tracing an absent pattern on his forearm, the sensation so tender, so soothing. So familiar. “I was always moving, pissing about, keeping the wrong sort of mates and making crappy decisions on the spur of the moment. I was unreliable and trying to pass it off as just some quirk of my personality, and the ones who didn’t get pissed off at me for it just got so disheartened and so hurt…and I never saw it until it was too late and the damage was done. So then I’d move again. And hide in my job. And shrug it off as just…the lifestyle I chose, that I wanted.” Howard swallowed down the lump in his throat, glancing down at Jason sadly. His eyes still shone, his lips still curved up at the very corner; there was more peace in Jason than in anyone else Howard had ever known, a sort of self-possession which was surprising in someone so full of self-doubt and endless questions. “It shouldn’t have taken Grace to make me change that, to make me ditch all the stupid party-people friends and the half-arsed excuses and the relationships I barely even bothered taking part in. And how the hell I was just starting to get my life going in the right direction, when I just immediately stumbled into everything I didn’t know I needed: it’s beyond me. Right at the moment I met you…I got everything I told people I wasn’t looking for. Does that make me a liar or…just a joke?”
Jason's fingers stilled as he looked up into Howard’s eyes thoughtfully. His lips parted slightly, his forehead creasing in a solemn, intent expression that sent a shiver down Howard’s spine.
“I think it makes you human,” he said at last. “Not a joke. Not a bad person. Not a liar or a fraud. Just you, but with a different standpoint.” He squeezed Howard’s arm, lifting on shoulder in a shrug. “You’re not made up of your mistakes, Howard Donald. You’re made up of every moment of every story you’ve ever told. The time you snuck off with your mum’s car keys without permission, the mates you made when you got lost in Berlin and found that backstreet pub. The awful clubs, the perfect gigs. Gracie. All of it – every person, every choice, every moment.” He smiled. “Right up to whispering in the dark with me right now.” Howard smiled back slightly, shaking his head slowly and glancing down. Jason gave his arm another firm squeeze. “The people who knew you before, who you hurt or it ended badly with…let them have their opinions, what does it matter? They knew a different person, a different you. Let them say and think what they like: they don’t know you, they only know one small part.”
“The bad part – because I didn’t bother to give them anything else, Jay.”
“So? Sometimes we offer as much as we can to people at the time, and we only realise later that what we gave wasn’t ever going to be enough. You talk to some of my old boyfriends – half of them would call me cold. Even Ryan used to say he thought the reason we worked was because he was always working – I was left to my own devices half the time, I didn’t really need to give up so much heart or energy that way. I got to keep my rules and my thoughts – I always used to think I was built to be alone, to be honest. To those people that knew that version of me…maybe I was cold. Maybe I’m the one who karma should be coming for.”
“God, Jay, you could never be cold,” Howard protested, the words instinctive and honest. Jason arched an eyebrow, his smile knowing.
“And you could never be heartless,” he countered quickly. Howard almost laughed – caught in Jason’s trap of logic and powerless to do anything to fight it. He smiled and tipped his head back with a sigh. He could feel the warmth of Jason’s smile. “You can be reckless. And stupid. And pick the wrong moments. You can even be a flirt - but I’ve got no room to judge on that score. And lord knows your schedule can be a nightmare and you’re forever hard to reach on the phone.” Howard glanced down again, meeting Jason’s eyes once more, sharing his small, fond smile. “But you are all heart, Howard Donald. Heart and soul.”
“But how can you say that and not worry, Jay? Not doubt me even a little bit? How can you be sure I won’t be careless with you? Won’t run off or ruin everything?”
“Because I’m not worried about those people you flirt with or those clubs you go to or the last-minute changes of plan you’re sometimes forced to make. I know you’re loyal. Fiercely so. And I know that, as long as you always come home to me, as long as coming home to me is what you want to do more than anything…then I have no reason to hold your wild side against you. We all have our flaws: I love you because of yours, not despite them.”
The dawn was just starting to seep into the Salford sky. There was a faint, pale grey light starting to colour the room, casting pretty shadows along Jason’s face. His eyes were so bright, and he looked at Howard with such focus, such depth of feeling and sincerity. Howard felt like his chest was ready to burst; he was full-up and alive under Jason’s steady gaze.
“Away from the lights and the music…I’ve always been this quiet, lost-in-his-own-head nobody, you know? But you…you make this impression on people like you don’t even know, Jay. You are so…present, and so totally unaware of the effect you have, that incredible first impression. People walk away from meeting you buzzing. It’s so fucking incredible – and you’re the only person on the planet who doesn’t know it.” Howard grinned slightly, rolling his eyes and looking up at the ceiling ruefully. “God, and somehow, you chose me. And it made me feel more like myself than anything else did ever, except music, maybe. As soon as you looked at me, I wasn’t mumbling, idiot Howard. I was finally just…me.” He looked back at Jason then, opening his mouth and then closing it again with a sigh. “You are everything to me, Jason Orange,” he managed after a beat, voice low and warm. “And that is so fucking terrifying, honestly,” he added. Jason smiled softly, his expression somehow sad and delighted at once.
“It’s funny isn’t it?” he murmured back. “How something can feel so safe and so scary all at once.” His eyes were glistening, as though he were about to cry. But the smile he gave Howard was so complete that he could do nothing but smile back. “I have nothing left to lose…but I’ve got more to lose than I ever did before I met you.” Howard felt tears prickle his own eyes at that, sudden and unexpected.
“I love you,” he said, almost on instinct but with an earnestness that made Jason smile.
“I love you too,” he replied.
Howard laughed slightly, a small, bewildered sound that caught in the back of his throat. He shifted his weight, placing his hands either side of Jason so as to lean down and finally capture his lips in a deeper kiss, a kiss that Jason let himself give in to completely. Howard smiled, his eyes closing – he felt the dull thud of the pendant on his chord necklace as it bumped against Jason’s chin, felt Jason’s hand cup his face, felt his fingers burying into the hair at the nape of his neck and the coolness of the sheets as they twisted beneath them. He no longer felt the taste of alcohol on his lips or the stickiness of the club on his skin – he could feel the slight sting of Jason’s vanilla-mint lip balm and smell of the cherry blossom fabric softener Jason always used on their bed linen. For a minute, all he knew, all he felt, all that existed was the two of them in the blue hush of their room.
When they finally broke apart, it took Howard’s eyes a moment to focus – he looked into Jason’s angular, handsome face, took in the smile lines and the sharp, blue eyes and the enigmatic way he pursed his lips as he looked right back up at him.
“Promise me, if I screw this up, you’ll get as far away from me as you can.” Howard heard the note of pleading in his own voice, and he knew Jason caught it too – the pent up fear that had forced out those words without permission. Jason’s expression was intense but calm. “Promise me, if I screw this up, you will protect yourself from whatever mess I make and just…get away.” The pendant of his necklace still swung slightly on its cord, but nothing else in the room moved, and for a moment Howard held his breath. Then Jason silently reached up, cupping his face in his hands.
“I promise, Howard Donald, that if I think for one moment you might be about to try and screw this up, to fall apart and hurt yourself in the process…that I will fight, and won’t for one moment doubt that, underneath it all, you love me. Because you are my home and you give me hope – and no one should give up those things with out a fight, do you hear me?” Howard felt a laugh bubble up, and he sniffled slightly, blinking away tears.
“Loud and clear,” he managed, his voice cracking. “Cross my heart.”
“I made you stay,” Jason added then, voice small and smile shy. “And our deal has always been to demand everything given back in return. So I’ll stay too. With you, whenever you need me to. Even in the dark. Even in the rain. Even in the moments when I’d rather just wring your neck and be done with the whole thing. Because it’s you. It’s as simple as that: for me, it’s you. That’s how this story works out, Howard Donald: with you.”
Howard couldn’t be sure if he had pulled Jason up or let himself ease down, but suddenly their lips were meeting again, in a rush and in slow motion at the same time – time not seeming to work in any sensible way between the two of them in that room, framed in the first hints of a dawn that seemed in no rush to interrupt them. Howard’s eyes closed, and his body sank instinctively towards Jason’s, the sheets rustling beneath them as Jason’s eyelashes tickled at Howard’s skin.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, Howard knew he shouldn’t give in to this moment, as much as he wanted to: it was almost dawn and he was exhausted and his daughter had just had the day from hell and Jason could use the sleep and, God, he didn’t deserve to have this peace and this fire coexist so perfectly. But every cell in his body was alive and he could feel the smile in Jason’s kiss. The feel of his fingerprints, the ridges dragging across his skin. He pulled back, just slightly, and Jason looked up at him, his eyes questioning.
“If you want me to stop, all you have to do is tell me, Jay,” Howard managed, the words rough and quiet. And Jason looked at him for a moment, his forehead creased just slightly. Howard’s eyes moved to his lips, watching as he licked them as he thought – one of Jason’s tells when he was whispering secrets in the dark. Then, after what seemed like an age but could only have been a second, he touched a gentle finger to Howard’s chin, and he glanced up again instinctively, meeting his eyes again. His breath caught slightly in his throat when he saw the determination in Jason’s eyes. There was that familiar challenge between them once again, and Howard felt electric.
“Don’t stop,” Jason whispered. “Don’t stop and don’t doubt,” he said, his eyes intent on Howard and his voice low and even. “Because I love you. I love your soul, even though it’s heavy. And I love your heart even though it’s tired. I love your hands, even though they’re rough, and your curls even though they’re tangled.” Jason leant in and captured another kiss. “I love your body,” he mumbled against Howard’s lips, kissing him again. “I love your kiss.” His fingers twisted in Howard’s hair. “And I love every 3a.m. I’ve ever known since I met you.” Howard closed his eyes, letting Jason press their foreheads together, holding them as close as they could be without their lips touching, just for a moment. “Karma isn’t going to come for you, Howard Donald. And if it does, it’ll have to come through me. So to hell with it: let’s just go ahead and tempt fate. I’m not afraid, not with you.” And then Jason kissed him again, and Howard smiled, letting him pull their bodies back down onto the bed.
Chapter 9
Vicky couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something as simple as a Sunday lie-in followed by a walk in the park, but as she took in the scent of fresh-cut grass and the faint rustle of the breeze through the trees, she realised the good it was doing her. She set off down the quiet path, sending a quick text to Howard to let him know she’d arrived before switching off her phone. Trees lined the rough track which cut through the centre of the sloping stretches of grass which made up the majority of the park, and benches were nestled between the trunks at regular intervals, looking out across the parkland and the buildings beyond. It was peaceful and, in the crispness of the Mancunian summer air, it felt vast and free – it was the sort of corner of Manchester she never would have found by herself, but Howard had always had a way of showing her sides to the city she had never known existed, and she knew Jason was also a thoroughbred Mancunian with a knack for navigating every side of the city.
Howard had given her a rough description of the part of the park she would find them in, but as it turned out she didn’t need much guidance. She heard Grace before she saw her, the sound of her laugh carrying on the breeze, followed by a squeal and the sound of another, rougher voice that Vicky suspected was Jason’s. With a smile she cut across to the other side of the path, following the sounds of teasing and giggles towards the edge of the trees.
Across the grass stood an old bandstand, and Vicky paused as she took in the two figures standing in the centre of it, tilting her head to one side and hanging back out of curiosity. Neither one of them had spotted her, and they continued their amicable bickering unawares; they both buzzed with an infectious, joyful energy, and Vicky felt a deep sense of gratitude for the carefree smile on her daughter’s lips, given the turbulence of the day before. It both assuaged and sparked her guilt: she felt partly responsible for yesterday’s events, but it was clear that, despite it all, Grace was bouncing back quickly.
“I don’t get how you did that! How did you do that?!” Grace was demanding through a laugh, though there was genuine reverence in her expression as she looked up at Jason. He was chuckling, an impish expression on his face as he ducked artfully out of the way of Grace’s attempts to tug at his arm, spinning on his heel so that his momentum carried him all the way back around to grab her up from behind – like it was choreographed. Grace squealed, delighted, as Jason lifted her up and swung her around with him. The two continued their bickering in amidst the squeaks and breathless laughter, and eventually Jason set Grace down once more, leaping artfully out of the way as she attempted to exact her revenge.
“Er, do you want to learn this or not, princess?” he demanded, and Grace looked outraged, throwing her curls out of her face indignantly.
“You started it!” she exclaimed, failing to suppress her smile, and Jason grinned back unapologetically.
“I think we both know that’s not true – or are you not your father’s daughter?” Grace stuck her tongue out and Jason laughed, giving her an affectionate nudge then tipping his head in the direction of a phone sitting at the side of the bandstand. “Take it from the top?” Grace gave a resolute nod, and Jason gave her a nod of his own in return, reaching down to scoop up the phone before handing it over to Grace. From where she stood, Vicky could only just make out the tinny sound of music which was coming for the phone, but as it started up Grace quickly set the phone back down and fell into line with Jason, the two of them exchanging a knowing glance before their expressions became masks of intensity and they adopted matching poses.
“What in the world…?” Vicky murmured, laughing slightly as Jason began to dance, Grace keeping her eyes trained on him and trying her best to follow along.
“I know, right?” came a voice from behind her, and Vicky jumped, turning to look over her shoulder and immediately spotting the familiar outline of Howard Donald, sprawled out on one of the benches set off from the path, shaking his head slightly as he continued to watch Jason and Grace turn the bandstand into a stage. “It’s been like this most of the morning,” he added then, briefly taking his eyes off Grace and Jason in order to shoot Vicky one of his trademark lazy grins, an impish twinkle in his eyes that, to Vicky, was a reminder of the naughty teenager she had first met in high school, always sneaking out of lessons in favour of a trip to the fish and chip shop down the road.
The moment was interrupted by the sound of Jason’s voice, carrying on the summer breeze.
“Ok, now we’re going to go into the next section, which is pretty simple but it’s also quite quick and intricate, so you need to concentrate. I’ll talk you through it like before, ok?” His tone was firm but kind, and he looked at Grace for confirmation before moving seamlessly into another dance step. “Right, so you drop your weight onto the leg at the back like this, and bring your other knee up as close to your chest as you can – like this – see…?” Vicky watched for a moment as Jason demonstrated and Grace copied, before glancing back to Howard, who seemed to sense her gaze, looking up. He squinted against the sunlight slightly, lifting a hand to his forehead as a shield in order to meet her gaze. “Impressed?” he asked, amusement in his voice, and Vicky laughed, shaking her head slightly and crossing over to join him at the bench.
“That depends: what on earth am I even looking at, and why?!” she said. Howard chuckled.
“Oh, Gracie was watching some talent show competition thing on TV last night – I don’t know, Britain’s Got The Voice Factor or some other rubbish.” He pulled a face and Vicky laughed, rolling her eyes at him fondly. “Anyway, some dance group was on who Grace was fascinated by…but, Jay being Jay, he wasn't going to let her be impressed by substandard choreography and half-arsed gimmicks. He was part of that scene most of his life, so he was pretty quick to let Grace know he could do a better routine than what they did, backwards and in his sleep.” Howard shrugged, but Vicky could see the proud smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Grace wasn’t convinced but Jay was adamant. And with good reason – seriously, Vick, you should see him when he gets going, he’s not lost a thing since back in the day. But anyway, long story short? This morning he showed Gracie exactly what he’s capable of when you give him a good beat and now Grace thinks he’s some kind of superhero and wants to learn how to do everything he can. You know what she’s like – any chance to jump into something like that with both feet and she’s there, front and centre.” Vicky smiled, nodding slowly and looking back over to watch as her daughter continued to try to match Jason’s movements, an intense look of concentration on her face. Howard looked over at her, and she felt his eyes on her, could just make out the soft, kind smile he gave her.
“What, Donald?” she asked, avoiding his eyes. He shrugged casually.
“Nothing – just thinking it’s something she gets from you, is all. You were always the one who had to be the best at everything; even when you let me get you into shitloads of trouble back in school, you still pulled top marks out of nowhere when it counted. And I don’t think that’s changed much over the years.” Vicky smiled, pursing her lips and shaking her head slightly, glancing away.
The two of them fell into a peaceful silence, both watching Jason and Grace work through their dance together, Jason patiently going back over steps and talking the moves through, and Grace looking fiercely determined as she worked through each section of the routine, watching wide-eyed when Jason took a moment to demonstrate something at full speed. Snatches of the conversation drifted up to them on the breeze; at first it was Jason’s soft, even tone as he went through an explanation, his genuine warmth as he shared praise and in-jokes that resonated most with Vicky. But then she listened more closely to Grace’s responses, the openness of them, the pure joy in her laughs and the total ease with which she spoke to him. The two of them were so wrapped up in the moment they hadn’t even noticed Howard watching them, never mind Vicky’s arrival, and the significance of that weighed on her. This was what Grace and Howard had been trying to tell her all along, and she had – for a variety of reasons – tried to ignore it.
“They really do have something, don’t they,” Vicky murmured, her eyes not leaving them as she spoke. Howard laughed – soft and fond – and tipped his head in acknowledgment.
“They really do,” he agreed quietly, a smile in his voice as he glanced up in time to see Jason and Grace pretend to square up to each other, Jason giving a measured lecture on the importance of giving good face in a dance battle as they stared each other down. Vicky remembered hearing a similar lecture from Howard, back in the day.
“You know, the thing about Jay is…when he walks into a room, he can just instantly make this big first impression on everyone in there.” Vicky was surprised slightly at the sound of Howard’s gentle, faraway tone, and she looked over at him thoughtfully. His eyes didn’t leave Jason and Grace, his head tipping to one side in thought. “Part of it is just the way he carries himself, you know? There’s this flow to everything he does that just can’t be forced, and it’s like he’s always dancing.” Howard chuckled self-consciously, a grin creeping onto his lips. “He’s got a charismatic body, can you believe that?!” He laughed again, rolling his eyes slightly before his expression softened once more. “But…there’s more to it than that. He’s just got something behind his eyes that’s so…warm.” Howard glanced up at Vicky somewhat cautiously, and she gave him a small smile of encouragement. “He’s genuine and funny…and he knows how to listen in that way that makes people feel like they must be the most interesting person on the planet. People are drawn to that.” Howard shrugged, catching Vicky’s eye again and flashing her a smile. “Me? Not so much.” He gave her a stern look when she moved to protest and she quickly closed her mouth. “No, I just know how to fake it – with daft jokes and music and pulling faces. But Jay? He’s the real deal.” His smile softened and he looked away again, his eyes falling on Grace. “You know who else is like that?” Howard arched an eyebrow. “Gracie. She’s got that effervescence and that warmth in spades. I think that’s what draws them to each other – they’ve both got these incredible fields of gravity around them, and people like that always find each other…I think it’s one of those little things that keeps the universe a fundamentally good place, you know? That people like that can always find each other, and pool together all that laughter and light and send it back out at everyone around them tenfold.” Vicky smiled softly, looking back over to Grace and Jason and tilting her head to one side. It was a variation on a theme that she knew ran through all Howard’s beliefs: he believed in people and in an innate goodness being in everything, he looked at the world through an honest, frank, cynical filter, but he never stopped looking just because it was hard to see the light. He was a persistent beggar – and maybe Jason was the reward for that persistence, a sign that the universe was finally delivering some of that goodness he had always insisted was out there direct to his door.
“I suppose I should’ve known Jason Orange was the real deal from the day Grace first added him to one of her epic cover-the-house-in-glitter artworks. She used more glitter glue on him than I’d ever seen in my life before,” Vicky remarked absently, and Howard let out a warm, rough laugh, eyes glinting gleefully as he looked across at Vicky.
“And what did you actually think at the time?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows teasingly. Vicky laughed, covering her face with her hands and groaning jokingly before peeking back over at Howard through her fingers.
“Honestly? That the two of you had to be making him up!” Howard let out another laugh and Vicky couldn’t help but join in, throwing her hands up in mock-despair. “Well what did you expect me to think?! The person you and Gracie were describing could not be real!” she protested. Howard sniggered, shaking his head, and Vicky tried to suppress her smile. Her gaze fell back on Jason and Grace and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “I mean, geez, Donald – how the hell did you manage to find yourself the only fairy-godmother-slash-sex-god in all of Manchester?!” Howard let out another laugh, throwing his head back for a moment, his grin wide.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” he said, still chuckling, and Vicky smiled, shrugging blithely.
“You know me Donald – I call it how I see it.”
“It’s what I’ve always loved about you, Vick,” he replied, a very genuine warmth in his voice that made Vicky smile.
In that moment she felt the weight of the history between the two of them, and she remembered that Howard had been – before anything else – her best friend. She couldn’t help but wonder if some small part of her had been so resistant to Jason because she had realised, instinctively, that unlike her, Howard had found a new best friend. “You know, I don’t know if he’s everything me and Grace have made it seem like. I don’t know if he’s the Best Guy Ever or a real life superhero or whatever else it might seem like when we try putting Jay into words.” Howard glanced across at her with an impish smile. “I don’t know if he’s a fairy-godmother-slash-sex-god,” he added and Vicky let out a soft laugh. “But…Jay is Jay – it’s hard to put him into words, coz the only bloke who might stand a chance is Jay himself and he would never try and build himself up in the first place.” Howard let out a breath and looked back over towards Jason and Grace, eyes bright. “But what I do know is that he makes me happy.” He looked down, his expression almost shy. “And isn’t that amazing? That it can be that simple and that big at the same time?” He looked across at her and Vicky offered him a smile.
“Yeah. It really is,” she told him softly, and Howard smiled back at her, giving a slight nod before glancing away, scrunching up his face against the sunlight.
The two of them lapsed back into silence, both watching Jason and Grace over at the bandstand as Jason did another run-through of their dance routine for the benefit of an awed Grace, who watched with a mixture of intense admiration and curious concentration. Vicky smiled fondly, sitting down beside Howard and taking a moment to study his unguarded expression. He was squinting slightly, his face creasing up into an expression that could’ve been misconstrued as a frown by someone who didn’t know him quite so well. Howard could be so intense on the surface, but Vicky knew his softer side too well to be fooled – she saw the gentle curve of his lips, the quiet warmth in his bright eyes. “I’m happy for you, you know,” she said suddenly, her voice quiet and earnest. Howard looked across at her and she lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Seriously. You deserve this,” she added. Howard quirked an eyebrow at her curiously.
“You’re telling me this? Really?” His tone was light, but there was an anxiousness behind the question, she knew.
“Really,” she replied, firm and low. “I mean it, How. I’m so glad you found Jay – I’m so glad you’re finally with someone who makes you…so much of yourself. Someone who makes you happy that way.” She let out a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I know I’ve not always acted like it but…I know you’re not the bad guy in our story, not like I tried to make you out to be back when we first broke up.” Howard was looking at her thoughtfully, and she met his gaze, giving him a sheepish smile and sighing heavily. “I know I was no saint either – that I pushed too hard and tried to make you into someone who, I knew, deep down, you weren’t. And for what it’s worth? I admit I…I have blamed you, sometimes. Said things I shouldn’t to people I shouldn’t, let them get the wrong impression because I wanted to make myself feel better.” She swallowed, looking down at her hands. “You know what I’m like: I always want to be the best, the top person, ticking all the boxes, getting everything right. It’s one of the things me and Tim had in common, actually. And when you and me broke up…I was just the same. I wanted to ‘win’ the break up. I wanted to pretend I hadn’t failed at having a relationship with my best friend by going off and showing just how perfect I was at everything. I wanted to go and get that promotion, get that house in the suburbs and find my Prince Charming – and I wanted to do it all before you did.” She rolled her eyes, tipping her head back. “I know that sounds awful but…it was the way I felt. Making you out to be the only one to blame for what went wrong between us…was just part of that, I think.” She looked up at Howard from the corner of her eye, and was surprised to see very genuine sympathy on his face. He shrugged.
“Hey, I gave you plenty of ammunition, Vick, you know? The last-minute disappearances, the dumb excuses, the crappy friends. The smart-arse remarks every time I wanted to stop you getting on my case. I was no angel.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “You were my best mate before you were my girlfriend, but I didn’t always treat you that way…and I should’ve, you know? I should’ve tried to be more like an actual grown-up and just sat down and told you what was going through my head instead of acting out like a stupid teenager all the time.”
“I imagine that would have been a hard thing to do when I was always treating you like a stupid teenager no matter what you did. I mean…God, I was always screaming at you over the smallest thing, always making out like your dreams were somehow less than mine…I took everything out on you at a point when my life just wasn’t working out how I thought it would. Neither one of us acted the best way when we were together, the difference is…you owned up to it. Made yourself better, stepped up for Gracie…and that led you to Jay.”
“I don’t know…sometimes I look at him, look around at Gracie and Jay and my life and I just think I’m such a jammy bastard to be here – I keep waiting for someone to come tell me I’ve been assigned the wrong story, to pack my bags and shove off back to my grim hole of a reality somewhere in the gutter.”
Vicky’s brow creased into a frown, and she studied Howard’s face intently. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard Howard talk that way about himself, and it worried her to hear him heading down that path even now, now that he was so far away from the reckless kid she’d first made friends with in high school, when they used to bunk off together on Friday afternoons or sit at the back of detentions making snarky comments. He wasn’t the reckless decision-maker or the careless partier she had known when they first started going out – he kept better friends and a cooler head, and though he still couldn’t keep the time to save his life, he had grown into someone who would always keep in touch, keep his ears open and keep his word. And one thing that hadn’t changed was the honesty in him, the earnest heart she had always loved was still there, more open to kindness than ever. She could still remember being that angry, scared, anxious young girl, resentful at her parents landing her in a strange new city at a strange new school where all the other kids teased her for her accent and her clothes – she could still remember the moment Howard Donald had flopped down at a lunch table beside her and advised her to ‘ignore the sad bastards’. He was in the year above her, one of the most popular people in school; when she’d suggested to him that taking the time out to be nice to the new girl was what most kids would consider beneath him, he’d been baffled, truly unaware that there was any such social expectation for him to ignore her and damned if he’d bend to it anyway. He’d been the first thing to make Manchester bearable for her – and now she thought of the place as home. She looked at that face she knew so well, took in the slight downward curve that almost always rested on his strangely serious lips, looked at the small crease in his forehead as he gazed off into the middle distance. And she realised that somewhere in his head he was still totally bemused at the slightest suggestion that he might be anything special.
She was about to open her mouth to speak when suddenly Howard cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter.
“So anyway,” he mumbled, glancing down for a moment before looking over at her from the corner of his eye. “Enough about me: how’re you holding up?”
“Me?!” she asked through a confused laugh, blinking in bewilderment at the sudden shift in Howard’s tone. Howard simply shrugged, biting at his lip.
“Yeah you – Jay told me about you giving Tim his marching orders. I know what he did was shitty, Vick, but all the same…it’s got to be rough on you, all this.” Vicky smiled slightly, glancing away with a shake of her head.
“I won’t lie: it’s not been the most fun experience of my life. But…honestly, it was probably way overdue. And I mean…How, he had the nerve to come back to my place full of all these excuses, saying Gracie supposedly bolted right out of a moving car and he chased her through the streets and all this.” She rolled her eyes. “Gracie’s headstrong, sure, but…I knew how hard she was trying. I know I didn’t show her that as much as I should but…I did know she was trying. And besides: he was too late, that husband of yours had already called me with a full debriefing and far more kindness than I deserved, given the way I’ve been treating him recently.” She sighed, looking up at Howard, who offered her a sympathetic smile. “I’ve been dating a real winner, right?” She scrunched up her face in irritation with herself. “He’s not always that way – he didn’t used to be anyway, back before things got so pressured at his work and everything suddenly became this big competition to him. I actually liked that about him when we first met; that he was always aiming for things, that he wanted all the same tick boxes as me. But then I started to realise…that was pretty much all he wanted. He wasn’t interested in anything that wasn’t somehow fulfilling some bigger life-goal of his, and he certainly wasn’t interested in Grace…which I let him get away with because, let’s face it, me and Gracie have always butted heads, you know? And I thought maybe he’d come round, once he got to know her. It was stupid and I should’ve known it would come back to bite me…I told myself Gracie was the one acting out, Jason was the one trying to show off and show Tim up, like he was the one with the agenda. It just felt easier than dumping Tim, somehow. I made the mistake of believing it was better to be with a subpar-to-average guy than being back at square one as a single mum again, you know?” She closed her eyes and shook her head, letting out a small groan of irritation. “All I could think was that I didn’t want to be a single mum whose most significant ex had already managed to find his dream guy and his happily ever after – that felt like too much of an uphill battle to face. How ridiculous can you get, right?!” She pulled a face, trying to seem dismissively casual, but Howard knew her too well and gave her a small elbow in her ribs.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Vick – maybe it sounds stupid but…it mattered to you, you can’t help that any more than I can help being a DJ mattering to me.” Vicky nodded vaguely, unconvinced.
“Whatever the logic, I just kept telling myself the same things over and over: once he got his promotion he’d go back to being the person he was when we first met, like maybe that extra security would soften him up again and help him with Gracie. I thought if I rode the storm with him ‘til then, it’d get better, that the rockiness was going to be worth it. And, for all his hard edges…honestly, I never thought Tim would pull a stunt like yesterday. I never would’ve stayed with him if I knew he’d put Gracie through all that, put her in danger like that and say all those awful things to her. I would never have imagined he would turn around and dump her in the middle of Manchester and disappear for a half hour to ‘teach her a lesson’ – his words, not mine.”
Vicky squeezed her eyes tightly shut and drew in a deep breath, trying to get rid of the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach – she felt like the failure she’d always been so scared of becoming and it made her feel ill. Anything could have happened to Grace in that half hour if she hadn't have known she had Jason to go to. She shivered. And then she felt Howard’s hand over the top of her own, squeezing it firmly.
“This is not your fault, Vick – don’t let his actions reflect on you,” Howard told her in a low, firm tone. She looked over at him and he smiled. “We’ve all let idiots get too close to us, you know? It’s part of life.” She forced a smile back.
“Thank you,” she managed. Howard rolled his eyes. The same eye roll he’d given her when she’d told him he would probably get laughed at for sitting with the new girl with the funny accent back in school. It almost made her laugh – how could there be so much history in a simple roll of the eyes?
“No thanks needed, Vick – never has been.” Vicky’s smile was genuine then and she leant in to rest her head on his shoulder.
“Well, thank you anyway,” she told him quietly.
She looked down at her feet, scuffing them lightly against the ground, her brow knitting into a frown. “I’m sorry about the other stuff Tim said, you know – the stuff he told Gracie about you. Howie, he should never have said that stuff and…and I should never have told him some of the things I did.” Howard shrugged.
“Don’t be daft. I was a shit boyfriend to you – you had every right to complain.”
“No. I didn’t. Not as much as I did and not to someone who didn't know the full picture.” She sighed and looked up at the sky thoughtfully. “I should never have given Tim that sort of ammunition against you – I exaggerated, I overshared…I acted like you weren’t still one of my best friends even now and that was so stupid to do, and so unfair on you, but I just…didn’t know how to stop once I’d started. It felt nice, honestly: he was so alpha-male that it actually made him happy to think of himself as so superior to you. I think he liked the idea of being the hero of the story, saving me from the crappy ex. And the way he was with me when I made him feel like that…he was so over-the-top Prince Charming that it made me want to play up to that image he had of himself, made me want to act like that dumb damsel-in-distress backwards stereotype just to get more of that side of him.” She looked over at Howard again, who arched an eyebrow at her curiously.
“You do realise he sounds like a total creep, right?” She elbowed him and he laughed softly, putting an arm around her shoulders and giving her a kind squeeze.
“We can’t all marry Jason Orange, you know,” she teased softly, and he laughed again, more brightly then.
“Thank fuck for that; they’d be queuing round the bloody block day and night,” he said emphatically, making Vicky smirk.
“Pretty sure he’d still choose you, Howie,” she told him gently. Howard made a noncommittal sound, looking back over at Jason somewhat pensively.
“The truth is, Tim probably was a creep,” Vicky murmured into the quiet. Howard looked at her in surprise and she shrugged. “By the end he was. And honestly? I nearly broke up with him so many times. I came close enough I even started a ‘we need to talk’ conversation a couple of months back. But then…something would happen; I’d hear some story from Grace about what she did with Jason at the weekend, or some friend of mine would run into you and say how happy you looked and…I know it sounds petty but…I just couldn’t bear the thought of looking like I wasn’t just as happy too. I couldn’t get my head around the thought of being single and starting from scratch again, admitting I’d screwed up. It was as good as admitting I hadn’t known what I wanted my life to look like after all. After all the times I told you to get your life on track and get a plan or you’d find yourself out of control in no time…I couldn’t face being the one out of control, especially not when everything for you was just going so right.” She swallowed hard and looked down at her hands, now folded in her lap. “I couldn’t face being alone,” she admitted quietly.
Howard edged closer to her then, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and leaning in.
“Vick: you’re not alone, you know.” She looked up at him sceptically, but his gaze was firm and kind. “You’re still one of my best mates too, that’s never changed and you know it. And you’ve got a daughter who is pretty good company when you give her the chance to be – and no matter what she says she’d break down doors for you when push came to shove. And, I don’t know if you’d noticed, but for all your attempts at being an Ice Queen around him? That husband of mine cares about you too – he really doesn’t give a crap what people say when he knows they don’t mean it, and when it comes to family? Jay just doesn't know the meaning of holding back; it’s all heart no matter what you throw at him. And as mad as it might sound to you, that’s what you are in his book, and in mine: family. You’re part of a family here, Vick, you have been the whole time; you’d have noticed that if you hadn’t been so busy focusing on those goals of yours.” He shrugged. “It’s messy, and it makes no sense to half the people stood on the outside of it, but that’s what you and me managed to stumble on, even if it’s not the way you wrote it down in all your checklists.” Vicky smiled back at him sceptically.
“Come on, Howie, maybe that’s true but…after all this, after the way I’ve let us drift for so long – don’t you think I’ve pretty much blown my chance at being included in yours and Jay’s side of the family? Certainly in Gracie’s eyes.”
“Don’t be daft; she loves you, you know that. You two just both clash because you’ve both got the same temperament: feisty. She got all your drive and fire, Vick – which means you have to know how to handle her.”
“And do I? Know how to handle her I mean?” Vicky looked over at Jason and Grace again, now no longer dancing but play-fighting, laughing and squabbling together as they fought over their music. She smiled slightly. “I made us make all these plans when she was born, where she’d be and when, who’d be responsible for what…but she’s not happy half the time. Not with me, I don’t think.”
“How’d you mean?”
“I mean…I’m always so frazzled after a day of work that I know I’m no fun when I’m with her. We seem to spend half our time in a mood with each other and…I’m starting to realise that I can’t put all of that on poor Jay – I can’t put any of that on him, he’s just the contrast not the cause. If anything he’s probably made it better than it might have been; given her the respite she’s needed to regroup when things have been tense, probably let her vent and talked her down a few times too, I imagine. And I know he’s not got any agenda; he loves you and he loves Gracie and it’s not his problem that he gets along with my girl and I don’t. Deep down I’ve always known it’s not his problem – it’s part of what made me take it out on him all the more. It’s not his fault, it’s mine…I let my head get too cluttered with work drama and I don’t make the time and space for her I should. And that's got me here: lost.”
Howard was quiet for a moment. He too was watching Jason and Grace, who had resumed their dancing, though both were still breathless and laughing and deliberately bumping into each other as they went. Howard was chewing his lip, his mind clearly working overtime, and Vicky hoped, desperately, he was going to come up with the magic answer she had spent most of her sleepless night before searching for. He sensed her eyes on him and flicked a glance across at her, his forehead still creased in concentration.
“You really think things are that bad with you and her? Even with Tim out the picture?”
“No.” Vicky shook her head then looked back over at Grace and sighed. “Yes.” She bit her lip and then looked back at Howard nervously. “Maybe?” She shrugged helplessly. “I just…” She lifted her hands in a vague, expansive gesture, sighing deeply. “It’s not like some awful Channel 4 documentary about parent-child relationships in the modern age or anything. We get along most of the time, we’re not making each other miserable…but…I don’t think we’re as close as we could be, and I’m not sure we’re exactly making each other happy either.” She closed her eyes for a second, sighing. “But I don’t know how to fix it: we are who we are, that’s not going to change no matter what I try.” Howard nodded slowly, glancing down briefly, then, slowly, looking back over towards the bandstand.
“You mind if I call in the big guns?” he asked, regarding her out of the corner of his eye. Vicky frowned in confusion.
“The big…I don’t know what you mean but if it’ll help then…” Howard nodded, a small smile forming on his lips.
“Ok then,” he said, taking a deep breath and bringing his hands to his lips in order to call out.
“Jay!” Vicky jumped at Howard’s yell, blinking in bewilderment. At the sound of his name being called, Jason fell effortlessly out of a turn, looking up towards the two of them enquiringly, a blithe smile on his lips. “Can your partner in crime spare you for a minute or will I be in the doghouse with Her Majesty for stealing you away?” Howard asked and Jason grinned, turning to say something to Grace, who beamed and gave an emphatic nod in response. He gave Grace a wink and a conspiratorial nudge before jogging down the bandstand steps and heading over to join them.
“She still ok?” Howard asked as he approached, and Jason glanced back over at her briefly, watching for a moment as she went over some dance steps before turning back to them with a smile.
“Oh, I’d say so,” he beamed. “She picks up choreography quickly too, just so you know,” he added with a grin, eyes twinkling delightedly. Howard’s smile in return was mischievous.
“What are you prepping her for, Orange? I don’t remember a single disaster movie where the earth was saved by a quick-learning breakdancer.” Jason narrowed his eyes at him playfully.
“It’s a smart mouth you’ve got, Donald, for someone who’d take a week to learn what your daughter’s picked up in a morning,” he shot back, waggling his eyebrows at Howard as his face cracked into a grin. Vicky could see the light dancing in Howard’s eyes and it made her smile, shaking her head slightly.
“You two are something else,” she chuckled. Jason laughed, inclining his head slightly.
“Now you mention it, I think I’ve heard people say that before,” he replied with an impish grin. “Nice to see you, Vick,” he added then. “You feeling better since yesterday?” Vicky nodded.
“I am, mostly. Thanks for not pointing out my boyfriend was a total moron whilst we were on the phone – I don’t know why, but…it helped.” Jason chuckled.
“No problem,” he said, his voice warm and soft and his smile genuine.
“Jay’s telephone manner is second to none,” Howard put in and Jason arched an eyebrow at him before looking back over at Vicky.
“He says that like I can ever get him to even answer the phone.”
“Said the pot to the kettle,” Howard shot back dryly. Jason suppressed a smirk, sharing a knowing look with Vicky before turning back to Howard decisively.
“You wanted to talk to me about something?” he asked, his tone jokingly pointed and his smile light.
“So many things,” Howard replied through an exaggerated sigh, his smile teasing, and Jason aimed a harmless kick at his shin, making him chuckle. “Sorry, I just…I needed to borrow your brain.” Jason tilted his head, his brows knitting into a thoughtful frown.
“Outside perspective?” he guessed. Howard shrugged.
“That or…maybe just a Jay perspective,” he said, looking over at Vicky. “If that’s ok with you?” Vicky smiled at him reassuringly.
“Definitely.” She looked up to meet Jason’s eyes then. “I kind of want to borrow your brain too, to be honest,” she told him. Jason smirked.
“High demand – I don’t know how much it’ll live up to the hype but…sure, go for it,” he said with an easy smile that Vicky couldn’t help but return.
It came as a slight surprise to Vicky that it didn’t feel so much like admitting defeat to be asking him for help this way – instead it felt more like the fog was finally clearing. Jason’s expression was so honest and open, unjudging in a way that put her at ease. She let out a breath, feeling the relief of having admitted all her worries and hang-ups to Howard and letting it sink in. She didn’t feel like she had to keep up an act any longer – it was the way she’d always felt around Howard, and she realised how much she’d missed it. She’d spent too much time doing him and Jason down in her head, she supposed, and in the process had allowed herself to miss out on the sort of friendship she actually really needed in her hectic life: the sort of friendship that allowed you a chance to catch your breath, which was something being offered not just by Howard, now, but Jason too.
“You know how Gracie’s been lately – about the way things are with her mum, not just with Tim?” Howard was saying to Jason, who was nodding slowly in agreement.
“She told you that?” Vicky asked, feeling bad for sounding so surprised.
“She tells Jay the stuff she knows might come across the wrong way to you and me,” Howard put in with a shrug. “One of Jay’s many gifts in life is that he can offer pretty much anyone a kind of translation service when they need it: they put in the problem and he turns it on its head for them. Most people don’t even realise they’re talking before it’s already out in the open and he's giving them his thoughts.”
“The Jay perspective,” Vicky said slowly, realisation dawning. “That’s what that means.”
“I just like words,” Jason said softly, dismissively, and Howard shook his head, leaning in to Vicky conspiratorially.
“He always says that, like it’s not bloody amazing when he gets going,” Howard put in, rolling his eyes affectionately. “The point is, though – you know there’s more going on than just the stuff with Tim, right?” Jason nodded and Howard shrugged. “We want to fix it, but we’re running low on suggestions: Vick and Gracie just need time, you know?”
“But it’s something we’re both running short on, to be honest. I’d say we flip things over – you take weeks and I take weekends. But it’s not that simple, you know? I work weekends too half the time…and Grace doesn’t like the suburbs any more than Howard ever did.” Howard winced slightly.
“Sorry about that.” Jason pursed his lips, suppressing a smirk, and glanced at Vicky.
“If it’s any consolation, he goes stir-crazy in the city sometimes too – at least Gracie doesn’t need a train journey and a couple of nights in a hotel room to calm her down.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Howard protested.
“He’s got you on this on, Howie and you know it,” Vicky laughed and Jason smirked.
“He’s always bloody got me,” Howard shot back quickly with an exaggerated pout.
“But I thought you always won, love?” Jason teased faux-sweetly, and Howard shot him a pretend glare, folding his arms.
“I do win, as long as you don’t play dirty,” he retorted. Vicky laughed and Jason simply shook his head with a smile. Howard rolled his eyes and suppressed a grin. “So come on, Jay – whilst you’re on a winning streak, any suggestions?”
Jason took a moment, glancing off into the distance briefly before looking back to Howard thoughtfully. He sighed.
“Throw the plan out the window.” Jason met Howard's gaze. “Simple, straightforward, no nonsense honesty. She's your daughter, How, through and through. So…throw the plan out the window. Simple as that, no messing about.” He and Howard shared a look for a moment, and a slight, knowing smile began to curve Howard’s lips as whatever he read in Jason's eyes began to properly sink in.
“Throw the plan out the window,” he repeated softly under his breath, and Vicky looked between the two of them in confusion.
“Ok, you’ve both lost me and I feel like I'm flying blind over here: what does that even mean?” she said slowly, frowning, and Howard flicked a glance at her, chuckling slightly.
“Exactly what it sounds like,” he shrugged. Vicky looked up at Jason for clarification.
“Look, Gracie’s used to always having a say in the way things go – but when and where she spends her time? That’s always been out of her hands,” Jason said, his tone gentle and sincere. “She was too young to have a say when you fixed this idea up for how her life would go, who she’d stay with and when and where. And maybe the plan made sense back then but…would you both seriously say you’re the same people now that you were then?”
“God, no,” Howard said emphatically, making Vicky laugh. She looked from Howard to Jason with a sheepish smile.
“Has anyone ever told you you know too much?” she joked. Jason smiled, eyes aglitter once more with a mix of mischief and affection.
“Howard. This morning.” Vicky quirked an enquiring eyebrow and his smile widened. “I would just like to point out it was when I knew who’d eaten the last of the pancakes,” he elaborated, looking over at Howard affectionately and then at Vicky once more, his smile delighted and teasing. “After all, it’s not as if the trail of maple syrup fingerprints was a giveaway or anything,” he added, rolling his eyes jokingly. Vicky laughed.
“Don’t ever change, Donald,” she smirked. Howard grinned.
“I try not to,” he said, his eyes twinkling roguishly. Jason smiled, shaking his head slightly and looking back at Vicky.
“Look, the point is? Maybe it’s time to throw the plan out the window…and…not draw up a new one without asking Grace first.” Jason shrugged again. “Maybe there shouldn’t even be a new plan: not a firm one anyway.”
“How’d you mean?” Vicky asked. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Howard’s knowing smile.
“Jay doesn’t do your checklists, Vick,” he said lightly and she narrowed her eyes at him in joking warning, giving his leg a slight smack before looking back to Jason.
“Seriously – I’m keeping an open mind here.” Jason chuckled.
“I don’t know what it means for sure, could mean one thing one week and another the next: you put that part in Gracie’s hands.” Vicky saw Howard’s eyes widen slightly, and she glanced over at him as he looked at Jason with an expression she could only think of as pure adoration.
“You’d be ok with that?” Howard asked, his voice rough and warm. Jason smiled back, unperturbed and kind.
“You’re not the only Donald I’ve made promises to, love,” he said simply. Howard moved his mouth to say something then shook his head.
“I love you, you know that?” he said quietly.
“Ok, not to ruin the moment, but you’ve both lost me here,” Vicky put in, wincing slightly at how clumsy her interjection felt, but Jason offered her a reassuring smile.
“All it comes down to is just what Grace wants, what she feels she needs to get her balance back and relearn how it feels to just…be at home. I think maybe the best thing for Gracie right now is for her to know she’s free to choose: don’t draw up any strict rota for when she has to be where, let her make up her own mind when she wants to come and go.”
“I don’t…” Vicky trailed off, taking a moment to properly consider the idea before dismissing it out of hand. “I’ve never thought about anything this way so I just…” Jason inclined his head in understanding, and Howard gave her a slight nudge, causing her to look over at him questioningly.
“Think about it, Vick – he’s right, you know? Gracie likes to feel like she has options, and that she’s in control of those options so she can always choose a Plan B for herself if the going gets rough. This way, when your schedule at work is crazy one week, she could come and stay with me and Jay for a while so the two of you aren’t at odds all the time – Jay’s always around even when I’m not, she’d be happy, safe…and when you had time off from work you could go do something together, spend time doing something fun with each other instead of you both being cooped up in the suburbs going crazy from boredom,” Howard put in.
Vicky glanced away, taking a moment to turn it over in her head. It was blindingly simple, when she thought about it – but it also seemed crazy to her, like it was tearing up the rule-book somehow to not go down the more traditional route they’d always stuck to in the past. She looked at Howard, meeting his questioning gaze.
“You really think it could work? You think Grace is old enough to make those kinds of decisions?”
“With our help…yeah, I do. And I also think that, eventually, she’d probably settle back into a pattern, one way or another, and it won’t seem as up-and-down. But Grace will feel a world of difference just knowing her options are always open, and so will you.”
Vicky licked her lips, taking a moment to pause and draw in a breath and acknowledge the warring voices fighting to be heard in her head. She’d never thought about anything this way – she’d always lived in a world of black and white, where a plan was something solid and everything had boundaries which were clearly defined. It was the thing which had put more strain on her relationship with Howard than anything else over the years: he saw nothing but grey areas in the world, plans could change on the spur of the moment and impulse and gut instinct left little room for the respect of boundaries. But this wasn’t Howard’s way either, she realised. Jason had taken her by surprise by presenting a version of the world she’d never taken the time to consider before – this way of looking at things wasn’t what she had expected, and it was something a little more complex: a plan that was to have no plan, a boundary that could move when it needed to, that could be shaped by instinct as much as forethought. She looked up at Jason from the corner of her eye, squinting slightly against the sunlight, and he quirked an eyebrow at her, the expression curiously subtle. It didn’t seem to be a question, but it didn’t seem to be a judgement either, and there was a soft, slight curve on his thin lips; the man was every bit as captivating as Howard had always told her, but it wasn’t the charming-devil lure she’d assumed in the past. Jason radiated. And pulled. And challenged.
Jason shifted slightly, sticking his hands in his pockets and tipping his head to one side.
“Answer me this: do you have How’s number?” Vicky blinked, perplexed, and for a moment she didn’t reply, instead frowning up at him, still trying to work him out. He was unphased and she let out a slight sigh, shrugging.
“Of course I do. I have ten different numbers for him, actually.” Jason smiled, giving the tiniest nod of understanding.
“Don’t we all?” he joked lightly. “Later we should compare and see if we’ve got any extra ones knocking around that he might answer a bit quicker,” he added, eyes dancing. Vicky laughed, nodding and flicking a glance at Howard, who had screwed up his face into an expression of mock indignation. “Ok. So now answer me this: does he always make sure he can find a moment to talk, or at least get back to you later if he sees you’ve called him?” Vicky nodded.
“Always.” Jason inclined his head slightly.
“Ok, and do you have my number?” he asked then. Vicky frowned again, still confused.
“You know I do.” Jason nodded slowly.
“Ok. And how likely is it that I won’t pick up if I see your name on my phone screen?” He raised his eyebrows at her and Vicky laughed slightly, shaking her head.
“If I call either one of you, you both assume it’ll have something to do with Gracie – and I know you’ll both drop everything for her if she needs you to.” Jason’s eyes sparkled knowingly.
“So, if you don’t mind me pointing something out…haven’t you just answered your own doubts right there? After all, would you even need to know any of that stuff if you thought for one moment that all those plans of yours were set in stone? That nothing would ever change at the last moment?” he asked gently.
Vicky sat back slightly, letting the question sink in. She was floored by the simplicity. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Howard’s expression, and when she looked over at him he shrugged idly.
“I think he manages to do this to me about three times a week: blind me with the bleeding obvious. He makes it seem like bloody sorcery though.”
“I’ll say,” Vicky muttered in reply and Howard chuckled.
“Makes a nice change seeing him give someone else's head a messing with; makes me feel like less of a daft beggar anyway,” he added and Vicky rolled her eyes, giving him a small smack and biting back a laugh. She looked back at Jason, who offered a self-deprecating shrug.
“I just see things a different way sometimes, is all – everyone needs an outside view here or there, even the great Howard Donald,” he said, smiling lopsidedly. Vicky laughed again, shaking her head, and Jason’s smile grew a little. “Look, in my experience? No plan is set in stone. We tell ourselves they are to makes ourselves feel better about just how many opportunities there are in life to get things spectacularly wrong.”
“That…actually makes a lot of sense,” Vicky admitted slowly.
“So…sometimes, you have to accept that you can only decide to do your best – you can only plan to always be open to a last minute change of plan,” Jason continued.
Vicky closed her eyes and drew another deep breath.
“And what about Gracie? I’m putting the way all our lives pan out in the hands of a child,” she sighed, raking a hand through her hair and glancing down.
“No,” Jason said simply. “You’re putting the way some days pan out in her hands. Maybe some whole weeks.” Then he met her gaze, his eyes bright and clear. “Your whole life isn’t defined by how your plans work out, you know – don’t place that much value on the stuff you had in your head before you had all the facts at your fingertips.” Vicky paused for a moment, gazing up at him with wide, surprised eyes.
“Are we still just talking about Gracie?” she asked quietly, and beside her Howard chuckled slightly, leaning in towards her.
“This is the thing about calling in Jay on your problems: he always ends up answering the questions you didn’t think you were asking, but you actually really needed to get off your chest.” Vicky looked over at him and he shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, it takes me by surprise half the time too – and I married the bastard,” he put in with a wry grin. He shrugged. “He’s right, though, Vick. You haven’t failed at life just because you didn’t end up married with two kids, a cute dog and no worries. You’ve just lived a little. And who’s to say you won’t get that stuff and more if you just have some patience, you know? I never thought I’d find a home…then I walked into Jay and I’ve been home ever since.” Howard gave her a small nudge. “So…maybe you have to come up with a new plan – what’s it matter? Rigidity and all this doing things by the book has got us nowhere, but at least we tried it. Now it’s time to try coming at things from a different angle.”
“But where do we even start – how do we start out on a path that isn’t even clearly marked out? Isn’t that just reckless?” Vicky asked nervously.
“My middle name, that,” Howard said, looking down with a small wince that Vicky only just caught.
“Used to be,” she reminded him kindly.
“Maybe,” he replied. Vicky looked up at Jason once more, and he offered her a small smile.
“Look, for what it’s worth: my suggestion? You start by talking to Gracie, let her set down a few markers of her own first.”
Vicky nodded slowly, chewing at the corner of her lip as she tried to see past her instinctive love of the familiar and admit what she knew, deep down, to be true: something had to change, and Jason’s suggestion was, fundamentally, simple common sense. She sensed Howard’s eyes on her, and she looked over at him, meeting his gaze.
“He’s right, isn’t he?” she said with a wry smile. Howard’s eyes danced with a mixture of intense amusement and wolfish pride.
“He always is – but the trick is not to admit it in front of him,” he shot back lightly, flicking a glance up at Jason, who smirked, shaking his head slightly. “So, what do you say, Vick?”
“That agreeing to this is breaking your rule about not letting your husband know he’s right,” she joked, giving Howard a playful whack on his arm and making him laugh. She looked up at Jason and gave him a soft smile. “But you’re right, for the record,” she told him. Jason flashed her a conspiratorial wink. She looked back at Howard then, shrugging and nodding her head in Grace’s direction. “Go for it, Donald: I’m in.” Howard’s grin was wide and kind and he gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. Then he pushed himself forwards on the bench, and he, Jason and Vicky all looked over to where Grace was sitting on the bandstand steps.
“Hey, Gracie!” Howard called out, gesturing with his head, beckoning her over. She looked up immediately, setting down the phone and stopping its music “You mind coming up here for a second, sweetheart?” he added then, seeing the suspicion in Grace’s expression and trying to keep his tone as soft as he could whilst still making sure he could be heard. Grace’s eyes took in all three of them, and she seemed to consider ignoring the request for a moment before finally pushing herself up and crossing over to join them at the bench. She looked up at Jason as she approached them, as though trying to look for some signal from him, and Jason offered her a fond quirk of his lips, holding out his arm and letting her come to his side, wrapping her own arm around him and leaning against his hip.
Vicky couldn’t help but feel guilty that it was her presence which seemed to give Grace the most pause, though she knew from their conversation on the phone the night before that Grace was scared Tim might have persuaded her there was some truth in his version of events. Grace pressed her face somewhat shyly into Jason’s side, looking between Howard and Vicky and holding onto Jason a little tighter. He gave her a reassuring squeeze, and Howard sat forward slightly, leaning in to meet Grace’s eyes. “You mind if we talk to you about some stuff, sweetheart?” he asked gently. Grace leant against Jason’s hip a little more as she considered it, and Jason tickled her cheek affectionately, the action being rewarded with a tiny, playful thump and coaxing out a brief smile. She looked up at Jason and he gave her a small nod of encouragement before, finally, she looked over at Vicky, her expression suddenly anxious once more.
“Am I in trouble for going off on the train yesterday instead of waiting where I was?” she asked slowly, her voice uncharacteristically small. Vicky felt her heart sink a little and she offered her daughter a reassuring smile.
“No, Gracie, of course not,” she told her in a rush of breath, her expression earnest.
“To be honest I was impressed you remembered how to get back to the apartment from there,” Howard put in with a laugh. Vicky laughed too, rolling her eyes.
“I mean, I would’ve been more impressed if you hadn’t left your phone at home so you could have just called someone, but…” she said lightly, before looking back at Grace more intently. She sighed and sat forward a little in a mirror of Howard’s pose. Grace looked back at her worriedly and she offered her a smile. “Sweetheart, nothing about yesterday was your fault, ok? And you did the right thing finding Jay – and I really, really mean that, ok? He was a good person to go find,” she said, firmly, looking up at Jason briefly and giving him a smile which she hoped conveyed her very genuine gratitude. “I’m really glad you had Jason to go to, actually. And I mean that. You should never have to apologise for needing someone you can trust when something scary happens.” She looked into Grace’s face and was pleased to see the briefest hint of a smile in her eyes.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Howard said, shifting along the bench slightly and patting the space between himself and Vicky. “Pull up a seat so we can talk, ok?” Grace seemed to consider it for a moment, worrying at her lip and then glancing up at Jason, who flashed her a smile.
“Go on, kiddo – give ‘em a chance. You’re going to want to hear what they've got to say: I promise,” he said quietly. Grace smiled back at him, nodding slightly before slowly moving away from his side and hopping up onto the bench. She looked up at Vicky for a moment.
“I don’t know what Tim said I said, but I swear I was nice until he started being mean about dad and Jay.” Her eyes were wide and anxious, but her lips were pursed in a defiant line.
“He went after Jay too?” Howard asked, surprised. Grace nodded.
“Mostly because he married you though,” she shrugged. Jason and Howard looked at each other briefly, sharing vaguely amused smiles.
“I think there’s a club he can join on that one,” Howard said under his breath, and Jason chuckled, shaking his head.
“Yeah, well, they should all just get over themselves,” he shot back simply.
“Seriously though, Gracie: we know you, we know we can trust you, ok? And nothing you could ever have said could’ve justified how Tim behaved yesterday,” Howard put in then, and Vicky gave Grace’s arm a squeeze.
“And we really, really mean that, ok?” she said, looking Grace in the eye. Grace studied her face for a moment, then nodded slowly.
“Ok,” she said quietly, relaxing slightly and swinging her legs backwards and forwards.
Grace seemed to still be thinking about something, a tiny furrow in her brow as she looked down at her feet; it was an expression she had inherited from her father, Vicky knew, and she couldn’t help but smile when she saw it. “Is Tim really gone now? He’s not coming back?” Grace mumbled, looking up at Vicky through a curtain of curls. Vicky tucked the hair back behind her daughter’s ear and leant in to look her firmly in the eye.
“Hey, come on, sweetheart: give me some credit, ok?” she said, smiling brightly. “I won’t pretend I’ve always made the smartest choices when it comes to Tim, but I know a final straw when I see one.” Grace smiled back then, small and genuine, and Vicky leant their heads together. “Besides, I’ve got more than enough company right here with you and your dad,” she added.
“And Jay!” Grace reminded her emphatically, and Vicky laughed, glancing up at Jason with a warm smile.
“And Jay,” she agreed with a nod, and Jason grinned, tapping two fingers to his forehead in a small, playful mock-salute.
“Always,” he said, folding his arms once more. Grace beamed up at him delightedly for a moment before looking back at Vicky out of the corner of her eye.
“Do you like Jay now?” she questioned solemnly, her eyes so fierce it actually made Vicky laugh, tipping her head back and letting out a low groan.
“Ok, now that’s not fair – I’ve always liked Jay,” she said, pulling a face and briefly glancing up at Jason again, relieved to see amusement shining in his eyes. “I know I’ve been bad at showing it lately, but I promise all that’s going to change from here on out. We’re going full clean slate; and I mean that about everything, actually.” Grace gave a single, resolute little nod.
“Ok.”
“And on that note…” Howard put in softly, giving Vicky a pointed nudge, clearly expecting her to take the lead.
Vicky felt a brief flicker of her panic returning then. She opened her mouth, then closed it again with a heavy sigh, shaking her head slightly. She’d lost confidence in her own ability to make decisions, somewhere along the line, and she wasn’t sure how to get it back. Even more troubling to her, however, was the fact she felt less confident with Grace all of a sudden; she felt as though she should have known better than to let things as far as they had, as though she had missed one too many opportunities to just forget her own hang-ups for a moment and have an honest, quiet conversation with her daughter. And then she caught sight of Jason, watching her with those quiet, knowing blue eyes of his; his lips moved, just slightly, curving up at one corner in a kind smile. She smiled back, somewhat timidly, and he gave her a quick wink which was – somehow – immensely encouraging.
“Gracie, me and your dad have been talking. About what happened yesterday and…and about all the other things which kind of led to it.” Vicky paused, exchanging a glance with Howard, who also shuffled a little closer to Grace and gave her a slight nudge.
“You know what we might mean by that, sweetheart?”
“Maybe,” Grace said quietly, looking down.
“Gracie, I know I’ve let things slide with you and me lately – between work and Tim and the way you and me both are when things are stressful. And I’ve let things slide with your dad and Jason too. And I really want to make all of that right, ok? So I asked your dad and Jason if maybe they could help with that.” Grace looked over at her inquisitively.
“And what did they say?” Vicky shrugged.
“That a clean slate should probably mean a really, properly clean slate.”
Grace looked between the three of them, her expression somewhere between suspicion and anticipation. “You were too little to make any decision when me and your dad first worked out how best to divide your time – he was gone more, I was working less.” Vicky gave a wry smile. “Plus, it was just the three of us; your dad knew Jay could dance, but without a name, number or any other useful information, we couldn’t really make a case for having him look after you,” she added, catching Jason’s eye and sharing a grin with him.
“But…things are different now. There’s four of us – your mum’s work’s taken off, I’m based in Manchester a lot more than I used to be,” Howard put in with a shrug. “And I finally learned Jay’s name,” he added with an impish grin that made Grace smile.
“And most importantly? You’re old enough to make certain decisions for yourself, and…we think maybe it’s fair that you get more wiggle room when it comes to who you’re with and when,” Vicky finished.
Grace stared at Vicky for a moment before quickly whipping her head round to look up at Howard, then Jason, then turning back to Vicky once more.
“Are you serious?” she squeaked, eyes wide, and Vicky laughed softly, nodding.
“Within reason…yes, we are.” She shrugged. “There’s always going to be times when one of us has to make the decision for you but…if some weeks you just feel like you would rather be one place instead of another then…that choice should be yours.”
“We just want you to be as happy as possible, sweetheart,” Howard added, giving Grace’s cheek an affectionate brush with his knuckles as he tilted his head to meet her eyes. “You can always talk to any of us: me, your mum or Jay, and we will listen – and, if it’s practical, we will let you be where you want to be.”
For a moment Grace paused; she looked around at the three of them as though there was a chance they might be playing some cruel trick on her, or at the very least that she might have completely misunderstood what they had said. She looked at Howard, who smiled encouragingly, before turning to Vicky, studying her face with wide, solemn eyes, her expression cautiously hopeful. Howard and Vicky’s own eyes met over the top of her head, and they shrugged at each other helplessly. Then Grace looked up at Jason; he smiled warmly and crouched down immediately so as to meet her eyes with his own.
“Hey, Gracie,” he said softly, reaching out to touch an affectionate finger to her chin, the action coaxing out a tentative smile from Grace. “Maybe it might be nice if the first choice you make is to go home with your mum tonight so you two could talk some more – what do you reckon?” he asked her, his tone kind and conspiratorial all at once. Vicky couldn’t help but smile, touched by his thoughtfulness. She looked back at Howard, who offered a smile of his own before turning back to watch Jason and Grace, his eyes bright with affection.
“I can still stay with you and dad all summer? And come to your mum’s big party?” Grace was asking, her tone determined but her expression excited. Jason chuckled softly.
“Of course, if that’s what you want – although, you know, my mum will make you help her with the dishes after.”
“Only because you’ll stay late to help her clear up anyway,” Grace pointed out.
“Er, and because your dad will be asleep on the sofa,” Jason shot back, pulling a face and making Grace giggle. “But what do you reckon, you think maybe you could find a bit of time for your mum so the two of you can catch up without Tim around?” he added, and Grace pursed her lips slightly, looking down as she considered it.
“On one condition,” she said, after a beat.
“Come on Grace Donald, hit me with your best offer,” Jason smiled. Vicky laughed, glancing at Howard, who shrugged in a way which implied he’d seen this routine between Grace and Jason before.
“You finish teaching me our dance. And mum stays and watches when it’s done.” Grace and Jason both turned to look enquiringly at Vicky.
“I’m game if you are,” Jason said and Vicky chuckled, nodding slowly.
“Ok. Sounds like a deal.”
Grace let out an excited squeal, launching herself first at Jason and hugging him tightly before turning to hug Howard and Vicky in turn, still bouncing slightly as she did so. As her daughter flung her arms around her neck, Vicky hugged her back fiercely, squeezing her close. Over Grace’s shoulder, Vicky met Jason’s eyes: she mimed a ‘Thank you’ at him and he pulled a face, waving off the thanks quickly and getting to his feet.
“I grew up surrounded by siblings – most of them wanting to fight with each other most of the time. Family negotiation skills helped me get through my teens: it’s nice to know I’ve not lost my touch,” he told her, putting his hands in his pockets and giving her a quick shrug.
“I’m still impressed,” Vicky told him honestly.
Abruptly Grace released Vicky from her hug, scrambling quickly to her feet so that she was standing on the bench between her parents. She rose onto her tiptoes to try and reach Jason’s eye level, and immediately Jason dipped his own body, the two of them both folding their arms and narrowing their eyes at each other like they were squaring up. Vicky glanced at Howard in confusion but he just grinned, nodding his head towards them to tell her to keep watching.
“You have to double-secret-promise now, Jay – to make it official,” Grace announced, her face comically serious, and Jason leant in ever so slightly.
“Double?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “I don’t know, princess: that sounds like a big commitment.” Grace drew herself a little taller.
“Double-secret-promise or nothing,” she said with a firm nod. Jason’s lips twitched up into a slight smile, and he inclined his head as though considering the prospect.
“Terms and conditions?” he replied, his tone somehow teasing and serious at the same time. Grace smiled.
“Same as I said. Summer, your mum’s party, we finish the dance and dance it.” Grace licked her lips and leant back a little. “And…”
“And?!” Jason asked with exaggerated outrage and Grace nodded enthusiastically.
“And,” she repeated pointedly. “And you and dad have a dance off too.” She looked back over her shoulder at Howard, grinning mischievously before turning back to Jason. “I think you can beat him,” she added brightly then, making Jason laugh.
“Oi!” Howard protested and Grace giggled, whipping back briefly to stick her tongue out at him. Jason smiled playfully, and his eyes glinted with challenge as he nodded slowly.
“Ok, princess: deal.” He unfolded his arms and held out his palms, and Grace grinned, delightedly accepting the offered low-five before glancing back at her parents.
“You have to close your eyes so we can do the secret handshake,” she announced, and off Vicky’s baffled look Howard chuckled.
“I’ve learned to just go with it, Vick,” he advised, covering his eyes. Vicky followed suit, and, once she was sure they weren’t watching, Grace turned back to Jason. Not that Vicky could resist parting her fingers just enough to peek. Grace was holding out both hands to Jason, sticking out her little fingers, and as she did so, Jason chuckled, locking his own fingers around them. They each leant in, kissing their thumbs, then stood upright once more and gave each other a solemn nod, low-fiving again and finishing with a fist-bump.
“Thank you, Jay,” Grace said shyly and Jason winked back at her kindly.
“Anytime, sweetheart.”
“Ok, you can look again now,” Grace announced to her parents then, smiling brightly.
“Good,” Howard said, sitting back and lifting his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes against the sun so he could look up at Grace properly. “Now that’s settled: I’ve got a bone to pick with you, kiddo,” he added, pushing himself up off the bench and grabbing Grace up into his arms. She shrieked and giggled, struggling as he swung her around and began to tickle her. “No daughter of mine is getting away with backing Jason Orange in a dance off!” he said as he and Grace wrestled, both of them laughing as he put her back down on the floor and set upon her once more.
“Why not?! We both know he’ll beat you!” Grace shot back breathlessly, sticking her tongue out at Howard and letting out a squeal as he tried to grab her up again. “Jay! Tell him!” she yelped, dodging Howard once again and starting to run away.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been telling him since the day we met – this battle’s your own to fight, I’ll make my case on the dancefloor,” Jason chuckled, shaking his head and sharing an amused glance with Vicky as Howard and Grace resumed their play fight, ducking and dodging and chasing each other in circles as Grace squealed and laughed and skipped out of Howard’s reach, forcing him to chase her down the slope and out onto the flat expanse of grass beyond.
“Come ‘ere, you!” Howard called after Grace as she ran, and Vicky and Jason both laughed as they watched the two of them finally catch up to each other, Howard scooping Grace up and hauling her over his shoulder, spinning her round as she laughed and protested, her curls falling dramatically over her face.
“No fair! You’re bigger than me! You’re cheating!” she yelped, and the two of them promptly fell to the ground, rolling about on the grass for a while before resuming their chase once more.
For a while neither Jason nor Vicky broke the summer peace which had descended on them, both too busy watching Howard and Grace make their chaotic progress across the park, matching smiles of amusement on their lips as the shrieks and shouts of the fight drifted back to them on the breeze. Vicky couldn’t remember the last time she had taken a moment to just sit still like this, the last time she’d stopped long enough to enough register the summer breeze in her hair and the sun on her face – couldn’t remember the last time she’d just let out a breath and listened to Grace laughing. If she had to place it, she would guess that it was probably the last time she’d spent an afternoon out with Howard, Grace and Jason, back before Howard and Jason’s wedding when she had begun closing ranks against Jason and backing off from Howard.
She flicked a glance up at Jason then; the picture of casual as he leant back just slightly, arms folded, his artfully rumpled shirt flapping faintly in the breeze where the bottom button had come loose. His hair was closer-cropped than the last time she had seen him, not long after his miraculous reappearance, exposing more clearly the sharpness of his features; it was a solemn, handsome face, a face which was lit entirely by those piercing blue eyes – if she’d paid more attention to those eyes before, she perhaps would have realised how absurd she had been to doubt his intentions. Jason, like Howard, had honest eyes. His smiles were cryptic, his tone was soft. But his eyes told stories.
“In their heads, neither one of them is a day over four years old,” Jason murmured into the quiet, taking Vicky slightly by surprise. “The daft thing is, Howard knows better than anyone which one of us wins in a dance-off,” he added then. Vicky looked up at him, taking in the content, yet faraway, expression on his face; she wasn’t sure what story his eyes were telling in that moment, perhaps too many at once for anyone to know for sure, but his lips curved up a little more at the corners and he waggled his eyebrows teasingly. “I’ll give you a clue: it’s not him,” he added, glancing back at her over his shoulder for a moment and flashing her a boyish grin that made her laugh.
“Oh really – why so sure?” she smirked. Jason shrugged, turning back.
“June 1990, if I had to put a date on it,” he remarked casually. “There was this big competition happening just outside of the city centre, and all the big crews from Manchester were there. The main event with the massive group face-offs were more or less over, which really just left the showboating, one-on-one stuff. It was a call-out thing: my crew picked one of the opponents’ lot, then they got the pick of our lot. Howard’s crew was one of the first ones we came up against I think – not that I knew it at the time, because as cocky as it sounds, they weren't in our league. We were more or less the top crew around in them days.” Jason chuckled, rolling his eyes and tipping his head back for a moment, the sunlight catching on his profile, giving him a hazy glow. “So anyway, as How tells it, his crew had drawn up their game-plan the week before: How was going to go up against me because they thought he was the closest match, same sort of sharpness, bit of an edge on flexibility and leaps but maybe not so much when it came to fluidity and tricks.”
“That sounded almost like an admission he could beat you,” Vicky pointed out with a sly smile, and Jason grinned again, eyes dancing as he glanced back at her.
“Maybe to your ears – but you’re biased, you’ve been mates with How too long to even think about taking any other side, and unfortunately for you, you’ve never even seen me dance,” he shot back, smile cheeky, and Vicky laughed, tipping her head in tentative agreement. “I’m a performer as much as a technician, and back in the day I was known for my one-on-one battles. I could take anyone on, even the guys with more backflips than me. How knew he was going to be crushed if he got up there.”
“More like he had a crush,” Vicky put in, she folded her arms and arched an eyebrow. “I remember him talking about some of the guys he used to face up against – I also remember him talking about the fit one he’d never actually seen up close.” Jason laughed, suddenly shy, and he looked down with a small shake of his head.
“Yeah, well, whatever his reasons: he skipped out on the competition. Never faced off against any of my crew and never got close enough to me to exchange so much as a glance. He did the same every single time our crews actually met head to head, to the point that it was a running with all his crew.” He shrugged. “That particular competition though – he says he did actually come. Watched me pick off everyone there and snuck out just before it was all over. That was just one of a lot of moments our paths almost crossed back then. As it turned out he never saw me from more than ten feet away until he walked into Barlow’s.”
“And the rest is history?” Vicky suggested. Jason smiled wryly.
“Something like that.”
The two of them fell into silence again, and Vicky pushed herself up from the bench, coming to stand beside Jason. Howard and Grace’s laughter was distant and hazy in the summer air, and Jason and Vicky had to squint against the sunlight to see them. Vicky found herself wondering if this was the most time she had ever spent alone with Jason, trying to wrack her brain as to how she had let so much time pass without ever really getting to know him. And deep down she knew the answer was selfish: getting to know him was too much like admitting defeat, acknowledging he was Howard’s happily ever after, that he wasn't going anywhere and that that was a good thing. After all, she had never had any desire to introduce Tim to Howard, had actively kept them away from each other for the most part, it helped avoid comparisons. Jason showed her up, showed Tim up – he was too good and he made Howard too happy, and all that made it impossible for her to pretend that life had panned out the way she had expected it to. She felt foolish now; Jason clearly bore no grudge, but then she wondered if he even realised the extent of the uphill battle he had been fighting to win her over.
“I owe you an apology, you know.” Jason blinked in surprise, starting slightly and turning to look at her. She offered him a rueful smile, shrugging. “It needed to be said – I didn’t want to leave it ‘til Howard’s back because then it’ll just sound like a way of keeping the peace and…it’s not. I mean it. I'm sorry for all the nonsense and the stupid snide remarks and for always playing avoidance tactics.”
“Hey, come on – I know it didn’t mean anything,” Jason said softly, his smile so genuine it almost made her feel worse. She put a hand on his arm and met his gaze sternly.
“Oh no you don’t, Jason Orange: I know your game – I have it on good authority from two of the most important people in my life that you are a noble sod and a kind soul and you will forgive anyone anything if they just ask you to. But…I’ve got you cornered on this one. I’ve made things more awkward than they ever should’ve been and acted like you had no business being part of my family. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. And for that I am truly sorry – for what you’ve done for Howard and Gracie…you deserve much better. Honestly.” Jason studied her face for a moment, his expression curious and intense, and Vicky offered him another smile. “You’ve been a godsend to this family, to tell you the truth. And not just on a practical level like yesterday. It's bigger than that. Howard needed to remember how to just be himself and be happy about it instead of trying so hard all the time. And as for Gracie…she needed a confidante. She needed…something I just wasn't…” She trailed off, shaking her head and glancing down, suddenly embarrassed. Jason gave her a slight nudge, tipping his head to try and catch her eye.
“Hey, come on – you don’t need to apologise for any of it. Family is complicated: trust me, I should know.” He shrugged. “And for what it’s worth? I’ve dealt with more awkward customers than that pair. Most family therapists would kill to get their hands on my clan, I can promise you,” he added, his smile somehow playful and wistful at the same time. “Seriously, never mind the money for sessions, people could write whole books on our baggage.” Vicky smiled, sighing softly and shaking her head yet again. She looked up at the sky, drawing in a deep breath. His kindness somehow made it all worse.
“Has Howard ever told you about when he left school?” A slight frown creased Jason’s forehead, but there was recognition in his eyes. Vicky smiled slightly and nodded. “Yeah, ok, of course he has, you’re his husband, you’ll know all his stories. But I bet he hasn’t told you the part where I gave him the cold shoulder for the entire summer, right?” she added, arching her eyebrow knowingly. “It sounds pathetic but…I was mad at him. I spent his entire last year trying to convince him not to leave school, to stay on at our school’s sixth form college even though I knew deep down how wrong for him it was. I was so pissed off that he was leaving me to deal with all the idiots in my year on my own: no more cute boy from the year above to give me any sort of veneer of cool and save me from the jeering.” Vicky pulled a face. “But the truth was? Deep down, I was mad at myself. Which sounds like some sort of pseudo-psychiatry nonsense, I know, but…it’s true. Because really, the problem wasn’t him abandoning me at our crappy school, it wasn’t even me thinking he was giving up on our friendship because I knew it would take more than not being at the same school together anymore to stop Howard Donald telling me his crappy jokes all the time.” Vicky shot Jason a knowing look and he inclined his head in understanding, sharing a smile with her. “No. Truth was I was just so jealous that he had that courage; that he was someone brave enough to shrug off any suggestion he wasn’t bright enough to make something of himself. He was brave enough to not have a clue where he was going but be absolutely certain on how to get there.” Vicky sighed. “That’s always been my problem, as it turns out: jealousy.” She looked at Jason out of the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry for taking it out on you, Jay. For letting my bruised ego and self-doubt get in the way.” She closed her eyes in a wince. “Coz…the awful thing is…I think for a minute there I really was mad at you. Not for anything you’d done but just…because you married my best friend. And you did, you know that? You married the best, most loyal, funny, crazy, big-hearted friend I have ever had.” Jason’s lips twisted into a lopsided smile and he glanced over to where Howard and Grace were still doing battle before leaning a little closer to her.
“I won’t pretend he’s not my best friend, Vick; I’m not going to lie. But…you know that doesn’t make him any less of your best friend, right?” he asked, shooting her a sidelong look. She smiled back at him wryly.
“I know. Most of the time. Deep down,” she conceded and Jason nodded. Vicky smiled and sighed. “But I also know you’re his best friend, and he’s yours…and you two are so clearly right for each other that anyone can know it if they just watch the way you both smile every time you argue.” She laughed softly, rolling her eyes. “You know the moment I knew for sure I didn’t want to like you any more?” She looked over at Jason, grimacing slightly. “Your wedding,” she admitted. Jason arched an eyebrow, eyes twinkling with amusment, and she smiled guiltily back, relieved to see him biting back a laugh. “I know how bad that sounds but…I never, in all my life, thought I would see Howard Donald make any sort of binding promises to anyone, let alone see him get married. Even when we were together and I was nagging him every ten seconds to settle down already…deep down, I was sure he just wasn’t built that way. So when he married you, some voice in my head kept telling me I must’ve done something wrong after all…and that pissed me off so much I just…took it all out on you.” She looked up, meeting Jason’s eyes with a small, sad smile. “Pathetic, right? To be that scared of being alone that you let it infect every part of your world view?”
Vicky sighed, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering slightly despite the warmth of the sun on her skin. She wasn’t sure what she expected from Jason, really; from most people she would have been resigned to a pitying look or a judgemental arch of the eyebrows and she would have felt foolish for saying anything to them in the first place. But Jason simply regarded her in that quiet way of his, those bright blue eyes intent and thoughtful.
“When I was eleven, my dad walked out on our family without looking back – and he didn’t come back for the longest time, not so much as a word from him the whole time,” Jason said suddenly into the quiet between them, his voice soft and rough and his forehead creasing into a small, pensive frown. Vicky was taken by surprise, but he pressed on, eyes downturned. “I won’t pretend it was all sunshine and rainbows when he did finally decide to come back and make peace with us – all of us were still pissed off and hurt in our own different ways and it took time but…we worked on it bit by bit to the point that, now, it’s like he never left in a lot of ways.” Jason met her gaze again then, smiling slightly and shrugging. “But sometimes, you know…when he’s making some comment or passing some sort of judgement on my life that I haven’t asked him for…it gets under my skin, because a part of me feels like he gave up the right to act like he knows what’s best for me the moment he walked away all those years ago.” Jason shook his head and sighed, his smile turning crooked and sad. “But I’ve never once told him to stop or to keep his opinion to himself; I’ve never told him how much it gets on my nerves that he thinks he can act like nothing happened or like he actually was there for me when I needed him as a kid. I’ve let him lay into Howard right in front of me and not spoken up before now, which is awful and makes me feel like crap, to be honest, because How’s done nothing to deserve that. But the words just don’t come, you know?” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug and offered Vicky a brief, rueful smile. “I’m too scared to risk telling him, to argue with him too much over anything.” Vicky smiled back at him slightly, realisation coming over her. Jason gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. “The way it goes in my head is always the same: he walked away once, he could do it again – and as pissed off as I might get with him sometimes, he’s still my dad, I don’t want him out of my life all over again. He's a big part of the reason I live half my life scared that maybe, if I push the people I care about too far, they’ll just turn around one day and say goodbye without looking back. And that means that sometimes I don’t speak up for myself as much as I should. Even with Dad.” He arched an eyebrow, his eyes glinting slightly as his smile brightened a little. “Pathetic, right?” he asked, and Vicky shared his smile, laughing reluctantly and shaking her head, looking down. Jason gave her a small nudge and she looked back up at him. “Everyone gets scared, you know? I don’t think anyone’s got any place to say whether it’s stupid or not, it’s just the way it is.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and gave a quick, casual one-shouldered shrug. “The point is: no one’s going to hold being scared against you, Vick – least of all me.” Vicky’s smile widened as he met her eyes and she nodded slowly, bumping her shoulder against his softly.
“Thank you,” she told him, quiet and earnest. “Not just for being so kind in the face of my stupidity, or for being there for my daughter…but also for understanding.” She placed her hand on his arm and looked him firmly in the eye. “Thank you,” she repeated. “No ‘you’re welcome’, no ‘it was nothing’ – just accept it and be done, ok?” Jason laughed slightly, tipping his head in reluctant acceptance.
“Ok. Consider it done,” he agreed, eyes sparkling, and Vicky give a decisive nod.
“Thank god for that – I thought I was going to have to wrestle you into submission for a second there,” she joked, and Jason chuckled, holding up his hands in mock-surrender.
“Hey, I know when I’m beaten.”
“Really? Because that’s not what Howie tells me,” Vicky teased. Jason rolled his eyes, flashing her an impish grin.
“Oh that idiot? He talks me up way too much,” he dismissed. Vicky smiled, elbowing him slightly.
“Actually? I was just starting to think you kind of lived up to the hype,” she told him brightly. Jason suppressed a smile.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he dismissed softly.
“Good. Because that wasn't flattery: that was being honest,” Vicky replied.
The moment was shattered by the sound of footsteps galloping towards them across the grass, and both Vicky and Jason looked up in unison, laughing as they saw Grace hurtling in their direction at pace.
“Jay!” she called out somewhat breathlessly, throwing her arms out and half-skipping the final distance between herself and Jason. Jason reacted quickly, stooping down just before Grace barrelled into him, just managing to catch her in his arms; she shrieked in delight as he lifted her up and spun her around, setting her down to stand on the bench so their eyes were almost level.
“Trouble,” he greeted her with a nod and Grace beamed, giving him a harmless shove by way of objection before giggling and pushing her mussed curls out of her face to look at him properly.
“Jay, you have to come prove me right now – I got dad to admit you’re his favourite dancer ever but he still won’t admit you’re going to beat him even though I know you will!” she burst out, bouncing on her heels and grabbing Jason’s hands, leaning her weight forwards and trusting him to hold her up. Jason laughed, taking her weight for a moment before leaning his forehead to hers and giving her a light push backwards.
“Oh is that so?” he asked and Grace jumped up and down in a show of insistence and outrage.
“It is so so, Jay! Come on! Come now!” she squealed, making Jason and Vicky laugh.
“Okay, Trouble, okay,” Jason said with a knowing smile, picking Grace back up, much to her delight, and balancing her on his hip as he turned to look at Vicky. “What do you reckon, Vick? You up for seeing what it was that caught Howard Donald’s eye all those years ago?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows and making Vicky laugh.
“Oh definitely: after all the times I had to listen to him wax lyrical? I need to see this!” she nodded. Jason grinned – boyish and bright – and nodded back at her decisively.
“Well in that case: Gracie, lead on.” He set Grace down and she grabbed his hand, tugging him with her as she headed back towards where Howard was sitting watching them a little way off across the grass.
“You going to live up to the hype again, Jason Orange?” Vicky asked as the two of them tried to keep up with Grace’s quick pace across the grass. Jason glanced back at her with a cheeky smile, but before he could say anything he was cut off by another voice.
“Oh believe me, Vick: Jay can make the hype sound tame when he gets going.” Jason and Vicky both turned, just in time to see Howard getting to his feet. His eyes were intense as he met Jason’s gaze, and he arched an eyebrow, his smile somewhere between challenge and admiration. “Do your worst, Orange,” he said, voice rough, and Jason smiled a tiger’s smile, eyes glinting.
“For you, love? Always,” he replied. Grace was still holding his hand, and she looked up at him with a mixture of glee and awe before looking back at Vicky with a grin.
“This is going to be so much fun.”
***
“Alright, Howard Donald: I concede defeat.” Vicky’s smile was wry as she came up to join Howard by her car, leaning beside him and letting out a sigh. He arched an eyebrow at her, querying, and she shrugged. “You have been nagging me – for months now – to make time for a family day out with all four of us together and telling me it would work wonders with Gracie…and now here we are.” A slow smile spread across Howard’s face, and he nodded thoughtfully.
“Oh, that,” he said softly, eyes twinkling as he gave her a teasing elbow in her side. “You enjoyed yourself this afternoon then? Talking my husband’s ear off and helping our daughter torture me relentlessly?” He waggled his eyebrows and Vicky laughed, rolling her eyes and elbowing him back.
“Hey, your husband also did his fair share of the torturing, thank you,” she protested. “But, yes, if you must know? I had fun. It’s the most Gracie and me have laughed together in weeks…and thanks to you and Jay she actually seems genuinely excited about the two of us spending some time together this week too.”
Vicky’s smile softened slightly then, and she looked over at Howard from the corner of her eye. He wasn’t watching her, his attention instead on Grace and Jason, who were chattering away to each other by the bollards that marked the entrance to the park, Grace impressively stalling for time before having to say goodbye. “You know, Howie…you married a legitimately great human being right there,” Vicky said quietly after a moment of watching Jason and Grace work through a complex series of high and low fives that ended in Jason withholding one final high-ten, making Grace jump up and down for it as he continued to pull his hands higher at the last minute. Vicky looked back to Howard; his lips twitched up at one corner, the smile careful and enigmatic.
“You sound surprised,” he said, arching an eyebrow at her, and Vicky swatted at him.
“What? No!” she huffed, pulling a face at him, but Howard avoided her eyes.
“I wouldn’t blame you, you know,” he shrugged. “Sometimes it surprises me: that someone like him would bother with someone like me.” He looked down, toeing at a loose pebble with the scruffy tip of his Converse. “After everything I put you through, I wouldn’t blame you for being downright pissed off, actually,” he added them in a mumble. Vicky frowned, folding her arms and looking Howard up and down with concern.
“After everything you put me through?!” She let out a small, disbelieving laugh. “Howie, you were one of the first good things to happen to me the year we met – I was drowning in New City, New School Hell and you didn’t just stop at throwing me a life ring, you pulled me on board your yacht and sailed me on out of there, without ever once acting like it was that big a deal, never mind asking me for anything in return. In fact…all you got in return was an earful, if I remember rightly.” She shook her head, pulling a face and letting out a heavy sigh. “Honestly, I can’t think of any point in our friendship when I let up on you. I’ve always been ready with an opinion every time you took any kind of decision or met someone new…even sometimes when you weren’t doing much of anything at all. And as for when we were together…” Vicky looked over at Howard, meeting his eyes, her expression firm. “No. It’s not getting past me, ok? Don’t run yourself down just because you made a few mistakes to get here. You’ve taken your fair share of hits too, babe – I was there, I should know.” Her expression softened then, and she smiled, bumping her shoulder against his playfully and glancing over to where Grace and Jason were now bickering over what appeared to be a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. “I meant what I said earlier: I’m happy for you, you know that? You shouldn’t assume you don’t belong just because you didn’t get here on the straightest path, Howie – you need to stop thinking that way. Your heart has always been in the right place.” She flashed a wry smile, rolling her eyes. “Ok, so, maybe sometimes at the wrong time but…” Howard smirked slightly and glanced down, and Vicky placed a kind hand on his arm. “You found your rhythm though, babe. Eventually.” She shrugged and nodded her head towards Jason. “It’s him.”
Howard was quiet for a moment, looking across at Jason and Grace, that small, thoughtful frown still creasing his forehead, his blue eyes intense. It made Vicky uneasy; she knew his face well enough to see the scepticism there, the doubt. Howard was a master of making cynical remarks and flippant comments, cracking daft jokes and deflecting close scrutiny. But she knew the depth with which he felt things, knew how he was capable of folding in on himself when left unchecked. Howard saw the best in people, no matter how damaged. But he rarely saw the best in himself.
“I know it sounds mad…but sometimes I just don’t know…” Howard faltered, licking his lips as he gathered his thoughts. “Sometimes I wonder how you can spend your whole life not looking for something…but still find it.” Vicky smiled.
“Even a restless soul deserves to find a home,” she told him quietly, and Howard shook his head slightly, looking back down at the ground.
“I dunno, Vick. Considering I was always so insistent that constantly moving didn’t bother me…”
“Oh, you’re still moving – so is he!” Vicky retorted, laughing softly and shaking her head. “Trust me, no one is keeping pace with you two – I don’t think I’ve seen Jason let up for a moment, yet somehow there you still are, quick as anything, keeping time. And every time he looks at you, you’re there, never missing a beat.” She sighed. “Maybe that’s what home is sometimes: just someone moving to the same beat as you.” Howard looked up at Jason then, narrowing his eyes slightly.
“Well…they are both four letter words,” he murmured, a tiny smile briefly flitting across his face. Vicky frowned, perplexed, but Howard cut off any question with a sigh, a frown of his own marring his features once more. “I’m not about to go off the deep end and do something daft, Vick…I’m just saying…sometimes, I wonder how long this can possibly last, given my track record.” Vicky smacked him for that.
“Hey: stop, ok? Don’t do that,” she told him, folding her arms and turning to look at him better. Howard glanced over at her in mild confusion.
“Do what?” he asked earnestly, the tension lifting from him for a moment as he tried to work out why she was looking at him with such intensity all of a sudden. But Vicky was having none of it, arching her eyebrow sceptically and meeting his gaze.
“Tortoise up,” she replied simply, her lips forming a stern line and her expression fierce. Howard’s face crinkled into confusion for a moment.
“Tortoi-” he began to repeat, stopping suddenly as realisation dawned. His lips curved up for a second, and he tipped his head back, a laugh bubbling up as he looked up at the sky. “Jesus, Vick – you still remember that?” he asked her then, looking down at her with amusement, and Vicky shrugged, flashing him a knowing smile.
“Please. I remember because we had that conversation about a hundred times.” She rolled her eyes. “The only time I didn’t remember it was when you tortoised up on me,” she added and Howard winced.
“Urgh, don’t remind me, Vick, please – I was such an idiot pulling those stunts on you,” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. Vicky offered him a kind smile.
“Hey, not as big of an idiot as I was not to recognise the signs.” She sighed. “Every relationship you’ve ever had, the first sign of trouble…you retreat inside your shell and you act like, if you can’t see it, it can’t hurt you. You pulled away from any hint confrontation or hard questions or communication, just in case things got out of control and the relationship broke down in your hands. You just didn’t want to risk having nothing but scars to show for your time – you just wanted it to be fun and easy. The problem? By the time you dared stick your head back out it was always too late – the lines of communication were down, the whole world was on fire and the fight was ten times worse than it ever needed to be. You’d always end up getting hurt so badly you’d muck it up even more the next time because the last time gave you so much of a headache you ended up retreating even further at the first sign of danger.” Howard looked away from her and Vicky put a gentle hand on his arm. “I don’t want to sound harsh, ok? Because I get it – I really do. You’ve always felt things so deeply, How – the way you care about people it’s…beautiful, honestly. You say Jay’s this magnet, this field of gravity. And he is. But what about you: what about that intensity you’ve always had? It’s amazing that you have that, no matter how many times it’s hurt you. But the problem is…every time things have gone sideways, that depth of feeling has meant the wounds have gone deep too. And the deeper they go the more scared you get of them. I just…I don’t want you to do it to yourself again. You’re better than that now, you’ve grown up, ok? And I just don’t think you should run the risk of going back on that. Because this – what you have with Jason right here? I know how much it means to you. And how much deeper the feeling goes than ever before. I don’t want you to psych yourself out over it and end up in a worse mess than ever.”
They both fell quiet again, letting the sound of Jason and Grace’s bickering pierce the thickness of the air between them. Howard closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and Vicky squeezed his arm again. “You know, that conversation – the tortoise thing, the first time we came up with it…we had that conversation over a decade ago, Howie. And, despite whatever might have happened between us since? I’m still here. Doesn’t that tell you something about the person you are?” Howard glanced at her, smiling slightly and she offered an encouraging smile back to him. “And come on, let’s face it: we never loved each other the way you and him love each other. We were in love, but…what you two have is…” She gestured vaguely, trying and failing to find the word she needed.
Vicky’s eyes came to rest on Jason once more, and she tipped her head to one side in thought. “What was it you told me that time…you’d been dating him for a couple of months and we met up for coffee, and I couldn’t stop teasing you over how starry eyed you were. I had to ask what had you acting like that – because I’d just never seen you that way over anyone before.” She looked back at Howard, searching for any signs of recognition in his face. “You told me something, about him being like a favourite song or…?” And there it was – realisation. A smile spread slowly across Howard’s face, and he avoided her gaze, suddenly shy. He looked up at the sky with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“Being with Jay is like being in a crowd of people – at a club or a festival or a gig – and suddenly everyone starts singing…there’s a thousand-odd voices screaming out the lyrics to your favourite song at the top of their lungs. Maybe out of tune, maybe out of time…but it’s so charged you just get this shiver down your spine.” Howard met her eyes again, smiling softly. “It’s something you know off by heart…but in a way you have never known it before.” He shrugged. “A beat that isn’t really there but you still want to jump in, sing along and dance anyway.” Vicky smiled back at him, nodding slowly.
“See,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. “You really think the universe would give you that by chance?”
Howard looked away, his gaze falling back on Jason, his expression faraway. It was the way he had always been: stubborn, quiet and critical, always turning over something in his head that he wouldn’t let anyone in to discover until he’d already fixed upon his own conclusions which no advice could fully permeate. And when it came to self-analysis, Howard had been forming his opinions for years, adding every mistake and failed relationship to the assessment until it had become a thick, complex thing Vicky couldn’t quite get the full outline of. Grace had shifted that perception he had of himself slightly, made way for a picture of himself he’d never imagined before her but which Vicky thought was more complete. And to Vicky’s mind Jason had given that outline life and colour, made Howard the version of himself he’d been searching for all along. But it was starting to become clearer to her that there were still some corners where the light wasn’t fully getting in.
Vicky sighed, placing a hand on Howard’s arm and looking up at him sternly, hoping she hadn’t lost her ability to get through to him over the years. “Ok, listen to me: stop doubting yourself, Donald – don’t screw this one up out of the fear of screwing it up, and don’t be so hard on the person who screwed those other ones up either…it wasn’t the old Howard’s fault he didn’t have a beat to dance to.” Howard nodded slightly, vaguely, and Vicky smacked at his arm, moving her head to try and get back into his eyeline, her eyes fiercely determined. “Besides: you two have already survived the worst and come out of it the other side,” she added, and Howard caught her eye, his expression briefly clouding with pain. And it occurred to Vicky then that perhaps it was less that there were patches where the light wasn’t getting in and more that there were fresh wounds on his surface which she knew she had not done enough to help him with at the time. She swallowed, looking down for a moment somewhat ashamed as she reflected on the half-hearted attempts she had made to be there for Howard when he had felt like he was drowning. “I know you went through hell when he was missing, Howie – and I wasn’t the most supportive friend in the world…I didn’t take the time to understand the way I should have done, to really listen to what you were trying to tell me about Jason. But honestly, even when I did try, even when I was there…I just didn’t know how to reach you.” A dim smile crossed Howard’s face then, and he nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets and blowing out a breath.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it – it wouldn’t have made a different, you know? No one could, Vick. The music was gone and the silence was deafening,” he murmured. “Music’s never left me like that my whole life…and I’ve never heard silence that loud. No one could get themselves head over that noise.”
“But you survived, Howie,” Vicky said, tender but firm. “And what he did to get back to you – it was nothing short of a miracle.” Off Howard’s questioning glance Vicky laughed softly, shrugging. “Hey: he basically came back from the dead for you, Donald. That doesn’t sound to me like a man who thinks you’re not worthy of his love.” Howard smiled, almost blushing as he chuckled and shook his head.
“I knew he was out there, you know.”
“Maybe. But no one else was that convinced – he came back from the dead in the eyes of everyone standing on the outside, and whatever the truth? It’s still pretty special, Donald: you were right, and he fought for you.” Vicky placed her hand on his arm once more and met his gaze. “I’m not going to pretend I know him well – but I think I know enough to realise how much of a fighter your Jay is, ok? Because I don’t think you’d love him quite so much if he was anything but, for a start. I know enough to have worked out that he is all bloody knuckles and bruises, and he’s fought for the people he cares about, over the years. A lot of battles, a lot of struggles. And he’ll fight for you too – maybe more than he has for anyone else. And maybe that’s the very reason you shouldn’t make him.”
Both Vicky and Howard found their eyes wandering back to Jason. Jason and Grace were still laughing and play fighting happily, Grace doing most of the talking as Jason pulled faces and made teasing interjections that set Grace off once more – Grace bounced on her heels, her curls falling in her face, and Jason raised his eyebrows, cracking a joke and laughing as she swiped at him in protest and launched a cascade of retorts. Jason seemed to sense the eyes on him, and after a beat he looked up, squinting slightly against the sun and looking at Howard curiously for a moment before Grace distracted him and he turned away.
Howard let out a soft, low chuckle, shaking his head slightly, and when Vicky glanced up at him she realised that all the clouds had lifted from his face – he was smiling, quiet and bright, and there was something dancing in his eyes which she couldn’t quite place. He glanced down at her and pulled a face.
“Stop worrying about me, Vick,” he told her. “I just…I think I’ve taken myself by surprise, that’s all.” He shrugged. “That day when we made up that daft ‘Tortoise Theory’ about my love life, do you remember the guy who’d just broken up with me?” Vicky thought for a moment.
“Was that Glenn? The guy you went out with a second time just before me and you got together?” Howard nodded.
“Glenn was probably the most salt-of-the-earth, stand-up, heart-of-gold, second-third-fourth chance giving bloke on the planet.” Howard let out a half-laugh that turned into a slight groan. “And I all but broke him,” he said through a grimace, making Vicky chuckle slightly.
“No – come on, that’s not true.”
“Says who?!” Howard spluttered, an impish grin splitting his face and making Vicky laugh. “I broke Glenn. I did! No, ok, I know me and him made peace about it when we broke up the second time but the point still stands: Glenn was so laid back he was practically in a coma half the time, but when push came to shove, even he couldn’t get his head around why I never just stayed still, sat down, stopped pushing for more gigs, more late nights, more moving around. It drove him insane that I couldn’t tell him what the future would look like for us, not even when he trimmed the future down to five days’ time.” Howard nodded his head towards Jason then. “You know what Jay told me once, back when we’d been going out for about a month or two?” He grinned with a mixture of mischief and pride. “I’d been off on one of my phases, you know? Lots of gigs, lots of back and forth, never in one place long enough and always half-plotting the next trip out. Jay didn’t mention anything about it, never complained, never questioned any of it. And then one day, we were at the shop, and he turned round and went ‘Am I in it?’ – when I asked what he was on about he said ‘That daydream you’ve been off in for the last fortnight: am I in it?’ and, honestly? I didn’t even have to think about it: I told him he was. And so Jay just nods and watches me for a moment and then he asks me: ‘Five years from now – still in it?’…and it was funny but…I still didn’t need to think. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t look away, I didn’t play for time. I just said yes – didn’t even explain it. And he gave me this look, that seemed to go on for forever, totally steady and fearless, and there was this light in his eyes like nothing else. And he just smiled and said ‘That’s ok then, I’ll let you carry on’ and went back to his day, like he didn’t need to know anything else from me. And the funny thing is, other than that…he’s never really pushed me for some firmer sort of answer. Just to know that I’m here – and that I want to stay that way – is all he ever really wants out of me.” Howard’s smile softened and he glanced down at the floor. “It’s here – it’s him – that I always come home to, in my mind. I might not know when I’ll be ready to come home sometimes, or what it is I’ll want to be doing when I’m not home – but I know where home is. For the first time in my life, that’s something that’s important to me. That’s all Jay’s ever wanted out me: to be sure that, when I’m asked, he’s my ‘here’ place. He’s my home and my answer and my first call. For him, that’s what it’s about.”
Vicky smiled softly, pausing for a moment to glance over at Jason and thinking how perfect it was that two people so complex could find the answers they needed from each other so very simple. Then she glanced back at Howard thoughtfully.
“Wait, wasn’t that in your vows somewhere?” she asked suddenly, sure the turn of phrase sounded familiar to her, and Howard let out a soft laugh, inclining his head in tentative agreement.
“Almost.” He smiled quietly, turning his eyes skywards. “We said ‘Here is where the promises grow; here is where we make them into roots and here is where we let them take hold. No matter how far this thing will grow, my here is you and your here is me – that will be the one thing which doesn’t change.”
“Well remembered,” Vicky whispered, regarding Howard out of the corner of her eye. He tried to shrug it off and she bumped her shoulder against his. “You always were a soppy git, though,” she added teasingly, smiling when she saw his shyness instantly melt away in favour of a rueful grin. He caught her eye and stuck he tongue out at her, making her laugh.
“Oh shut up, Vick, you sound as bad as Jay,” he joked, rolling his eyes, though his smile was quietly proud, betraying him completely. Vicky simply smiled fondly, still looking up at him, lost in thought for a moment.
“God. You know, that day at your wedding I actually cried,” she admitted suddenly then, and Howard let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh, looking down at her sceptically.
“You cried at a wedding?!” he asked. “You cried at my wedding?!” he added, and Vicky smacked him, trying to suppress her smile as Howard outright laughed once more, shaking his head, his expression gleeful as he leant his weight back to bask in the moment.
“Hey, look, it was bound to happen one day! Someone’s wedding had to be the first to break me, right?” Vicky protested, pulling a face. She sighed. “I told myself it was because you were my ex and I didn’t expect you to beat me to it on the lifelong commitment front but…honestly? I was mostly just really happy for you. And the way you two were so casual and up-front about all of it – it was a big deal and not a big deal at the same time and it was beautiful. I don’t think I’d ever been to a wedding where that really came across before.”
“Yeah well,” Howard mumbled, trying to shrug and avoid her gaze, a bashful smile curving his lips. “I never thought that could be me either,” he added, then he wrinkled his nose and rolled his eyes, looking over at Vicky sheepishly. “And to tell you the truth? I cried all over Jay when we were sat out on the steps on our own later.” Vicky laughed and Howard smiled lopsidedly, giving her a one-shouldered shrug. “It was another one of those moments, you know? When Jay looked at me without bloody talking for about a minute, as though I’d grown a second head or something. Then he told me, he said ‘We said some words and we kissed just like we do every day – now toughen up and get over it, Donald, this is just life at this point’ and…you know, it was the best argument I’d heard all day for why this bloke had to be the one I actually married.” Howard let out a laugh and Vicky smiled at him fondly, nodding slowly.
“And that’s why you should never pull any tortoise moves on this guy, Howie: he so gets you,” she said. “Who even says that to their new husband?!” She rolled her eyes. “And yet…it’s perfect. It’s absolutely, brilliantly…perfect.”
For a moment they both fell silent, then Vicky looked up at Howard with an impish smile. “God, though, it doesn’t matter how much time passes: I still can’t get over you wearing a wedding ring,” she joked, diffusing the moment perfectly. Howard let out a rough, genuine laugh, his head falling back for a moment before he looked over at her with a broad, mischievous grin.
“That’s nothing, though: I can’t get over that I got Jason Orange to wear a wedding ring,” he shot back, eyes sparkling, and they both laughed then, bright and casual, but Vicky knew there was an underlying earnestness to Howard’s tone that exposed the element of truth she knew lay behind his words.
Their laughter was interrupted by the sound of someone quietly clearing their throat, and Vicky and Howard both jumped slightly, glancing up to see Jason standing there, Grace balanced on his hip and a vaguely amused smile playing on his lips – it was one of those deceptive smiles of his designed to give the impression he knew more than you wanted him to. Of course, more often than not, he really did. Howard narrowed his eyes at him in challenge, but he simply arched an eyebrow at him. Grace and Jason looked between Howard and Vicky questioningly – Grace’s eyes wide and curious, Jason’s bright but thoughtful – and Howard decided his best strategy was to stare the two of them down, folding him arms and standing his ground.
“Alright Orange, own up: were you eavesdropping on us?” he asked, pushing himself up off the car and drawing himself up to his full height, trying to make the most of the fractional height advantage he had over his husband. Jason’s eyes glittered, and he smirked slightly as he tilted his head just slightly to one side.
“Why, should I be?” he asked, his voice playfully sweet, and Howard pursed his lips, trying to hide his smile. Jason shrugged. “Let’s put it this way though: if I’d heard enough to blackmail you, do you really think I’d be dumb enough to own up to it?” he added then. Howard narrowed his eyes again, squaring his shoulders.
“You think you’re so clever,” he said sulkily, still trying to bite back his grin, and Jason simply sighed airily, shaking his head.
“Oh How,” he replied, lifting one shoulder in an idle shrug, flashing a devilishly casual smile up at his husband. “You would have thought by now you’d know how squaring up to me always ends, you know – and I’ve got two witnesses right here who could remind you if you like,” he smiled. Howard licked his lips self-consciously as he felt their corners begin to twitch up.
“You got lucky,” he shot back, almost laughing. Jason grinned.
“Three times?” he countered, amusement in his voice. Howard wrinkled his nose.
“Maybe I was letting you win: you don’t know for sure I wasn’t,” he suggested, and Jason nodded slowly, as though considering the concept.
“Maybe you were, love – you want us to put the theory to the test? I wouldn’t want you to feel like I’d wounded your pride unfairly, you know,” he smiled, his voice teasingly saccharine. Grace giggled and buried her face in the crook of Jason’s neck and Howard couldn’t fight his smile any longer, shaking his head and pulling a face at Jason.
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of the ladies,” he muttered, and Jason smirked.
“Of course not,” he nodded, glancing at Vicky then. “It’s a real relief to have you here to protect me, Vick. It’s not like Howard here spent the best part of the eighties and nineties chickening out of facing off against me or anything, you know?” he joked. Howard stuck his tongue out at him.
“Smart arse.”
“Please: you married me for my wit, Donald, and we both know it.”
“I said I married you for your mouth – you just assumed I meant what came out of it,” Howard countered, waggling his eyebrows. Jason pursed his lips, laughter dancing in his eyes.
“I preferred when you called me the sun – it had a more romantic ring to it.”
“Please, I just meant you were hot,” Howard said. “I like a pretty face, me.”
“Ah, of course,” Jason nodded slowly, his smile lopsided and sweet. “Well: Mum always told me my cheekbones would come in handy one day.”
“I think you just admitted that marrying me worked to your advantage, Orange.”
“I don’t think I ever said otherwise, you know, love: you’re the only person I’ve ever met who can get the shutter down at the shop without it making that awful screeching sound, for a start. And sometimes I even like your company,” Jason smiled sweetly, his eyes glinting in challenge, and Howard had to work hard not to smile.
Grace’s giggling started up again then, effectively breaking Howard and Jason’s valiant attempts at keeping their expressions neutral, and they both quickly crumpled, Howard pulling a face and Jason winking back at him. “Don’t listen to the critics, Donald: you know I love you,” he said. Howard’s smile softened.
“Yeah, well – smart arse or not, I’m kind of attached to you too I guess,” he mumbled. Jason rolled his eyes despairingly, but his smile didn’t falter and Howard smiled back, still touched by Jason’s casual admission given that it wasn’t just the two of them present.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“But coming from you, love, I feel like it is.” Jason held his stare for a moment, eyes narrowed slightly but a smile just beginning to form at the very corner of his lips. He blew out a breath, shaking his head slightly and chuckling.
“Ok. Time out, Donald – no one’s going to win this war, not even you.” Howard smirked.
“Fair enough,” he conceded. “But this isn’t over.”
“I’m aware. I’ve even got the legal documents and a ring to prove it.” He arched an eyebrow. “But then you know that already, even if you struggle to believe it sometimes,” he added, eyes knowing, and Howard almost blushed.
“So,” Jason said pointedly, turning to smile at Grace. “You think you’re ready to go yet, kiddo? Or is there anything else you need to ask me about what my family’s up to for my birthday?”
“That was what all that super-intense discussion was about?!” Vicky laughed. “How much bickering and bartering needs to be done for one birthday?”
“Two birthdays,” Howard put in. Off Vicky’s questioning look he shrugged. “Jay’s a twin, remember?” He rolled he eyes. “Trust me: it means a lot of bickering and bartering. The Orange twins should come with a safety warning.”
“Says the man who married one,” Vicky pointed out.
“In my defence? The less dangerous one,” Howard smirked, sharing a smile with Jason.
“My whole family is a madhouse, trust me,” he explained to Vicky, his expression rueful.
“One on one, we’re all ok, but all together-”
“They’re amazing,” Grace interrupted emphatically.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Howard muttered and Jason shot him a half-hearted glare.
“Jenny’s amazing,” Grace offered by way of a compromise and Jason chuckled.
“My mother is a force of nature,” he told Vicky. “She and Grace have got a lot in common.”
“So…all of this generates twenty minutes of back-and-forth how?” Vicky asked. Jason smirked.
“The actual details were mostly just the first ten minutes. The rest of the time was more about whether or not I think I could persuade my mum to tell her the full family legend of mine and Justin’s fourteenth birthday party that ended in a neighbour’s window getting broken.” Jason shrugged. “Grace thinks her chances of hearing the full story are good, even though, to this day, mum can’t look Mrs. Belfield from number eight in the eye.” He smiled blithely. “I’ve made it clear I’m not telling, but Grace reckons mum can be broken.”
“Maybe you can’t break her, but I can,” Grace put in firmly and Jason looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
“Says you. Anyway – I don’t need to break her, I was there. I lived through the whole ordeal. And ended up getting half the blame when it didn’t even start out as my idea.” He smiled then, arching an eyebrow. “You know though, mum’s not even the one you need to break – you want the whole story then you need to corner Simon...”
“Is that a clue?!” Grace gasped excitedly.
“Not if Simon asks it isn’t,” Jason countered with a grin.
“Sometimes, Vick, I swear I married into the bloody mafia,” Howard grinned and Vicky laughed slightly.
“And then introduced them to our daughter…” she pointed out.
“Please, we’re harmless,” Jason put in. “As long as you keep us away from your breakables.”
“Aw – the words you whispered to me on our first date,” Howard teased and Jason narrowed his eyes at him.
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m a delight, Jay, and you know it.”
“Oh don’t start this again!” Vicky laughed.
“And anyway: Jay’s family are amazing,” Grace burst out, and Jason laughed.
“I’m glad I’ve got you in my corner, sweetheart,” Jason said, kissing the top of her head before setting her down on the ground. “And speaking of family…” he said more softly, glancing at Vicky expectantly.
Vicky managed a tentative smile, and she looked back to Grace somewhat nervously, taking a deep breath. She felt absurdly nervous at the prospect of driving off with Grace, as though somehow Jason and Howard might be the only reason for the current peace, and she couldn’t quite shake the guilt she still felt over how she had let things get to this point with her own daughter. But she knew she was blowing things out of proportion in her head: the times they had had fun together far outweighed the times they had been at odds, and she suspected there was some truth to Jason and Howard’s suspicions about Grace’s unhappiness being linked far more to her lack of a say in matters than it was to anything she herself had actually done wrong. Tim was to blame for the majority of the tension, and she had to remind herself that that was no less true just because she was the one who had let him into their lives – he was the one who had done what he had done, and when she had finally seen it for it was she had acted.
“So, kiddo, you ready to go or do you want a little longer?” Vicky asked tentatively. Grace was smiling, but it was a small, cryptic smile and Vicky wavered for a moment, uncertainty gnawing at her once more. “If we go now we can go out somewhere for dinner on the way back? In fact, we’d even have time to do a movie night – just you and me. I could bring the big duvet down and everything,” she offered. Grace’s lips twitched up and her eyes glittered, but she folded her arms in an attempt at steely resolve.
“But can I pick the movie?” she asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. Vicky laughed.
“You say that like anyone else ever stands a chance when you’re around,” she pointed out, pulling a face at Grace and making her laugh.
“That’s no fair, you pick lots of times and all your films are boring!” she protested weakly.
“Someone really needs to teach that kid about accepting olive branches,” Howard interjected in a stage-whisper, grinning softly.
“Everything she learned about olive branches she learned from you, How,” Jason pointed out archly before giving Grace a nudge. “Accept your mum’s offer quickly, kiddo – you won’t be getting a better one any time soon,” he suggested with a wink.
Grace smiled thoughtfully, tipping her head to one side and taking a moment to consider Jason’s words, as though they were a challenge rather than advice. Something else she had learnt from Howard, Vicky knew.
“Toffee popcorn?” Grace asked after a beat. Jason suppressed a smirk and Vicky met his gaze, instantly reading his thoughts.
“It won’t surprise you to learn, Jay, that Howard Donald has never once asked me for a DNA test on this one,” she remarked, flashing him a wry, amused smile that he returned in kind.
“I think I’ll pass on asking you to prove anything too, as it happens,” he said, glancing at Howard and smirking when he pulled a face at him.
“You two think you’re so funny don’t you,” he huffed. Vicky smiled, giving him a slight elbow in his side.
“Stop pouting, Howie – we both know you love us and it’s too late to play the victim,” she teased before looking back to Grace and folding her arms. “Ok: you pick the movie, we bring down the big duvet, I’ll buy us an extra-large bag of toffee popcorn from the shops on the way home and I’ll even throw in your favourite PJs freshly ironed and waiting for you in your room. Sound like a deal yet, kiddo?” Grace beamed, letting out a small, elated squeak that made Vicky laugh.
“Deal!” she burst out, bouncing on her heels, her hair falling in her face, and Howard and Jason both chuckled as she hurtled excitedly towards Vicky, sealing the deal with a hug.
“And now you’re in a good mood…” Howard put in, crouching down to be on Grace’s eye level. She twisted slightly, just enough to meet his eyes, her arms still wrapped around Vicky as she regarded Howard with suspicion. “Jay and me have got to head home too, sweetheart,” he said softly. Grace glanced up at Jason then back to Howard. “You do realise the point of spending quality time with your mum is to actually spend it with your mum and not with us, you know,” Howard chuckled softly, reaching up to brush his knuckles affectionately to Grace’s cheek. She wrinkled her nose and wriggled away from him.
“I know,” she huffed. “But normally we have all weekend together – and this weekend I didn’t even see you that much,” she added then.
“And we’ll make up for it in summer, I promise,” Howard reminded her gently. She looked up to Jason, who simply shrugged.
“Don’t look at me, sweetheart – you know me and you have got a pact at this point: you made me shake on it at least ten times,” he smiled. “Now go have fun with your mum and me and your dad will see you soon,” he added, giving her a small wink. Grace stared him down for a long moment, worrying at her bottom lip as she considered something. Slowly she prised herself away from Vicky and ran over to give Jason another hug, wrapping her arms around his middle and squeezing tight.
“Don't go anywhere,” she told him firmly. Jason’s expression softened, and he hugged her back firmly.
“Promise,” he said gently, twisting slightly to meet her eyes. “Promise,” he said again, his expression solemn but kind, and Grace gave a single, small nod.
“Don’t worry, kiddo: I won’t let him go anywhere, ok?” Howard offered, and Grace looked over at him with a small smile.
“You’d better not,” she mumbled, reluctantly letting go of Jason and reaching out to Howard to give him a hug, allowing him to scoop her up in his arms.
After exchanging some details on dates, times and phone numbers, Vicky and Howard said their own goodbyes, making a firm arrangement to meet up for coffee the following week. Grace remained in Howard’s arms, her face partially burrowed into his neck. Vicky couldn’t be sure if she was just tired after an afternoon in the sunshine or if she really didn’t want to leave, but, to her surprise as much as she drew out the goodbyes and as long as it took for her to allow Howard to put her down, she was surprisingly bouncy when it came time to get in the car.
Whilst Grace and Vicky fussed with seatbelts and negotiated who would pick the music on the journey, Howard glanced around to see Jason had stepped back, allowing them their moment as a three, busying himself with something on his phone as he leant back against the park railings across the way. He was just slightly turned away from them, but he seemed to feel Howard’s eyes on him, a familiar, knowing smile playing briefly on his lips, as he flicked a brief glance up, squinting against the sunlight to meet Howard’s eyes for a moment before turning away once more.
Howard’s attention was jolted away by the sound of Vicky starting the car, and he spun around quickly, leaning down to look over at Vicky through the open passenger door.
“Hey, Vick,” he said, catching Vicky’s eye. “Thank you.”
“What for?” she frowned, and Howard sighed, pulling a face, suddenly self-conscious.
“You know, for…for today. For listening.” He shrugged. “For remembering the tortoise conversation,” he added then, flashing her a wry smile, and she laughed softly.
“Oh, that,” she smiled, rolling her eyes. “It’s what I’m here for Donald – Jason Orange has made it perfectly clear that you being his best friend doesn’t mean you’re not mine too. So…I thought I owed you some of that time I’ve haven’t been giving you.” She shrugged. “Besides I…I like Jay. A lot, actually. He’s so good for you, How. And I want what’s good for my friend to last. Which makes it my business to try and stop you playing silly beggars now you finally found your Prince Charming.” Vicky’s expression was serious and firm, though her lips curved up at the corners slightly in a quiet, kind smile that Howard returned, nodding slightly. Grace looked between the two of them in confusion, a small frown forming on her face.
“What are you two talking about?” she asked, piercing the moment, and Vicky smirked softly, glancing away.
“Nothing, sweetheart,” Howard said, flicking his glance back up to Vicky briefly and sharking another small smile with her. “Just remember you got all your common sense from your mum and not me,” he added with a grin, leaning in to press a quick kiss to the top of Grace’s head. As he moved back to close the car door, Vicky leant forward to catch his eye, pointing a finger at him in warning.
“Hey, Donald: don’t forget to tell him he’s still in that daydream, ok?” Then her smile turned mischievous. “And if he challenges you to any more dance battles?” She arched an eyebrow and Howard narrowed his eyes at her.
“What?” he asked. Vicky grinned.
“Just…say no and get out of there with your dignity, ok?” Howard tried to keep his expression stern, but it was difficult in the face of Vicky’s twinkling eyes and Grace’s bright laughter. He settled for slamming the door closed and shaking his head.
“Get out of here already!” he called to them through the glass, rolling his eyes and suppressing a grin as he saw the two of them still laughing even as Vicky began pulling out.
Howard stood for a moment, watching as the car disappeared off down the road, his eyes following its path up the street. Vicky’s words were still in the forefront of his mind; he wasn’t sure where the train of thought had even come from in the first place, but he was glad that he had Vicky there to set him straight the way she always had in the past. Vicky had always had such a different viewpoint on the world that his own, more practical and deliberate – perhaps too practical and deliberate when it had come to the two of them trying to make a go of a relationship, but when it came to their friendship she had always been the perfect medicine for his tendency to disappear inside his own head, always ready with cold, hard facts when his daydreams turned too wildly melancholic for her liking. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed her butting into his life that way – he’d always tried to reassure himself that nothing had changed between them, hadn’t wanted to even consider the possibility that loving Jason could change things between them. He had always believed that there were too many forms of love to be counted and compared – he had never felt any less for Vicky because of meeting Jason, but he had never felt anything like what Jason made him feel. Losing either one of them from his life had never been an option.
He closed his eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the feeling of the sunshine warming his face. He felt a swell of immense gratitude in his chest – gratitude for the peace of the moment and the blue sky and the fact that this was his life. And gratitude for Jason. He felt like he had spent too much time saying thank you to Jason of late, and he was sure Jason was tired of hearing it. But the simple delight of Jason being the person he was – the magic of his possessing that light and that charisma and that laugh – was something too profound for him to really put into words, because the effect of it rippled out too far. If Jason wasn’t gentle and smart-mouthed and kind, would Grace have had anywhere safe to go when Tim left her out in the rain? If Jason wasn’t magnetic and charming and quick, would the simple act of him giving Vicky his time have had so much impact on her and won her back around to behaving like her old self? If Jason wasn’t here and safe and alive, would Howard even be able to feel the warmth of the sunshine on his face, or would the rain have left too much of an imprint on his skin for it to register? Howard glanced back over his shoulder to where Jason was leaning, languid and casual, against the railing – like rain had never touched him. His expression was unguarded and open, his eyes downturned as he concentrated on something on his phone screen. The sunlight caught his profile and Howard smiled as he saw his Jason; gorgeous, complex and hazy-gold.
Howard turned slowly with a slight shake of his head, trying to clear the fog he felt had come over him. He blew out a breath and smiled to himself, rolling his shoulders and working the tension out of his body. As he crossed over to where Jason was standing, Jason glanced up at him, catching his eye and flashing him a quiet, lazy smile that Howard returned in kind.
“Hey, stranger,” he said gruffly and Jason smirked.
“Hey, trouble,” he replied. “Dawn and me have been texting back and forth,” he added then, gesturing to his phone before sliding it back into his pocket. Howard quirked an eyebrow and Jason shrugged. “I wanted to check up on Gaz,” he explained.
“And?” Howard asked. Jason pulled a face.
“No change and still no word from Mark – not that he’s really spoken to anyone since he got to New York.” Jason sighed. “Anyway, me and Dawn are agreed: enough is enough.” Howard smiled, narrowing his eyes at Jason thoughtfully.
“Jason Orange, are you up to no good?” he asked, and Jason suppressed a smirk, rolling his eyes and folding his arms somewhat defensively.
“Like you’re a saint, Howard Donald,” he sighed and Howard chuckled.
“Maybe not. But you are,” he joked. Jason laughed.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he shot back. Howard shrugged.
“Maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder – but you’re definitely the best person I know,” he said softly. “Now come on: what are you up to? Why do you and Dawn need to be colluding about Gaz – are things really that bad?”
“Look, you know what Gaz is like – when things don’t go to plan he goes one of two ways, he either throws himself into his work and his music…or he wallows.”
“And since you and Dawn have been running the shop…”
“And music is a big part of why he fell out with Mark…”
“He’s gone down the wallowing route,” Howard finished, nodding thoughtfully. “Ok, but what’s so bad about just letting him wallow for a bit? At least ‘til Mark’s back from New York and he knows the lay of the land. What makes you think time and space aren’t the answer here – you don’t think Gaz could use some time to think over everything? I mean, the man exploded his own life in his face in about a week, Jay, maybe he’s got a bit more to wallow about this time.” Jason shook his head.
“No: Gaz could wallow for England if you let him. The rate he’s going, he’s going to just let all this rubbish fester and get some daft idea stuck in his head that things can never go back to how they were, and before you know it he’s sold up and moved to Australia.” He sighed heavily then, a sadness creeping into his expression that Howard desperately wanted to brush away. “Anyway, Mark’s not the only one he’s fallen out with this time. He’s not spoken to me since we argued that day, you know? And I know what he’s like for trying to bury things like that in his head,” he added then, his voice soft and tense. “We’ve been friends too long, How – I’m not going to let it lie.”
“Not letting it lie doesn’t have to mean forgiving everything out of hand either though, Jay. I mean…what he said was out of order, I don’t care what his reasons were. And it sounds to me like he’s been doubting you the whole time, like he never really believed what went on with Nigel, as though it could be your fault somehow. From a stranger maybe, but from a friend? You shouldn’t be so quick to forgive that, love – that sort of thing blows too many holes in the trust you have between you.” Howard pointed out gently, and Jason offered him a small half-smile.
“Maybe I’m not forgiving – I’m certainly not forgetting. But I’m making allowances. And you should too.” Jason shuddered slightly. “How – what Nigel can do if you let him…he twists things in your head and plants ideas. And he always knows everyone’s weakness.”
“Gaz chose to say what he said to you, Jay – Nigel could plant all the ideas he liked, but Gaz is still the bloke that gave them the time of day,” Howard said, concern in his tone.
As much as he thought of Gary as one of his best friends, Howard was finding it hard to reconcile the acidic tone Jason had described with the man he’d shared bad jokes with at the piano. He had always thought Gary was straightforward, when it came down to it – perhaps not so focused in his honesty as Jason, but ultimately trustworthy and sensible, someone who knew who his friends were and would never have doubted them when it counted. But it seemed, for all Jason’s loyalty and time, Gary had somehow managed to harbour doubt and distrust – to question something anyone who knew Jason should have known he would never have the faintest notion of lying about. Howard looked back at Jason thoughtfully, quietly. He could see the understanding in his expression; Jason wasn’t indestructible, after all – these might only be grazed compared to what he had gone through in the past, but they had broken the skin, clearly. Howard could see in Jason’s face that they stung. But Gary had cuts and bruises to show for his past too – and he was paying a heavy price for trying to pretend he didn’t.
Jason met Howard’s gaze, quiet and determined.
“Come on, How: you know what it’s like,” he said in a tender half-whisper. “Sometimes you let yourself believe something – even something poisonous – for a second, and if you’re having a weak moment, you can let it slip out before you’ve even decided whether or not your believe it.” Jason shrugged. “Gaz had a weak moment and it’s more or less collapsed everything he knows around his ears,” he said earnestly. “You know me, How: I’m a ‘rebuild from the rubble’ kind of bloke.” A small, fond smile curved Howard’s lips.
“All bloody knuckles and bruises,” he murmured, and off Jason’s curious look he shrugged. “Just something Vick and me were talking about before,” he said, regarding Jason thoughtfully for a moment. “Whatever the plan is, I’m in,” he conceded, and Jason smiled back at him gratefully, giving him a small nod.
“Thank you, How,” he said and Howard smirked.
“Please, we both know you and Dawn were already counting on it,” he said and Jason’s smile was somewhat sheepish.
“Since you mention it…” he said and Howard chuckled.
“Cocky git,” he joked and Jason’s face split into a bright grin.
“Takes one to know one, Donald,” he shot back brightly, before letting out a heavy sigh. “I just need to do something though, How. I don’t like how we’ve left things, you know? It’s like Nigel’s won somehow.” He shook his head, shuddering slightly. “We have to get Gaz to talk: try and figure out what’s going on in his head…maybe we could get some sort of a peace going before Mark gets home.”
“And what happens when Mark gets home?” Howard asked. Jason grimaced.
“God only knows,” he admitted. “A part of me Gaz can fix it on his own – that he both of them can see past their idea of perfect and realise what they’ve got is much better than that stupid fairytale version of the story anyway.”
“And you think they belong together? No doubts about whether there’s just too much water under the bridge?” Howard asked. Jason sighed, taking a moment to consider the question.
“I think they should at least make a go of it, you know?” He looked up into Howard’s face with a tired smile. “I would look past a lot for you – second chances make the world go round. And like I said: I’m all for crawling from the rubble and trying to rebuild, providing the foundations are something good.”
Howard smiled back at him then, warm and rough.
“How are you so…” He sighed “You’re magic – you know that?” he asked. Jason’s expression shifted, light and frustration and amusement flitting across his features as he gave a slight roll of his eyes, a lopsided smile forming on his lips.
“How, don’t do that.”
“Do what!” Howard protested through a laugh and Jason shrugged, smiling slightly.
“Put me on a pedestal: the air’s too thin at that altitude, no one ever survives it,” he said, his tone firm and serious. In contrast, Howard knew his grin was stupidly wide and slightly crooked, but he couldn’t help himself. He looked into Jason’s eyes for a moment, lifting one shoulder in a helpless shrug.
“I’m not putting you on a pedestal. I’m not putting you anywhere – I’m holding onto you for dear life,” he said and Jason laughed softly. Howard shook his head. “Look, you’re still up there with the most maddening blokes I’ve ever known, and heaven help anyone who thinks you’re leading man material in their own personal movie because God knows you’re so bloody unpredictable there’s no way they could get you to stick to the script.” Jason’s eyes shone, intense and wild, and Howard met his gaze with a calm sincerity that made him smile. “You’re still magic, though,” he added then, his voice a little softer. “You keep the earth turning, you know that?” He shrugged again. “For me, you keep the earth turning.”
Jason was quiet for a moment, looking up at Howard with an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes still danced, but his lips formed a solemn line, and there was the slightest of furrows to his brow.
“God, please don’t, How,” he said then, his voice low and gravely, the very corner of his lips curving just slightly.
“Don’t what?” Howard protested.
“Don’t start thanking me or making out like anything I’ve done in the past twenty-four hours is anything other than what anyone who loves you would do,” Jason told him simply, shrugging. “You and me both know the score here, How. I love you more than is sensible – I love you beyond the point of being able to do anything other than fight your corner.” His lips twitched up into a half-smile, his eyes bright as he met Howard’s gaze. “Love is selfish. It has claws. And it has teeth.” He smiled. “It holds on.”
“Love is patient, love is kind…” Howard joked, his tone soft and teasing, and Jason smirked.
“No. Love is impetuous and never stops asking for more.” He tilted his head. “And it will hold on through a fucking thunderstorm if that’s what it takes, ok?” Jason arched an eyebrow at Howard, and he chuckled softly, nodding and glancing down. “No more hero-worship, Donald. It doesn’t suit me,” Jason added. “Whatever happened to that bloke who kept telling me to shut up and stop rambling, anyway?” Laughing softly, Howard looked up to meet Jason’s eyes once again. He studied his face for a moment, feeling the familiar sensation of his heart flipping over in his chest as he took him in.
“Get over here.” Jason narrowed his eyes.
“What for, Donald,” he shot back and Howard grinned wolfishly at him.
“I said: get over here,” he repeated, holding out his hand, and Jason laughed, the sound gruff and genuine. He let out a small groan of defeat, letting his head drop back and thrusting his hand forewords, allowing Howard to grab a hold of it, roughly pulling their bodies into each other and leaning in to capture Jason in a kiss.
Even after the kiss had ended, Howard kept his eyes closed for a moment, smiling against Jason’s lips and breathing in the familiar scent of burnt toast and fabric softener mixed in with his new coconut shampoo and the sweet taste of his lip balm. He felt Jason’s fingers tangle in the curls at the nape of his neck, felt the warmth of his body against his own. Solid, whole and here; it was so little but it mattered so much. He opened his eyes again, letting Jason’s face come slowly back into focus, and Jason smiled, leaning backwards in his embrace to meet his gaze.
“I love you too, Donald,” he teased, his eyes glinting playfully as he tipped his head to one side, and Howard smirked, leaning their foreheads together.
“Shut up and stop rambling, Orange – I never said anything about love just now. This is just how I greet all the weirdos I meet in the park,” he murmured back, dipping in to snatch another kiss and laughing softly as Jason ducked away from him with an impish smile, putting up half-hearted resistance before laughing and finally surrendering to another, more chaste, kiss.
When they broke apart again, Howard was the one to lean back, studying Jason’s face for a moment, his gaze intense. And it occurred to him he couldn’t help it – he still felt that tightness in his chest, the bubble of immense gratitude that had been lodged there near-permanently since Jason had reappeared at the apartment covered in raindrops. He reached up, touching his hand to Jason’s chin, and Jason lifted his head just a fraction, meeting Howard’s eyes expectantly. “I know that…logically, if the science holds, there had to be some universe out there where me and you ended up together, you know?” Howard murmured, his thumb brushing along Jason’s skin slowly. “But the part that sometimes takes me by surprise is that – out of all the hundreds where that’s not the way the story ends – I’ve somehow stumbled into the one where you are. The one where you’re right here. With me.”
Howard’s lips twitched up in a tiny, awed little smile, and Jason smiled too, leaning in so that their foreheads were touching. Howard watched his eyes flutter closed, looked at the rare moment of peace on Jason’s face, the way his eyelashes fanned out against his warm, tanned skin. For a second everything was still and bright and Howard’s own eyes closed as he took a deep breath and brushed the pad of his thumb back along the line of Jason’s jaw. He let out a low hum, kissing the tip of his nose. “Sometimes every moment with you feels like a risk,” he admitted in a hoarse whisper. He felt Jason shift his weight a little closer, felt his fingers tangling in his curls again, soothing and slow.
“How come, Howard Donald?” he asked gently, and a tired smile crossed Howard’s lips.
“Coz the downside of constantly falling for someone is that you keep waiting for the bump when you hit the ground,” he admitted quietly. “I know that sounds daft but…” He let out a sigh, leaning back again and resting his hands on Jason’s neck. “You know I can still remember the night I realised I was probably never going to stop falling for you; when I knew I was goner no matter what the outcome.” Jason raised his eyebrows at him curiously and Howard let out a soft, self-conscious laugh. “I don’t know how long we’d been going out – I can’t even remember where we’d been that night. We walked back to yours along the canal and half way back it started chucking it down so we had to run…and somewhere along the way something happened with the keys…”
“You locked them in the shop, if this is the story I think it is…” Jason put in and Howard pulled a face at him, making him chuckle.
“What was I even doing with them? Answer that one, Orange!” he protested, suppressing a grin. “Let’s just say someone lost the keys and they turned up in the shop the next day, but that night we ended up kipping in front of the apartment door.”
“I remember. We stayed up ‘til about three in the morning arguing about the words to some song we both used to dance to back in the day,” Jason said quietly, closing his eyes again for a moment, a small smile lighting his face. “You fell asleep half way through a sentence, I seem to recall.”
“Yeah – and when I woke up my head was in your lap and the sun was up and I was half-sure I’d dreamt the whole thing.” Howard shook his head, looking into Jason’s eyes and shrugging helplessly. “You’d been up all night but you still looked bloody gorgeous – with the sun hitting your eyes and that look on your face like I was the daftest thing you’d ever seen in your life.” He leant his forehead to Jason’s then, both thumbs brushing lightly along Jason’s skin. “I remember looking up at you, and feeling so exhausted but so…alive. Like suddenly every bone in my body was stronger.” He licked his lips and paused, his eyes fluttering closed. “And somehow, some part of my brain was telling me ‘Right here, this is it – that’s your lot, Donald. You’re going to spend the rest of your life falling for this bloke even if it never makes any more sense than it does in this moment.’ And I made a choice right then, you know? Daft as it sounds I…I made a choice. Fall. Keep falling. Don’t even try and grab hold of anything on the way down. Just…go for it.”
He opened his eyes and found Jason watching him, quiet and thoughtful, his back arching just enough for him to properly meet his eyes. His body was still weighted against Howard, anchoring them in their spot, keeping the outside world away from their quiet moment. “Every night like that is a risk. Because they make me want more. More contradictions and more stupid digs and more promises. More moments. More mornings. More of you rambling on about why you’re the one who’s right about the lyrics. And everything else you ever ramble about. I just…always want more, with you.” Jason’s lips twisted into a slow smile and he gave a slight nod, leaning in to press a kiss to Howard’s cheek then pulling back just a fraction so that his breath tickled Howard’s skin when he spoke.
“Love is selfish,” he whispered. “It has claws.” He placed a kiss to the corner of Howard’s mouth, firm enough that Howard could feel the curve of his smile. “And it has teeth.” He leant back, raising onto his tiptoes so their eyes were completely level, his smile rough. “It holds on, Howard Donald. And it always, always asks for more.” He shrugged then, lips twisting again, his smile turning somehow dangerous, making Howard smile too. “But the thing about love, when it’s returned and everyone’s cards are on the table and the deal’s been made to be all in: it always gets more, Donald. It can always just take.” Jason reached up to cup Howard’s face with his hand, holding his gaze. “Take whatever you need, How, and don’t ever forget: it’s yours.”
***
Gary stared up at the somewhat faded façade of the Barlow’s shopfront, his heavy eyebrows knitted into an anxious frown. It seemed like a lifetime since the days of the red and gold paintwork looking bright and pristine against the dingy backdrop of Oldham Street, but the traditional styling of the shop’s signage did still hold a certain magic about it when set amongst the clinically modern shopfronts which lined the rest of the street. The shop had always been an anomaly; it was an urban oddity, a living, breathing set of bricks which somehow seemed to pick and choose who was allowed to become part of its stories, pulling and waiting and knowing. The floorboards creaked, the walls listened and no one who had the potential to matter had ever been able to walk past without pausing at the window. And once again it had called Gary back to it, disregarding his stubborn desire to stay away.
Gary had become the proprietor of a small Oldham Street music shop without ever really intending to; it was one of those things in life that he’d let happen without really taking the time to think it through. It wasn’t something that had been in his plans when he was a kid, but he’d been at a low ebb with his music and, somehow, he hadn’t been able to stop his mind wandering back to the run-down old building that had recently come up on the market. It hadn’t occurred to him to worry about it too much until he found himself standing in the shop for the first time after being handed the keys, looking around at the layers of dust and cobwebs and realising he had nothing to his name but the shell of a shop and an old, broken-down baby grand piano.
It seemed crazy to think of it now, but it had been little more than an accident of timing that Jason had become involved with the business – the indomitable Jenny Orange choosing that week to throw her son a welcome home party that he had specifically begged her not to, inviting al and sundry to join the celebration of his long-awaited return from his final leg of world travels. Gary had almost not gone, but the thought of sitting at home alone with nothing to do but fret about his unexpected acquisition had been unappealing at best, and, he hadn’t realised before Jenny’s phone call, but he really had missed Jason’s company. So he’d gone to the party, not expecting to have it change the course of his life quite so profoundly.
He’d been standing in Jenny’s kitchen for a good twenty-minutes, lost in a daze of anxiety, when a weary-but-smiling Jason had found him. It had always been Jason’s way to manage to show up just in time; whenever life became intense or exhausting, Gary would always seem to get a phone call out of the blue, just to say hi or to suggest they met up whilst he was back in town. By rights they shouldn’t have been close enough for Jason to give him that kind of time – they had hardly got a chance to become friends before they’d both gone their separate ways. But when Gary had left the band and had nowhere to go, he had known Jason would look out for him, and spending a significant amount of time crashing on Jenny Orange’s sofa was enough to be considered family, not just by Jason, but by the whole Orange clan. And so his and Jason’s lives – their histories, their stories – had become inextricably linked somewhere along the line. Jason was a brother, but without all the messy hangover from growing up together to deal with, and as distant as they had become since leaving the band behind, there was still a profound closeness between them that always drew them back to each other. With hindsight, Gary put it down to Jason more than him. Jason made things seem easy and effortless, the same way he made it seem so casual when he danced – he was genuine and quiet and he knew how to listen. It meant that talking with Jason came more naturally to Gary than it did with most other people; talking things out had never been his forte. But with Jason, no matter how much time or distance passed, it always felt like picking up a thread of conversation which had barely been dropped for more than a minute, like Jason had just stepped out of the room for a moment and come back in with a smile and a ‘Sorry, mate – you were saying…’, still full of that earnest interest and ready warmth which made it impossible to be uncomfortable about putting everything out there.
So it was hardly surprising that when Jason had walked in to his mother’s kitchen on the night of his forbidden welcome home party, he had ignored Gary’s feeble, forcedly-cheerful greeting and dispensed with any real greeting of his own. Instead he smiled at Gary – rough, kind and quiet – and said ‘You look like you could use a drink and someone to talk to’ before grabbing them two beers and ushering Gary out into the garden. For the majority of his own welcome home party, Jason sat with Gary in the quiet of the back garden, listening to him talk about the shop, his fears about whether or not the entire thing would be a disaster and his worries over whether or not it could derail his ultimate goals with his music. They talked around in circles, for the most part. And somewhere in amongst it all Jason had suggested he stopped by to lend a hand in setting things up.
As it had turned out he had proved invaluable: between him and the various members of the Orange family he dragged along, the shop was set up within a fortnight, with Jason mucking in on painting, cleaning, moving stock and even finding someone to come and repair the tired old baby grand. He’d even agreed to work in the shop until Gary could find someone better – though Gary had stopped looking for someone better before the first year was even out, though he wondered sometimes if Jason might still be regarding the position as temporary.
Gary jangled his keys in his hand, pressing the keyring into his palm until it started to hurt. All that uncertainty he had felt that first day of owning the shop was back again, this time mixed with the lingering sense of guilt which had been eating away at him, was intensified somehow by finally being back on Oldham Street. The morning was muggy – the Manchester heatwave was threatening to break, at last, but the wait for the rainstorm the city knew was coming was dragging and the air was heavy and thick. Gary pressed the key into his palm again, harder this time, and took a deep breath. It wasn’t just the uncertainty or the guilt which kept him rooted to the spot – it wasn’t even the cloying damp of the air. It was the fact that the shop’s shutter was up, and the door had been propped open. The previous evening, Dawn had returned his key to him, sliding it back to him across the kitchen table and telling him, firmly, that she couldn’t cover the shop on Monday morning and neither could anyone else. When Gary had tried to wriggle out of opening up, she’d reminded him about a delivery coming in and refused to hear anymore arguments. Gary had, since then, just about prepared himself for returning to the shop. But what he hadn’t prepared for was the possibility he might run into anyone else who worked there.
There were three keys to Barlow’s Music Shop besides Gary’s own: Mark’s, Jason’s and Howard’s. And, given that Mark was in New York and Gary’s own key was most definitely still attached to the keyring in his hand, that left two possibilities which Gary was absolutely not prepared for. He thought about turning around, walking back to his car and driving home – but he had an image in his mind of Dawn standing there waiting for him, a disappointed look on her face as she tapped her foot and sighed at him. So instead he found himself frozen to the spot, helplessly stuck in a no-man’s-land between flight and fight. No matter what Dawn said, Gary couldn’t shake the feeling that he had crossed a line when he had fought with Jason, and he wasn’t convinced there was any coming back from it – but as long as he kept himself out of the way, he could pretend he still had a chance of salvaging their friendship, or that maybe none of it had happened at all. Pathetic as it might seem, he liked the idea that he could simply evade finality.
Gary blew out a breath, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and trying to square his shoulders. He knew he was being ridiculous – he was preparing to walk into his own shop, not go into war. And, if he was honest with himself, he knew it was this lack of courage – this fear of frank conversation – which had got him into this mess in the first place. He crossed the street with purpose, but he hesitated as he came to the open shop door. He could hear movement inside, the sound of boxes being shuffled around and someone muttering to themselves. For a second he was struck by the sensation that he was floating out in space, watching his own life playing out from afar – separated from the people he cared about but still trapped in their orbit, unable to look away.
He peered in through the shop door, taking a tentative step inside and looking around curiously. There was no sign of life in the front room, though the floorboards creaked welcomingly beneath his feet as he walked further in. The ageing wood groaned slightly around him, familiar and warm, and the air was lit in shades of gold and amber by the dim July sunshine. The shop had been cleaned and tidied, and some of the stock rearranged – proof Dawn hadn’t been lying about Jason maintaining the shop in his absence – but other than that, it almost felt as though he hadn’t been gone at all. The shop had always felt like home to him, and he was both surprised and relieved to find that magic hadn’t dulled despite what had happened.
Gary’s daydream was cut short by the sudden thwunk of cardboard banging into cardboard, closing followed by a low, gruff curse – it startled him a little, and he blinked, taking a second to remember why it was he had felt so on edge about coming in. Nervously he followed the sound towards the side room, moving slowly in an effort not to draw attention to himself as he came to stand in the archway and wincing slightly as the floorboards creaked.
Howard was standing at the counter, surrounded by boxes and parcel tape, a perplexed frown on his face as he attempted to make sense of the complicated array of flaps on the box he was trying to tape shut. Gary studied the scene with mild alarm, coming a little further into the room and trying to make sense of why Howard would be alone at the shop packing up boxes and not coming to any conclusions he liked the sound of.
“Alright, Barlow – could you stop gawping and pass me the bloody scissors,” Howard said without looking up from the wrestling match he was engaged in with the parcel tape, making Gary jump. For a moment he just stared at him dumbly, still assessing the scene, and Howard smirked slightly, shaking his head with a huffy sigh before performing a complicated manoeuvre to retrieve the scissors from where they had fallen on the floor without falling over the box he was holding shut. “Good to know you’re no more use here than you were moping at home,” he muttered, rolling his eyes and setting back to work. When Gary still didn’t respond he set down the tape and scissors and looked him up and down, folding his arms and frowning quizzically. “Have you taken a vow of silence or something?! What’s wrong with you?” he asked, his expression somewhere between amusement and frustration. Gary blinked back at him for a moment, bewildered.
“Are you…are you packing up Jay’s things for him?” he managed at last, and Howard sputtered out a laugh, his face breaking into a grin.
“Packing up Jay’s things?! Gaz, he keeps some spare towels and herbal tea in the cupboards at the back, not his whole bloody life,” he chuckled, shaking his head and lifting the box he’d just taped shut down off the counter. “I’m packing up some of the stuff that came in the delivery today so some of the regulars can pick it up without hassle later.” He shrugged. “Jay’d be doing it but he had to go sort out some of the paperwork with the delivery bloke.” Howard quirked an eyebrow at Gary, looking him up and down thoughtfully. “He should be back soon, though. If you want to stick around and talk.”
Gary opened his mouth then quickly closed it again, turning his eyes skywards and squirming uncomfortably under Howard’s piercing gaze.
“How-” Gary began, but Howard cut him off, pulling a face.
“Oh come on, Gaz, you made it this far – don’t chicken out now,” he said sharply. There was a fierceness in his eyes suddenly, the anger Gary had been expecting but hadn’t quite prepared for successfully. “Seriously, you really want to just skulk out of here without even talking to him? And do what, exactly? Hide under your duvet some more and hope the mess you made will just blow off on the breeze?” Howard wrinkled his nose. “You’ve been a crappy friend lately, Barlow, but that seems like a new low to me when he’s gone to the trouble of getting you here in the first place.”
“Jay got me here?” Gary asked, aware he was probably focusing on the wrong thing but not quite up to dealing with the disappointment in Howard’s voice. Howard sighed, frustrated but resigned.
“Did you really think him and Dawn were going to let you wallow to your heart’s content while your life fell apart around your ears?” he said, raising his eyebrows questioningly. “They decided enough was enough and thought the best thing was to trick you into coming to the shop.” Howard looked at Gary more thoughtfully then, his expression still stern but something kinder briefly flickering in his eyes. “Jay’s worried about you, you know. He’s got first-hand experience of the damage Nigel Martin-Smith can do when he gets in your head and he’s not about to lose a friendship over it.”
“He told you that?” Gary asked and Howard let out an exasperated laugh.
“Gaz, he’s my husband: even if he hadn’t told me that, I’d still know…I know what he’s like.” Howard sighed. “You should know what he’s like too, though, mate,” he added then, his voice quieter though no less stern. Gary looked down at his hands, unable to hold Howard’s solemn gaze. “You’ve known him longer than me, you know – saw all this stuff with your own eyes instead of just learning it in late-night conversations. You of all people should’ve understood known you could trust him.”
“I did know – I do know. I just…” Gary swallowed, closing his eyes. “I know I can’t make what I said ok, ok? I know I can’t undo it or take back all the years I’ve been holding on to the stupid idea that maybe Jay tried to stand in my way. But…sometimes I forget what I know. Sometimes I just…I used those pieces of uncertainty, of answers I didn’t bother to go and find, to reassure myself that…that the way my life turned out wasn’t my fault.”
“What?”
“How, you know all I’ve ever wanted is for my music to be out there – to be known for it, to be able to perform on a proper stage to a proper crowd. It’s been my ambition since I was a kid. And as long as I could keep telling myself there was that shred of doubt around Jay, that maybe I’d let him hold me back…then I wouldn’t have to scrutinise my own choices so hard. If I doubted him, I wouldn’t have to doubt myself anymore.”
A thick silence fell between them. Gary could feel Howard’s eyes on him, studying him closely, and when he risked a glance up he was surprised to find sympathy in his expression. Howard’s forehead creased just slightly and he pursed his lips.
“I swear to God, Gaz: if you ever hurt him like that again-” He sighed, closing his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again a little of the fight had gone out of him, replaced by a weariness that somehow frightened Gary more. “I shouldn’t have to protect him from his mates, Gaz, you know? I already have a hard enough time trying to protect him from everything else, without you chiming in, ok?” Gary nodded, just slightly, and Howard nodded back, seeming to accept the unspoken apology.
Another heavy silence fell over them, and the walls of the shop seemed to lean inwards. The summer air was hot and stale and outside the sun had dipped behind a cloud, casting the shop in more rusty hues. “And what about Mark?” Howard asked quietly. Gary felt his whole body tense, and he looked up into Howard’s face with mild alarm.
“What about him?” Howard’s lips curved into a sad smile and he lifted one shoulder in an idle shrug.
“Did you doubt him as a way to stop doubting yourself too? Pick out all his flaws and failings and make out like they were the only weak points in your whole relationship because it was less scary than examining any imperfections of your own?” He raised his eyebrows, his eyes knowing but his voice strangely gentle. “Look, Gaz, I’m not going to tell you how to run your relationship, ok? But the way you and Mark are always trying to airbrush over all the cracks…it’s not sustainable, you know? At some point the fault lines start showing through and instead of being able to tackle things one piece at a time, everything hits at once and you just can’t cope.” Gary laughed sadly and shook his head.
“Yeah, well…I’ve certainly learned that the hard way,” he murmured, looking down. “Mark and me…we’re both guilty of not wanting to know, of putting off what we don’t think we can handle. But I know Mark’s tried…to tell me about his past, about Robbie and that whole world he got pulled in to back in the day. But I wanted him to be sweet, sunny Mark Owen so badly. I wanted him to be uncomplicated – I wanted my whole life to be uncomplicated and I blamed him for not being that way even though I knew I wasn’t either. I wanted to be ok with being that bloke who didn’t make it in the music industry, bought a shop, fell in love and lived happily ever after.” He looked up at Howard then, giving him a helpless shrug. “But the truth is I’m not ok with any of it. And if it could all be down to Mark – or Jay – then…then maybe I wouldn’t have to think too hard about how much I’m not uncomplicated. How much I’ve messed up along the way.”
Gary offered Howard a small, sad smile. “Ridiculous, right?” he said, hoping to sound lighter than he did. Howard smiled back at him lopsidedly, a look which was somewhere between kindness and despair crossing his face.
“I’m not going to judge, Gaz,” he said gently. “The way I am…I’ve never had a direction, so I don’t really know what it’s like to feel like I’ve lost it, I don’t know how I’d react. Before Jay everyone I dated always wanted to know what the plan was, where were we going…and I could never tell them. And then I met Jay and…he didn’t need to know. All he asks is that…that I always come home. And that all my cards are on the table no matter what.” Gary nodded slowly, the corner of his lips quirking back up for a moment.
“You two were made for each other, How,” he said softly. “I envy you that, you know – that two sides of the same coin thing you’ve always had. You’ve both always had this understanding between you, like you’re the only two people on the planet who’ve been listening to this rhythm and you’ve finally found each other.” He glanced away for a moment, studying the scuffs and scratches on the floorboards and letting his eyes drift in and out of focus as his mind wandered. “With Mark and me…sometimes I think we’re listening to the same song but the reception keeps going in and out. Other times I don’t think Mark’s even listening anymore – he’s too busy off in a world of his own that I can’t ever break in to.” Gary shook his head. “You and Jay move like it’s choreography; you push and you pull and you both always seem to know the next step. You were both set for your happy ending the moment you found each other.”
For a moment Howard was quiet, and Gary looked up at him curiously. He was looking at Gary with that intense furrow in his brow, his sharp blue eyes solemn and steady, his expression a mixture of confusion and disquiet.
“Is that really how you see it?” he asked at last. “Come on, Gaz, you have to know that nothing is just set – not without work.” Off Gary’s blank stare Howard chuckled disbelievingly, letting his head drop back for a moment as he sighed. “It doesn’t matter how naturally it all comes, it doesn’t matter if it’s a dance or a song or a bloody masterpiece…when it’s good then fan-fucking-tastic but Jay and me…we don’t spring out of bed every morning with an instruction manual for how life’s going to play out. Crappy things get in the way all the time. You work and you argue and you figure it out. You just have to protect yourself by laying down the rules you’re playing by in advance: for me and Jay it’s being all in and always coming home. For you and Mark it could be anything – you’ve just never dared ask each other, you both run scared like it’s tempting fate somehow.” Howard sighed. “I know you and Mark like to think of love as this sweet, pretty thing you can put in a three minute song. But it doesn’t work like that outside of the radio, Gaz. Love isn’t unconditional in any conventional way, you know? Relationships don’t work that way: love has got endless conditions on it, the only part that’s limitless is how much you’re willing to sign up to for someone, and how much they’ll sign up to for you. Because the love that actually counts for something? It persists, you know? Through missteps and bum notes and arguments over whose turn it is centre stage. And through it all, you still know that person can be trusted…that eventually, even if they falter here or there…they’ll come through and keep their promises. Every time.”
Gary looked down at the floor again for a moment, biting at his lip. He swallowed hard, closing his eyes before finally looking back up at Howard somewhat nervously.
“But what makes you so sure?” he asked, his voice small. “How do you know that what you’re getting into is something worth fighting for? When that person is the same person whose words can do the most damage in an argument?” Howard’s lips twitched up at one corner and he sighed.
“Gaz, it doesn’t come with a fanfare – you don’t hear trumpets and violins one day and feel some big spotlight come down.” He shrugged. “If you belong with someone…you belong, you know? You feel like your skin finally fits you, like you can breathe out, tell a crap joke, then go two hours without talking and still be happy. You just…know.” He opened his mouth then closed it again, frowning slightly as he tried to find the words he was looking for. Then he met Gary’s gaze thoughtfully. “Loving someone can feel like music. But making promises to someone – if it’s right? It should come like breathing. I know because…I never really made promises before Jay, and when I did I always worried how I was going to managed to keep them. But with him every kiss feels like another promise, you know? Every time sitting side by side on the sofa not talking or arguing over who put all the dishes back in the wrong place.” He shrugged again, offering Gary a sympathetic smile. “Maybe you should stop concentrating so hard on listening out for the trumpets, Barlow. You might find out there’s something good in the silence.”
Gary was about to reply when he noticed Howard’s eyes drift to something over his shoulder, and he glanced back, curious and was surprised to see Jason there, the corner of his lips twitching up ever so slightly as he leant in the archway behind him. His gaze was on Howard at first, some silent communication passing between them as Gary stood, staring wide-eyed and anxious. And then Jason folded his arms and looked over at him – and, to Gary amazement, he smiled at him kindly, eyebrows raised as though in query.
“Jay,” Gary said uselessly, his voice frustratingly small and hesitant, and Jason’s eyes glinted with mild amusement. “When…when did you get here?” Gary managed to stammer out, wincing slightly at his own clumsiness. Jason’s smile was almost mischievous as he tipped his head to one side in thought.
“Me? Oh, I got here a lifetime ago,” he replied. “I had this mate who couldn’t hold a paint roller to save his life and I figured I’d help him out. Been here ever since.” He gave a blithe shrug, and Gary let out a small nervous laugh, looking down awkwardly. He shoved his hands in his pockets, pressing the ridges of his keys into his skin.
“Jay…” Gary faltered again, huffing out a breath and trying to gather himself. When he risked a glance up into Jason’s face, he found Jason’s expression was neutral, calm – but those eyes of his glittered with a surprising kindness. It was one thing Howard implying Jason would forgive him, it was another thing to see that openness in Jason’s own face. He wasn’t sure he deserved such an easy second chance; he had doubted someone who had never been anything but loyal to him and brought up the ghosts of a past they had both done well to get away from and yet Jason was still here, willing and open. For a moment an image of Jason sitting in his mum’s garden that night at the welcome home party drifted back into Gary’s head; him leaning back on his hands, half-lit by the moon and the fuzzy glow from the kitchen window, nodding as he listened to Gary ramble on about the charming old floorboards and the tatty baby grand. Jason was right, it was a lifetime ago. And Jason was still here, still listening patiently, ready to offer Gary advice on the next step. “Jay I am so sorry,” Gary whispered, meeting Jason’s eyes. “I’m so sorry for what I said to you…but more importantly I’m…I’m sorry for doubting you.” He winced and rolled his eyes, looking up at the ceiling with a slight groan. “God I…Nigel always used to tell me ‘Watch out for him, Gary’, all the time and I…I thought I wasn’t listening, I thought I was shaking it off because…I know it was ridiculous the way he talked about you. But I think something, somewhere must’ve gone in. I didn’t put my defences up around him as much as I should have done. I stopped looking at it from a neutral point of view and I shouldn’t have…” He shook his head, looking back at Jason sadly. “I’m sorry. For all of it, not just what happened the other day…you’re my friend, Jay, you always have been. And you didn’t deserve the crap I threw at you after everything you’ve done for me over the years.”
Jason nodded slowly, seeming to take a moment to weigh up Gary’s words. He looked down at the floor, a frown briefly crossing his face before he looked up again, meeting Gary’s eyes.
“Ok,” he said simply, and Gary blinked.
“O…ok?” he said, nervously, and Jason lifted one should in a small shrug.
“Ok,” he repeated, letting out a steady breath. “Look, Gaz…the truth is, I asked myself the same question you asked me all the time: did I do something to make Nigel think it was ok, did I more or less set myself up for the punishment? I doubt myself enough on my own, I don’t need my friends chiming in for me. Because…those ‘stories’ you were talking about that you said you never asked for? They were my reality. For much longer than I could really cope with. And I’ve tried running from them and burying them and talking about them – and in the end the only thing that’s worked has been accepting they’re never going to go away. I carry it around every day: Nigel’s voice in the back of my head. And as much as logic can say, you know…Nigel was this bitter old bloke who wanted me to sleep with him and took this pride in punishing me when I wouldn’t…when I met him he was someone who could keep me in check and look out for me and maybe even be proud of me for something. I wanted to impress him as much as everyone else and I worked hard for next to nothing in return. It was different for you – you actually managed to impress him. Me? I was always trying and almost always falling short. Even after he would knock me down, I always got back up and had another go. Until I couldn’t take it anymore.” Jason sighed, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling for a moment. Gary briefly saw a flicker of the strain on his face – saw the toll it had taken – and he hated himself even more for what he’d done. “I don’t know – maybe I wouldn’t even change it, knowing what I know now. It might be messed up but I know…I know the life I have today is down to those scrapes and scars I got along the way. And I don’t want to change the life I have now, the way things eventually worked out.” He looked back at Gary then, offering him a quietly sad smile. “So I forgive you; let’s call it water under the bridge and have done, ok? Because I’m not going to fight with you for the sake of Nigel Martin-Smith. I think my sanity rests at least partially on the idea that I’ve somehow managed to prove him wrong – and I can’t prove him wrong by letting him drive away my friends.”
“Jay, I don’t-” Gary stopped and blew out a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t have…I didn’t-”
“Gaz, I know, ok?” Jason said with a soft laugh. He smiled slightly, shrugging. “I know what you said…you were an arse, honestly. And it fucking hurt. But I don’t think we’d still be mates if there wasn’t a bigger part of you that hadn’t doubted me. You let Nigel get in your head, that’s all – and I can’t criticise anyone for that because I know how it feels, ok? But…for the record? It’s time your started accepting you have a history, mate – because otherwise we’re going to be rehashing this argument all over again ten months down the line when I find out you’re in denial about something else and it all blows up in our faces.” He arched an eyebrow. “You think we can make that deal? Be a bit more honest? Because…the whole reason we’re mates is based on that nightmare, whether you like it or not.” Jason’s smile turned mischievous then, and he smirked slightly. “Well, that and the fact that my mum doesn’t know the meaning of ‘don’t throw me a welcome home party and invite every person we’ve ever known’ when you’re mumbling down the phone to her between long haul flights,” he added, eyes dancing, and Gary couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head and looking at Jason thoughtfully.
“You know…I’ve never said thank you for that night, Jay: you spent half your welcome home party sat on damp paving slabs listening to me ramble on…and by the end of the night you’d somehow ended up roped in to helping me open up this place and I felt, all of sudden, like I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders after all.”
“Well you were saving me from my mum trying to set me up with some bloke from the corner shop, so…”
“In that case I probably owe you a thank you, mate: I don’t know what crappy life I’d be living now if my husband was off living it up with some bloke from the corner shop,” Howard put in with a bright grin, flashing Jason an impish wink. Jason rolled his eyes, affectionately despairing.
“Of course, because that’s all our relationship is based on, love: the fact I never met Jim, the guy who always remembered to keep a copy of OK in reserve when mum came in late after work,” he shot back, before looking over at Gary with a warm smile. “So anyway: what do you say, Barlow? Clean slate?” Gary smiled.
“A clean slate sounds really good to me right now, Jay,” Gary agreed with a small nod. “And I promise I’m not just saying this because How threatened me but: I really am sorry for the other day…I should never have said what I did and…I promise not to hurt you like that again. You’re a good mate, Jay. I’m not going to make the mistake of forgetting that again – cross my heart.” Jason smiled back at him quietly.
“A good mate with a scary husband, apparently. But thanks, Gaz. It’s good to know,” he said, eyes glittering almost playfully as he looked over at Howard.
“Hey, I didn’t even get to the end of my threat – whatever he’s scared of it’s in his own head,” Howard protested with a shrug. “Although it is best he keeps in mind I’m taller than him and I’m pretty sure I can fit him in the top cupboard in the back room that smells of gone-off cheese,” he added with a grin and Gary laughed, nodding slowly.
“Well there’s a thought that’ll keep me in nightmares for a year or two,” he said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll work on some new ideas when that one gets old,” Howard smiled.
Gary opened his mouth to speak, then quickly shut it again, looking down. He chewed at his lip, trying to pretend he couldn’t feel Jason and Howard both looking at him questioningly.
“Jay…can I ask you something that I’m pretty sure I have absolutely no right to ask?” Gary managed at last, keeping his gaze on the floor. He heard Jason shifting his weight slightly against the archway and risked a glance up at him.
“I told you, Gaz: clean slate. You can ask me anything, it’s not a problem,” Jason told him, his voice gentle but firm, and Gary managed a small, grateful smile.
“Do you ever feel like…like you’re settling? That you’re not pushing hard enough for some other life, some bigger purpose?” he asked, his voice tentative and low. He gestured vaguely at the shop. “I mean, I never thought I’d still be here…back when I bought this place I kept telling myself it was just a stop along the way. But lately I’ve been wondering if maybe I’ve just…stopped.”
Jason was quiet for a moment. He folded his arms, his expression unreadable and the corners of his lips just slightly downturned.
“When we first met I…I remember I was out four or five nights a week ‘til five a.m. – or later. And I was always exhausted,” he said quietly, glancing down. “You know, I loved every moment, and I wouldn’t trade it, having that time and that life. I had the best laughs on those nights and that world…it’s part of who I am. And I will always think of myself as a dancer, that part of who I am too, even now.” He smiled sadly, looking back up at Gary with a slight shrug. “I should probably have never gone for the audition for the band – don’t get me wrong, I got some good memories out of it as well as the awful ones but…I was bored with having to try and work out how to make that life more than a battle for survival and into something more. The band felt like a good short-cut, and it was just another way to get paid to show off.” He pulled a face. “I could’ve pushed harder with my dancing, you know – made more of it. I know my mum thinks so. But the truth is, I would’ve got bored one way or another – I was too young to be focused on one idea and after what happened with Nigel I was too restless to fit into that role again, it didn’t suit me anymore to be performing all the time, pushing to the front.”
“And do you regret it? Not trying to make something bigger for yourself when you had the chance?” Gary asked. Jason smiled wryly.
“What, because I’m past it now?” he shot back.
“That’s not-” Gary stopped and let out a soft laugh, rolling his eyes, and Jason shrugged, his smile softening slightly.
“I miss it. Sometimes I wish I’d got bigger stories out of it, you know?” he admitted after a beat. “But at the same time I’m not going to make the mistake of judging my life based on one aspect of it,” he added. “I’m not defined by working in this place or performing at weddings on the weekend. I’m not defined by the fact I stopped dancing sooner than I expected to. And I’m not defined by the fact I don’t know if I still want to be here in ten or twenty years’ time either. Who I am is all of that stuff together – the way I see things, the people I spent time with. The whole is always going to be greater than the sum of the parts, in my mind.” Jason’s gaze briefly flicked over to Howard, and the two of them shared a passing smile over Gary’s shoulder before Jason looked back again. “I’ve got a home. And a husband and good mates. Time to talk, time to have fun and show off…time to be still when that’s all over. So…I’m happy, no matter whether it happened how I thought it would or not.” His eyes glinted then. “And I still dance too. I’ll always be dancing somehow,” he said, his whole face briefly alight in a way which made Gary smile. “Look, Gaz, you have a good life, you know. You just don’t take much of a chance to appreciate it. Because you’re always judging it by what could’ve been, what went to plan and what didn’t. But that’s over – that pathway you had back then with Nigel…it’s gone, no matter what he’s told you. It’s never going to happen the way you planned it now. Those days? They belong to a bloke you…you just aren’t anymore. You grew up. Let it go and make peace with it – it’ll do you some good to take stock of what you’ve actually got, you know.” He gestured around at the shop. “I mean, look at this place – think of how much fun we’ve had mucking round in the shop together over the years. Without being here, you wouldn’t even know Mark. And maybe you and me would’ve just drifted apart if we hadn’t worked here together for so long.” He pulled a face, his smile mischievous and rueful all at once. “And, I know you might not get quite as much out of him as I do, but I’m pretty sure you’ve had your fair share of laughs with Howard in here too. You really want to trade all that for a half-hearted crack at a few ‘maybes’ with Nigel?” Gary smirked slightly, looking briefly over at Howard, who shared a smile with him, shrugging. Gary glanced back at Jason, who rolled his eyes. “Come on, Gaz. Who’s to say the way you planned it to happen was the better option? Because whatever you might think about not pushing…it’s not true. You’ve pushed us all – sometimes too hard. And it might still happen. Just…a different way. With more mates. And a shop. And a lot of sitting round in reception rooms wrestling my husband for a share of the leftover wedding cake.” Gary chuckled, tipping his head in acknowledgement and Jason gave a slight nod.
“I’ve definitely got some good cake out of it,” he agreed lightly and Jason smirked.
“Oh, the cake wins you over,” he joked fondly.
There was a pause then, which to Gary felt stifling. Mark’s name hung on the hot summer air, and he knew that, though Jason wouldn’t push him on the subject, he also was unlikely to let him get away with simply burying the conversation and bailing out of there. He swallowed, finding his throat was dry and tight.
“What if I’ve figured all this out too late, Jay?” he asked, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “What if I took out all of this on the wrong person and now it’s too late to fix it? Do I just keep ploughing on forward in the hope that this is just another time the reality will work out better than the plan? Or have I managed to lose the one thing I should’ve been keeping hold of?”
“There is another possibility, mate,” Howard put in softly, and Gary turned to look at him. “You could push some more. Grab hold of all the hope you’ve got and throw it at the problem.” Howard shrugged. “You’d do it for your music, you know. You always do. So…don’t you think maybe Mark deserves that sort of fight from you too?” Gary smiled sadly, looking away.
“Yeah well…that’s easy to say, coming from someone who already knows the love of his life is right there to listen to you plead your case if you ever have to.”
“Gaz,” Jason said softly, his tone almost one of reprimand, and Gary flicked a glance back at him in confusion before turning to Howard once more. His expression was pinched and sad, and he was looking away, biting at his lip.
“Actually, Gaz, it’s coming from someone who almost didn’t have that at all,” he pointed out, looking back up at Gary slowly. “You know, I had no other option but to hope and hold on as tightly as I could. I had no other choice than to push to the point that Jay’s family still are pissed off with me over it. Because if I didn’t? Then I might have seriously been looking at game over. And I wasn’t going to take no for an answer when it counted like that.” Realisation seeped over Gary slowly, and he opened his mouth to apologise, but Howard cut him off with a shrug and a small smile. “Look, at the end of the day, Gaz…it worked out. Jay’s family can be pissed off all they want, it won’t change the ultimate outcome and, lucky for me? It won’t change Jay’s mind. But…the point is: you know where Mark is. And you know you can reach him – you still have the option to talk. If someone had given me a number and told me Jay was on the other end of the line…I would’ve fought my case with all I’d got because…it’s a better option than that god-awful silence. And I’m not saying I wouldn’t have been devastated if it didn’t change anything. But at least I would’ve known I’d done all I could – I’d have no unanswered questions to come ringing in my head in the dark.”
“But what can I…what can I say? You know, we’ve…we’ve said it all. There’s nothing left to break that’s not already broken…I might know where he is, but it doesn’t change the silence. All the miles of words we’ve spoken…and it’s got us here. We’ve said everything that matters and we still didn’t work it out.”
Jason pushed himself up off the archway then, coming to stand at Gary’s side. He placed a kind hand on his back, tipping his head just enough to meet his gaze. Gary could barely look at him; his quiet sympathy was too soothing and he didn’t feel like he deserved to be soothed at all. His body felt heavy and his throat felt rough and the air in the shop was far too close. He closed his eyes and squeezed them tightly shut, and beside him Jason reached across to squeeze his arm.
“How can you seriously think you’ve got nothing left to say that matters, Gaz? How can you think there’s no lines left which got away from you when you’ve stood in this shop just now and admitted to having all these regrets and lost threads?” Jason stepped around in front of him, and Gary reluctantly opened his eyes, looking up into Jason’s face. He offered him a kind smile. “Did you even listen to that song you pair fought over?” he asked gently. Gary opened his mouth then closed it again, his forehead creasing into a frown.
“We started it together. I knew the outline…but I didn’t…” He huffed out a breath. “But what does it matter, Jay? It’s just a song.” Jason laughed slightly.
“Please. It’s never just a song with you two, you know that? There’s always something more.” He shook his head. “Look, I don’t know for sure how Mark’s going to react. I don’t know if he’ll forgive you or if you’ll get that ‘happily ever after’ you’re both so focused on. But what I do know…is that all Mark was asking was for you to hold on. So have a little faith, Barlow. And push.”
Chapter 10
Howard watched Jason from under heavy eyelids, his outline out of focus in the dim light of the bedroom. He could still fell the warm glow of too-much-booze and careless play-fights which had somehow led to something more; the intoxicating combination of Jason’s oh-so-slightly drunk, lazy laughter and the haphazard way they had crushed themselves together on the sofa earlier had had a dizzying effect at first, but now, now that they were still and quiet again and the apartment had shifted into near darkness, it made him feel as though the whole world had stopped. For a moment it was as though everything was still except the two of them – the only picture in Howard’s mind was of them swaying as the sun went down, messily kissing each other faces, dancing backwards towards their bedroom. It was his definition of peace, the only sort of stillness he’d been able to bear in his whole life. He sighed contentedly to himself, his eyes still following Jason across the room.
Jason was pulling on his favourite over-sized grey hoodie, its fabric soft and stretched, and it fell artfully over his slight frame, the sleeves gathering at his hands. He knew Howard was watching him, and he pulled a face over his shoulder, glancing back towards him for a moment, eyes bright even as he narrowed them.
“Go to sleep, Donald,” he said quietly.
“Hey, for once? I didn’t start this,” Howard smirked, his voice gruff. Jason smothered a small, sly smile, and Howard quirked an eyebrow, his expression knowing and teasing at the same time. There was still the slightest sheen of sweat on his skin, and he pushed at the covers, rolling over onto his stomach and watching Jason intently as he climbed back into the bed.
Howard’s body was still buzzing, a low hum of electricity pressing at his edges; he blinked slowly, enjoying the heaviness with which his body sank into the mattress, and when he opened his eyes again, Jason was lying beside him, gazing up at the ceiling, his expression faraway and unguarded. The sheets rustled and the pillow crinkled beneath him as he gathered the covers back up around him, and his breathing was soft and slow; the reassuring noises of the night made Howard smile. He pulled his own pillow to him slightly, settling his head back down before reaching out an arm, wrapping it around Jason’s stomach, slipping his fingers beneath the soft, tired fabric of the hoodie and brushing his thumb across his warm skin. Jason glanced over at him with a small smile, though his eyes didn’t quite focus on Howard’s face, as though he wasn’t quite seeing him somehow. He placed his arm over Howard’s and intertwined their fingers, running his thumb across the back of Howard’s hand with a sleepy sigh.
The lights outside the window were reflecting in Jason’s eyes. The city beyond seemed to glimmer and wink, the lights glinting and glittering brightly and their reflections dancing across the Salford glass, blurring and jarring as they hit the beads of water left behind on the windows from a late evening rainstorm. It was neither late nor early, and the city was quiet – though the peace was given life by the distant flickers of cars and buses speeding by, everything looking somehow unreal from so high up, like toys being whizzed about by some invisible child. Howard loved this time of night, loved the thick magic of it. It was melancholy and twinkling – still but not quite completely. He twisted his head, looking up out of the window for a moment. The sky above Manchester was ink-blot blue and heavy and, though it was partially obscured by pillows of grey cloud, the moon was high in the sky; it was just late enough to feel like every moment was a secret, but not quite late enough to imagine they were the only two sharing it. Howard turned his head back to Jason, edging ever so slightly closer to him and gently pulling his body across the bed towards him at the same time. Jason barely flinched, allowing himself to be tugged and fitting his body neatly into its new, closer space. Howard felt his eyelids beginning to droop.
“How,” Jason murmured after a beat.
“Mm?” Howard blinked his eyes back open, unsure if he’d fallen asleep for hours or seconds. The light in the room was unchanged – shadow-patterns still danced across it and light still twinkled in the world beyond. Jason still gazed up at the ceiling, his expression unreadable.
“Do you think Gaz is going to be ok?” Howard looked at Jason blankly for a moment before letting out a soft splutter of laughter, Jason’s words finally making sense to him.
“Seriously?” he asked through a chuckle. “You’re taking this moment to bring Gary Barlow into our bedroom?” Howard was still laughing, pulling Jason closer to him and burying his face in the crook of his neck as he attempted to glare back at him.
“What?” Jason asked somewhat defensively, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You really expect me to lie here so overwhelmed by your company that I can’t think of anything else?” he remarked archly, giving Howard a half-hearted elbow to the ribs and smothering a grin when he felt the curve of Howard’s smile against his skin. Howard pressed a kiss to Jason’s neck and laughed softly, shaking his head.
“You could at least pretend! You know, instead of spoiling the atmosphere with your over-thinking,” he smirked. Jason pulled a face and Howard laughed again, kissing his temple fondly. “Don’t pull your faces at me, Jason Orange – you’re worrying too much about something that’s out of your control.” He sighed, rubbing his thumb lightly across Jason’s skin. “It’s not your fault if it doesn’t work out – you don’t have to hold everyone else’s lives together for them all the time and take their hits when they screw it up. Just because they turn around and tell you you should’ve done more doesn’t more you actually could’ve done, you know.”
“This isn’t about my brothers,” Jason shot back, a little too quickly and little too tensely, and Howard kissed the crook of Jason’s neck once more by way of an apology.
“Never said it was, although we both know it is, at least a little bit,” he mumbled into his skin. “I know why you care so much, ok? And I’m not telling you to let it go either. You worry: it’s what you do, it’s who you are and I don’t want you to change. But just…don’t get yourself all caught up in knots about where Gaz goes from here. You’ve helped all you can and got nothing but heartache in return so far. Maybe he’s learned his lesson, maybe he hasn’t – maybe it’s all gone tits-up in New York or maybe it’s heaven on Earth…but it’s not on you anymore. It’s his turn to own up to his own life choices. You’ve done more than what you owe him, at this point. And maybe it’s actually time you stopped to think how he could start making things up to you.”
Jason was quiet for a long time then, his eyes on the ceiling still, his forehead creased into a solemn frown. Howard kissed him again, quick and tender against his neck, his collarbone, his shoulder. In the street far below them, a motorbike whirred suddenly into life, the screech of wheels on wet tarmac piercing the stillness of the room but not breaking it and Howard stilled for a beat, his lips just barely touching Jason’s skin – Jason could feel the flutter of his eyelashes and the whisper of his breath, could feel the trail of goosebumps left in the wake of his touch.
“How, can you promise me something?” Jason asked then, his voice achingly soft and quiet.
“Anything – always,” Howard replied, quick and gentle as he pulled back to look up into Jason’s face.
“If you ever do need to run off: don’t go angry. Go tired, go sad, go quietly when I’m not looking. Go in a rush because there’s a chance you might miss your flight…” Jason paused, turning his head to look down to meet Howard’s gaze. “Just don’t storm out. Don’t slam doors or throw clothes into bags. Just walk out like you would any other day: like there’s hope you might come back again. Because I don’t know what Mark and Gaz can sustain – but I know my own limits. I know what I can’t take.” A faint smile crossed Jason’s lips and he shrugged awkwardly. “Stay doesn’t mean don’t ever go, you know? It just means…make sure I always know you’ll come back in the end.” Howard smiled back at him slowly, pushing himself up to kiss the side of Jason’s face before lying back.
“It’s promised,” he said firmly. “No running off angry and no throwing fits,” he agreed. “I’d never hurt you, Jay. Not on purpose, not out of spite…at worst maybe out of not paying enough attention. But never because I wanted to leave.” Jason’s lips twitched up at the corners and he took a deep breath, leaning their foreheads together.
“It’s one of the things I’m most sure of in the world, How: damage can always be undone, but not devastation. There’s a difference, you know? Because damage just doesn’t go deep enough. But devastation? It chews things up and changes them – and after that? They never feel the same again.”
The two of them lapsed back into a comfortable silence, letting the peace of the late-night air settle over them, heavy and calming in the shadows. Howard silently pressed Jason closer to him, kissing his forehead, then his temple, then his cheek. He rested his head against him and took a long, deep breath, closing his eyes. The solidity of Jason’s body still thrilled him just as much as it had the first night he had returned home, and the spell was even greater when they were alone in the half-light of their bedroom – he was warm and close and sleepy, the sound of his breathing reassuringly steady. So soft. So close. The moment was a secret, a story, a promise – so thick and pleasingly weighty that it was almost a tangible thing.
Howard’s eyelids felt heavy; it wasn’t as late as when he normally fell into bed, but he felt pleasantly tired all the same – there was just something about the warmth of Jason’s body beside him combined with the shifting shadows on the bedroom ceiling and the twinkling lights outside. Although the room itself was crisply modern, full of straight lines and glass and symmetry, the atmosphere of it was still somehow much dreamier, blurring at the edges – Jason had a talent for giving an unlikely homeliness to the cool metals and white walls of their apartment, but Howard wondered if perhaps the way this particular room made him feel had more to do with memories of whispered conversations with sheets pulled over heads than any touch of interior design. Their lives were built on promises shared in this room at night; they had changed the course of both their stories in the midnights they’d shared in this space.
Howard stifled a yawn, burrowing down the pillow a little and burying his head back in the crook of Jason’s neck. “You have a pillow of your own, Donald,” Jason complained half-heartedly, his voice mumbly and drowsy.
“And it smells of hairspray and spilt coffee,” Howard replied in a childish grumble, finally pulling his side of the covers back around him and curling into them petulantly. Jason chuckled, shifting his head in order to look down at Howard sceptically.
“Whereas mine smells of…?”
“Fabric softener,” Howard replied quickly, then paused. “And home,” he added more quietly. Jason’s lips quirked up into a reluctant smile and he shook his head slightly.
“You’re a disgrace, Donald,” he whispered back. “But I think I’ll keep you anyway: sometimes you’re almost cute.” Howard was almost asleep, but he still felt a grin split his face.
“You say the most romantic things,” he teased.
“Push your luck and I’ll push you off the bed,” Jason countered quietly, a smile in his voice.
“Says the bloke who practically dragged me in here earlier…” Howard smirked roughly, and Jason elbowed him in his side.
“You’re a bastard, you know that?” he murmured. Howard chuckled.
“Oo, say that again, love – it’s so sexy when you’re mean to me,” he said, making his voice husky-mocking and doing his best to shimmy his shoulders.
“Shut up,” Jason smiled, and Howard laughed as Jason smacked at him.
“Yeah, that’s the stuff – don’t even pretend like you’re not doing this on purpose, you’re ready for round two and you know it.”
“Round two? What counting scale are you working off?” Howard let out a loud, shameless laugh, pulling Jason more roughly into his arms and kissing his face
“Am I in with a shot if I call it round six, then?” he asked, and although he had meant for the statement to sound light and teasing, he caught the softness in his own tone, the tenderness as he drew in the scent of Jason pressed against him. Jason elbowed him, but it was a half-hearted gesture and was followed immediately by a tiny kiss being pressed to his jawline.
“Go to sleep, Donald, before you embarrass yourself any more,” Jason murmured, his lips forming a smile as he pressed them to Howard’s skin a second time.
“On your pillow or mine?” Howard shot back and Jason let out a low, sleepy laugh, trying to roll away from him but putting up no resistance when Howard simply tightened his grip.
“Whichever one will stop you being a smart-arse for more than five minutes?”
“Your pillow it is then,” Howard grinned.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Howard could hear Jason’s smile, and a lazy smile of his own formed at the sound of it. He burrowed down again, drank in the warmth of his skin, the smell of his hair, the scratchy sound of his hoody against his body.
“You’re wild about me, Orange,” he sighed.
“Debatable,” Jason said with a small smile that betrayed him completely.
“Like hell it is,” Howard mumbled back, half-asleep.
When Jason didn’t shoot him down again, Howard assumed he’d already fallen asleep – his own eyes were closed, and his limbs felt heavy; everything pleasant and humming and dim. He was just on the edge of drifting off, barely-there and breathing deeply, when he felt Jason shifting against him, pushing his body up so he was the one in the position of leverage. Howard’s brow furrowed at the movement and he blinked sleepily, squinting up and slowly focusing on Jason’s solemn face; a curious expression, full of intensity and peace and mischief.
“Yeah: like hell it is,” he whispered, his lips curving cryptically. The way he said it made it sound like a spell – maybe another promise, another secret. But maybe something more. A game. A challenge. Howard smiled slightly, his brow still furrowed in mild confusion, and Jason shrugged, leaning down and capturing Howard’s lips in a kiss so intense Howard hardly realised he was pushing up from the mattress just as much as Jason was pulling at him. His arms were winding around Jason, tugging him practically into his lap, and Jason laughed, low and rough, burying his hands in the curls at the nape of Howard’s neck before letting out a sigh and pulling back just enough to look up into Howard’s eyes once more. “What was that for?” Howard asked sleepily, his eyes unfocused. Jason simply smiled back at him silently, eyes alight, and Howard felt his lips twist up. “You really are wild about me, aren’t you?” he said then, quiet and sleep-slurred and only half-aware he was even saying it out loud.
And it was strange, that it needed to be asked – that he felt like needed to check that this man, whose limbs were tangled around him, whose cool wedding band had left a trail of goosebumps where it had grazed his skin and whose eyes were sparkling with the reflections of his own…was wild about him. And yet he did. He needed to be reminded that he was wanted – invited – here. He wanted to hear Jason ask him to stay again, just to make sure he hadn’t imagined it all those times before. But what was stranger still was that this man – the one whose limbs were tangled around him, whose cool wedding band had left a trail of goosebumps where it had grazed his skin, whose eyes were sparkling with the reflections of his own – didn’t even flinch. He took in the question silently for a moment before leaning his head in conspiratorially so their foreheads touched.
“Disgracefully wild, truth be told,” he said simply. And Howard smiled, pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose.
Howard began to lie back then, but Jason stopped him, caught him – they were wound together so tightly that Jason had him locked there. Jason looked him in the eye, his breath catching in his throat. And Howard knew the word that was coming. “Stay.” And there it was – Jason turning simple words into magic again like it was easy, strangely earnest and vulnerable amongst the soft shadows and shifting colours of their room. There was the smallest of pauses, both of them holding their breath, looking into each other’s eyes with slightly dilated pupils. And then all at once, with a rush of breath, they moved to each other, falling back together as their lips met, the sheets crinkling round them and Jason’s smile grazing Howard’s face as they each tried to cover every inch of the other’s skin.
They had crashed into Jason’s side of the bed, twisting awkwardly around each other as the kiss deepened. Howard’s hands slid beneath the loose fabric of the hoodie, pushing it up just slightly as his fingers pressed against the warm skin of Jason’s back. They moved with patience and impatience simultaneously – Howard appreciated the feel of Jason’s fingers cupping his face, then tangling in his hair, brushing the cord of his necklace, grabbing at his arms. The moment felt like it could be endless, like the night had just stretched out to double its length and the city had fallen away beneath them.
And then the sound of a phone rattling along a bedside table skidded into the fantasy, shrill and abrupt and unwelcome. Howard winced and held on to Jason a little tighter, his nails digging into his skin as he let out a soft growl into the crook of his neck.
“Leave it,” he urged, but he felt Jason giving one of those sighs of his, the ones he gave when he knew he couldn’t fight his instincts even though he wanted to.
“How,” he said, low and rough and plaintive, twisting in Howard’s embrace and pushing half-heartedly.
“Leave it, Jay, come on – what’s the worst that can happen?” Howard insisted, nipping at Jason’s ear with his teeth, making him laugh softly.
“Never ask me that question, Donald – you know my talent for worst-case-scenarios,” Jason told him then, gentle and kind as he took Howard’s face in his hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead before slowly rolling away from him and reaching gracefully for his phone, tipping the screen up and squinting into its harsh-white glow. Howard wrinkled his nose as its static lit up the darkness and stung his sleepy eyes, collapsing back roughly onto Jason’s pillow whilst Jason pushed himself upright.
“Well?” he asked, somewhat sullenly, and Jason glanced back at him with an apologetic smile.
“Justin,” he shrugged, swatting at Howard when he caught his irritated expression.
“Bet you anything he’s called to moan about me,” Howard muttered, pushing himself up just enough to wrap an arm around Jason’s middle, kissing the back of his neck and squeezing him closer when he tried to elbow him away. Jason rolled his eyes, smothering a slight smile, and brought the phone up to his ear.
“Justin?” There was a tiredness in Jason’s voice which made Howard smile slightly – he kissed the side of his face affectionately, with a soft, gruff laugh, and this time Jason didn’t try and push him off. “Is everything ok? No soap operas unfolding?” he was asking Justin as he leant back a little against Howard’s body. Howard could hear Justin laugh on the other end of the phone.
“Of course not, everything’s fine – why wouldn’t it be?” Justin said and Jason clenched his jaw slightly, letting out a slow breath through his gritted teeth before he answered.
“Because you’re calling me in the middle of the night and your surname is Orange?” he suggested, closing his eyes for a moment and giving a slight shake of his head. Howard could feel the tension in his body and it riled him – he squeezed Jason tightly, lifting his head to kiss his face again, more roughly this time.
“It’s hardly the middle of the night, Jay – I’ve called later than this before and you’ve still been up. Why? I didn’t wake you did I?” Justin replied, his tone dismissive.
Howard let out a low, aggravated growl.
“Just hang up,” he pleaded in a soft whisper, nipping at Jason’s ear lobe with his teeth again, but Jason ignored him, his gaze glassy as he stared up at the ceiling.
“You didn’t wake me, Justin, it’s fine,” Jason sighed. “So – if the sky’s not falling in, why are you calling me this late? Because if you’re about to invite me out somewhere I’m not interested.”
“Please, I know better than to try and drag you from your sofa on a school night,” Justin shot back. Howard didn’t think it would go down well if he pointed out that he had been able to phone Jason on many a night and coax him out, last-minute, to a gig. “No, I went out for dinner with mum tonight – she was telling me all this stuff that’s been going on with Gaz. Why didn’t you mention anything to me?” Jason rolled his eyes.
“Because you’ve never stopped talking at me long enough to ask,” he pointed out wryly. Howard let out a small ‘huh’ and Jason elbowed him sharply.
“So how come you’re suddenly so bothered about what’s going on with Gaz? You got a bet on how long it’s going to take him to win Mark Owen back or something?”
“Give over, Jay – he’s my mate too, you know. And I remember you telling me things were rough with Gaz, you just seemed to be shrugging it off like it was nothing so I didn’t think much of it. Then when I was talking to mum today she told me he wasn’t even coming into the shop and that he’d basically accused you of all sorts – she was surprised you’d forgiven him so fast.”
“Oh, it wasn’t fast. Believe me. But I’m not going to throw away years of friendship over one argument, that’s all.”
“And I get that, Jay. But come on – him pretty much saying you’d sabotaged his whole career? That’s got to hurt after everything you two have been through together.”
“It did. Like hell.” Jason closed his eyes and Howard kissed his shoulder. “Look, what’s said has been said, you know? But even after it all, Gaz still came around in the end…so, on this occasion? I’m going to forgive and move on and have done. It’s not worth tearing up the whole friendship over, ok? He’s family – to all of us, not just me.”
“Mum was hurt.”
“I know. And Gaz is going to have to mend that fence on his own another day. But for me? It’s over. And with everything going on with him and Mark right now…he needs a mate, not another enemy. I’m not going to let him mess his whole life up for Nigel Martin-Smith.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Howard felt Jason’s spine straighten, caught the shift in his expression. It was subtle, but Howard knew Jason’s face well enough to see the tension in it and he recognised the sudden, sharp brightness in his eyes. It was a look which didn’t belong to Howard – never had. That expression was Justin’s; a look that could come over them both sometimes when they were together. It was as though they could each feel what the other had to say before it was said: they might not know the words, but they could sense the emotion of it. Somewhere in the silence, something cold and nervous had slipped in and Howard prickled with concern. He pushed himself up a little, lifting a hand to tuck a flyaway strand of Jason’s hair back into place, tender and concerned, and Jason didn’t even blink, just licked his lips ever so slightly and waited for Justin to break the moment, to say whatever it was they both knew he shouldn’t.
“Jay…” Justin sounded every bit as tense as Jason, but, as reluctant as he seemed, Howard knew he was going to push on, that he had to push on; it was how these moments always went between them. If there was one thing Howard was sure he had in common with Justin Orange, it was that he would always push Jason Orange just enough – and, sometimes, just too much. “Look, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying you need to fall out with Gaz forever or that forgiveness is out of the question, all I’m saying is…he’s taken you for granted, you see that, don’t you? He’s just assumed you’ll be there, you’ll pick up the pieces whilst he goes off in a mood, and then he’s come crawling back, said a half-arsed ‘sorry’ and then got straight on a plane and left you holding the fort. Again. Without any sort of repayment or anything. I mean…has he been paying you anything extra at all for all the overtime and shift-covering you’ve been doing for him whilst he’s been off moping? Any idea of when you’re going to get decent wages for agreeing to open up the shop for another few days whilst he jets off to New York to grovel to his boyfriend?”
“Sounds to me like you did more than just talk to mum,” Jason muttered. Justin huffed.
“After mum told me the story I called Simon, because I knew you’d seen him the other day and would’ve spilled more of the story to him to spare Gaz any more agro from mum – I thought maybe he might have some more idea on why it’s suddenly ok for someone who claims to be your mate to turn around one day and basically call you a liar.”
“I never said that was ok, Justin – there’s stuff you don’t know because you weren’t there, can’t you just accept that and move on? This isn’t your fight so butt out.”
“I can’t, Jay. Not when I think Gaz is taking the piss and taking advantage. I mean, how long did he wait? Between saying he was sorry and asking you to keep shop whilst he cleaned up another one of his messes across the pond?” Justin paused expectantly, but Jason simply swallowed and closed his eyes. Justin sighed tersely. “An afternoon? An hour? Five minutes? Come on, let me know how much of a pushover you agreed to be. Are you even getting paid at all for any of this?”
“Oh leave it out, Justin – like I give a crap about that when two of my best mates’ entire relationship is on the line. Besides: I don’t know if you’d noticed, but I kind of owe him a few covered shifts at the moment, after the last few months, you know?” Howard winced, and he suspected Justin did too.
Again Justin was quiet for a moment, just a beat too long for Howard’s liking – even he could sense another push was coming and he felt instantly on alert.
“Gaz isn’t the only one, you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, Jay, the only reason you’re not bothered whether or not Gaz is going to pay you what you’re due is because you know you’re set – Howard’s income will cover the two of you, push comes to shove.” Jason frowned.
“What the hell has Howard’s job got to do with anything? And besides which: you know that’s not true – I have never and will never sit back on what Howard earns, we can’t afford to do that comfortably and, even if we could? It’s not how we operate: we have our own lives outside of each other, you know.”
“And does Howard know that?”
“What’s that’s supposed to mean?!”
“I mean…you let him have all the power here, Jay. Just like you’re doing with Gaz. Just like you always do: it’s your blind spot.”
“I’m sorry, are you seriously trying to tell me you don’t think maybe I give you every bit as much leeway as both Howard and Gaz – maybe more? – and that you’re not completely fine with that because it always benefits you and gets you your own way, sometimes ahead of Howard?”
Howard felt sick with frustration, and he felt his grip on Jason tightening; it took everything he had to keep quiet, and he tasted blood on his tongue from where he had bitten down on his lip. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the feeling of Jason shifting in his arms, twisting towards him just slightly in an almost subconscious gesture of support, as though they were silently forming an alliance there together in the dark.
“Forget about Gaz, just for a moment, ok? He’s just the latest sign that you’ve stopped fighting for yourself. Think about when that started, Jay?”
“The day dad walked out and I had to start fighting for everyone else,” Jason replied quickly, but Justin pressed on, ignoring him.
“Since Howard it’s like you’re in this corner and you can’t – or won’t – get out of it. Why do you think we were all so quick to believe that note meant you’d had enough, Jay? I mean, since he came along-”
“Don’t go there, Justin. Don’t go anywhere near it,” Jason interrupted quickly. “Don’t tell me I’ve changed – at least not in that way that implies something awful has happened.”
“But Jay, I just don’t see why you don’t see it: he’s always off somewhere. And you’re always left holding the fort. He’s in and out of touch, on and off the continent, up and down the country…and you let him, you let him hold his wage over you, he can get away with murder because it’s his job and you both need his pay packet to come in because he knows your job won’t cover it. He’s got you practically raising Gracie. And now he’s bought the apartment – like it’s just another thing to hold over you when you think twice about letting him have his way whenever he wants because he even holds the keys to your home now, the place you worked so hard to find long before he ever wormed his way in…”
“Do not bring the apartment into this Justin – How and me both played a part in that decision and both our names are on everything.”
“Mum told me it was a birthday gift, Jay.”
“It was, one that I knew about: because How knows me, he knows this place matters to me. Besides which: it’s our home! And it’s my original price buyout option from renting here so long that means we can even afford it. Howard’s job is something he loves, mine is something I love – if either one of us feels that that’s something that’s going to change, or that needs to change, we’ll talk about it then. But for now? We made all of these decisions together – including how often Howard is on or off the continent or up or down the country. And as for Gracie: I care about her, but How would never shrug off his duty to her and you well know it. But none of this is even remotely relevant to what you’re going on about, Justin, so just drop it.”
“You’re talking like he’s such a safe bet to throw your lot in with like this, but he’s not – you have to know this? He’s got form, Jay – leaving people high and dry, living wild and to hell with the consequences.”
“And what would you know about Howard Donald’s ‘form’, Justin? You’ve never paid any attention to anything I’ve told you about him, let alone the stuff he’s told you for himself.”
“He’s not the only one with contacts in the club world, Jay: I’ve heard stories.”
“Well good for you – I hope you enjoyed them. But do you want to know something, Justin? I know all of Howard’s stories, and I’ve actually heard them from his point of view rather than three-times-removed gossip. And after all of it? He’s still the person I chose.”
“And that makes everything ok? Giving up on who you are, giving up on your family? It’s only since him you cancel on us, you put us off; when he’s around you never want to be part of things and when he’s not around you don’t feel like coming out in the first place, so where’s it stop, Jay?”
“I’ve not given up one thing for Howard that I didn’t choose to – sometimes I need to be home, sometimes I just don’t want to deal with the madhouse, and you know, sometimes? Sometimes I come out and you give me so much grief that I wish I’d not bothered. And that much was true long before Howard Donald. But since you want to start keeping score on how much I’m giving up for other people, let’s talk about family shall we? How many times have I put you first, Justin? How many times growing up did you get what you wanted while I just played along for the sake of a quiet life?”
“Jay-”
“I know Howard, you don’t. I married him because having him be a part of my life mattered to me and I wanted everyone to know it. That’s all you should need to know to be ok with things. You should trust my judgement because it’s always served you right enough in the past. You should have a bit more faith that maybe I know what I want for my own life – it works well enough for mum and Simon, but somehow you and dad always seem to think you’re the ones who know best.”
“Look, I trust you, ok, Jay? Of course I do. But I don’t trust him. Based on his past, based on what I see with my own eyes. From my point of view, I just…I don’t trust him, I can’t.”
“But I do, Justin. And I’m the one who should be able to make a call on that, not you.”
There was a beat. Jason was sitting forwards now, his back straight and his knuckles white as he gripped his phone a little tighter. For a moment Howard thought Justin would back down, would sigh and agree to talk it over some other time. But the Orange family weren’t known for backing down.
“Are you really not even going to try and see it from my point of view, Jay?” Justin asked then, his voice brittle and frustrated. “Wait – is he there right now?” he added then, sounding indignant, as though that could be the only reason for Jason’s impatience with him.
“Oh for pity’s sake: enough!” Howard burst out in response, surprising himself somewhat with the cold force of his own voice. Without thinking he reached across and grabbed the phone out of Jason’s hand, looking at him desperately. “You’re going to let him do this, Jay? Call you up in the middle of the night and just call you out over every life choice you’ve ever made?”
He shook his head, bringing the phone up to his own ear. “You know what, Justin? I know you’ve never liked me. And I can live with that: you’re not the twin I need to impress, because, as much of a shock as this might be to you, Jay’s the one who actually married me, so I think I’m doing alright there. But phoning up just to call Jay out on who he should and shouldn’t trust, who he should and shouldn’t forgive…where do you get off? You want him to stick up for himself, but God forbid he sticks up for himself against you, right?” Justin didn’t say anything, and Howard let out a coarse laugh. “Ok, just as long as we’re clear. You know, I get it Justin: I’m the scum of the earth. But had it ever occurred to you, for one moment, that if Jay wanted your opinion on that he might’ve asked? Back before he signed off on this place? Before he married me? Before I asked him to ‘practically raise’ my daughter? Probably even before he went out with me in the first place?” Howard rolled his eyes. “And for the record, don’t you ever try and bring Gracie into anything you ever say about me ever again, because I swear will tear you limb from limb for it.”
Howard let out a rush of breath, almost hissing as he tossed the phone aside without hanging up, abruptly pushing himself up off the bed and stalking out of the room. He needed to get out, to cool down and clear his head. He could hear Jason returning to the phone call behind him, but he was in no mood for listening in; he was as tired as Justin was of Jason allowing the people he cared about to treat him like dirt, but it made his blood boil to have that same treatment brought into the sanctuary of their bedroom at night by Jason’s own twin. Howard clenched his fists so tightly his nails dug into his skin. All he wanted was to keep Jason safe – but some battles were Jason’s to fight, and it killed him to stand on the sidelines and let him take the blows.
The living room was dark and cool; unlike the hazy ebb and flow of the shadows of the bedroom, the light pooled entirely at the far edges of the darkness, crisp and bright white, tinting the rest of the room a scruffy grey. He paused at the breakfast bar, briefly placing his palms flat against the granite top and closing his eyes. He sucked in a long breath before pushing himself away abruptly, trying to expel a little of his anger. As he flopped down on the sofa, he let out a gruff growl, before deflating somewhat, his head falling back. He pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowing hard. The heat of his anger was gone, but the rawness of it was still there – frustrating and heavy and exhausting. He rubbed his hands over his face and closed his eyes once more, listening as the dull murmur of Jason’s voice on the phone petered out until eventually the apartment fell still. And outside the raindrops began to spit out a beat on the windows.
He’d fallen into a melancholy daze, his forehead knitted into one of his deeper frowns, by the time he heard the click of the bedroom door opening. Jason’s footsteps were soft and familiar down the corridor; something about the sound calmed Howard’s lingering agitation with a brief swell of gratitude. Sometimes he’d thought he’d caught an echo of that sound in the night when he’d been in the apartment alone – he’d jolt awake and have to stare down the empty corridor before he would realise it was the silence playing tricks on him. But now here Jason was: quiet put powerfully present all the same, filling up the empty corners and smoothing out the silence’s hard edges. Howard didn’t turn around to look at him; he could feel his eyes on him, knew he was leaning against the wall and watching him the same way he had a hundred times before, casual, calm and cool. He knew his arms were folded, knew his head was on one side, his expression thoughtful. He knew him, knew his pauses and his habits. And then, after what could have been a second or could’ve been ten minutes for all Howard could discern, he heard the sound of Jason pushing up off the wall and moving over towards him.
His outline was partially framed by the wet starbursts of light coming through the living room’s vast windows; his edges seemed to shimmer as he paused, looking down at Howard with an unreadable expression before carefully he perched on the arm of the chair, crossing his legs at the ankle and dipping his head in an attempt at eye contact. Howard didn’t look up.
“I’m not apologising,” he mumbled sulkily, are he was behaving like a petulant child but somehow past caring. After all, Jason knew all his worst trait – but he was still here, his lips curving in a half-smile.
“Ok,” he said simply, his voice gentle, and Howard’s head snapped up. He looked up at Jason in surprise, finally meeting his gaze, and Jason arched a knowing eyebrow, his smile small but bright.
“Ok?” Howard asked cautiously, and Jason laughed, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug.
“Ok,” he repeated, folding his arms. “I don’t want you to have to keep apologising all the time, How; especially not when you’ve done nothing wrong. Justin’s behaving like a prick and I think, deep down, even he knows it – he just can’t help himself. When he’s got a cob on he likes to find someone to blame: you’re an easy target because he thinks you’re the only reason he no longer has a monopoly on my time,” he added then. Howard still regarded him with suspicion, and he laughed again, softly, rolling his eyes and giving Howard’s shin a harmless kick. “Look, I just told him to sod off myself, so I’m hardly going to give you grief for doing the same. He’s pushed it too far and he needs to know it.”
Jason sighed, suddenly sounding completely exhausted by it all, and Howard felt another flare of anger in response; he was sick of Jason’s family pulling him in every direction, never letting him just rest. Sometimes he just wanted to pack up and uproot – take Jason off somewhere where they couldn’t reach him, couldn’t keep inadvertently hurting him. But he knew that would make him no better than them; and maybe he was no better than them – after all, didn’t he just want Jason to himself too, when it came down to it? He couldn’t blame Justin for being jealous: Howard had always used to be the most relaxed person in any room, but Jason made him jealous, made him twitchy and protective and fierce and always that bit more bothered about things.
Jason seemed to sense his thoughts, because Howard caught his eyes, which were glittering brightly. “I think you’ve earned the right to some leeway, no matter how it might look from the outside,” he said gently. Howard looked away.
“It doesn’t come off well though, does it: him accusing me of all sorts and my default response being to throw some sort of tantrum,” he sighed, pulling a face. “I feel like I’m just proving him right – or stooping to his level and trying to stake some sort of claim on you.” Howard wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes, letting out a slight groan. He reopened one eye, looking up at Jason sheepishly, and Jason smiled back at him, pushing himself up and stepping over his legs in order to flop down onto the other end of the sofa.
“It was hardly your ‘default’ response, love: you’ve been putting up with all sorts of nonsense ever since we started going out,” Jason pointed out quietly. “Plenty of perfectly decent blokes would’ve thrown in the towel ages ago – Justin should be grateful that you’re normally too chilled out to bother taking the bait,” he added, shrugging, his lips still curved up at the corners and his eyes still twinkling as he reached across and took Howard’s hand in his own. “Honestly? No, it didn’t do you any favours in his eyes: but at this point you don’t get any brownie points off him for keeping your mouth shut, so you might as well go off on one for all the difference it makes. I know that’s not what you’re about normally. And for what it’s worth? This isn’t him: he’s pissed off that things changed when he wasn’t paying attention and he wants to take it out on someone.” Jason lifted Howard’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it, before lowering it back again and squeezing it tightly. “I wouldn’t be with you in the first place if I thought what he was saying held any weight, How – and you shouldn’t have to keep putting up with this carry on just for the sake of trying to protect me from the tug of war.”
“But I’m supposed to protect you, Jay: it’s what I’m here for. If I can’t do that and still keep my head then what fucking use am I in this relationship?” Howard huffed. Jason’s lips twisted into a smile which was somehow amused and irritated at the same time.
“Actually, I can look after myself, Donald – I was just about managing before you came along and I’m sure I could’ve carried on,” he shot back quickly.
“I know but I just-”
“Look, I get it, ok?” Jason relented, his voice softening. “But you do more than enough already, you know? You don’t need to pretend you’re ok with my idiot brother when we both know he’s out of order, especially dragging Gracie’s name into it. But we’re equal partners here, Donald, remember? That’s non-negotiable,” he added, his eyes shining with a smile, and Howard smiled somewhat reluctantly back at him. “I know I don’t need to tell you this, but I will anyway: you make me feel safe, How, safe enough to just be myself, whatever that might be at any given time. That’s gold dust to me, you know? Because I seem to have spent a lot of my life trying to hold it together even when I don’t want to – trying to pretend I’m not who I am because it’ll make someone else’s life easier. But you’ve given me a place to go when I can’t keep my head above water anymore and you’ve hauled me up and out of that water a few times too – and you’ve never needed me to be anything except who I am. But it has to go both ways or I’ll go spare. You don’t need to shield me from everything all the time: sometimes I can actually hold my own, you know? Because you of all people should know: I give as good as I get when I need to,” he said, smirking slightly, and Howard couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle.
“Oh, you can hold your own: I’m the one who signed up to do battle with you for the rest of my life – I’d noticed,” he sighed. Jason gave him a smack, but he was laughing even as he shook his head.
“Ok then, as long as we understand each other,” he grinned and Howard’s own smile softened at that as he squeezed Jason’s hand.
“Always,” he agreed, voice husky and earnest.
Jason smiled up at him for a beat, giving the slightest of nods. “I’m still sorry though,” Howard added then, looking away, a slight frown creasing his features; he still felt like he was failing somehow, even if he couldn’t deny Jason’s logic.
“What happened to ‘I’m not going to apologise’ exactly?” Jason queried gently and Howard pulled a face at him, making him laugh. “Look, How, for what it’s worth? I don’t think Justin even believes half of what he says, you know? He’s being a drama queen because it’s his way of coping with everything that’s happened.”
“He’s never liked me, Jay – I mean, not like it is now but he was always off with me to an extent, you know? Right from the start he was pissed off at me for having the nerve to act like I know you as good as your family does: where does it end?” A faint smile played on Jason’s lips suddenly, and he tipped his head back, tilting it in order to look over at Howard, eyes sparkling.
“The only person I’ve ever gone out with that Justin approved of was Maisie Simons when we were both fourteen years old…” Howard couldn’t help but smile, arching an eyebrow.
“Isn’t that the girl you ended up going out with because he fancied her older sister…”
“That’s her,” Jason nodded, grinning now. “God it was a mess: Justin fancied her older sister, her older sister fancied me, Maisie fancied Justin…and I fancied none of ‘em. It was a nightmare. Justin didn’t speak to me for two whole days when he found out he sister kissed me at the bus stop on Saturday morning, and it didn’t matter how many times I told him I wasn’t even interested in her he wouldn’t believe me. The whole thing was nonsense anyway because we’re twins: how could they fancy one of us and not the other? I mean, we’re not clones, but in those days? We were more or less impossible to properly tell apart. It made no sense.” Jason rolled his eyes and shrugged, stifling a yawn. “He only forgave me in the end because the girl he’d been going out with before all this kicked off dumped her new boyfriend and he thought he was in with another shot with her.”
“And was he?”
“No. That girl fancied Simon,” Jason grinned and Howard laughed, his head falling back once again.
“God, I love your stories, you know that?” he murmured absently. Jason smiled fondly.
“Good. Because I love you,” he replied, lifting their clasped hands and ducking under Howard’s arm, manoeuvring himself along the sofa in order to tuck himself against Howard’s side, bringing his arm to rest around his shoulders. Their fingers were still entangled at Jason’s shoulder, but now Jason’s weight was solid and warm against Howard’s body and his shining eyes were closer, their crystal-cut blue so much clearer.
Howard licked at his lips slightly and Jason looked up into his face for a long moment, his lips curving up at one side. “You do see the irony in all this though, don’t you, Donald?” he asked then.
“In what?”
“You and Justin tonight,” Jason shrugged, resting his head back. “You both want the same thing, push comes to shove: you don’t want me to dismiss everything that happened with Gaz out of hand in case it comes back to haunt me later,” he explained casually, twisting to flick another glance up at Howard, his smile turning wry. “Well it’s true, isn’t it?” he asked. Howard opened his mouth then closed it again quickly, frowning. Jason chuckled, settling back into the crook of Howard’s arm. “You can both stand down, though. I know how to handle Gary Barlow – and when the time comes? We’re going to clear the air once and for all: count on it. I have a plan, Donald; I’m not making any decision to forgive and forget until I’ve asked a little bit more from him, but only when he’s ready to think clearly without worrying about which way it’s going to go with Mark.”
“Promise?” Howard asked gently, kissing the side of Jason’s face.
“Cross my heart,” Jason replied and Howard nodded thoughtfully.
“Ok then,” he said, low and gentle. “That’s good enough for me.”
Outside the raindrops were still spitting out a beat on the windows – tapping a sporadic rhythm against the glass which underscored the comfortable silence of the apartment. Howard tipped his head back once again, staring up at the ceiling, his expression still tense. He let his thoughts chase themselves around for a while in the quiet, letting the peace of the moment settle his nerves a little. Jason had pulled his legs up underneath himself, curving towards Howard ever so slightly, his fingers fiddling absently with Howard’s own. He was content and that was something Howard was so grateful to see in him; but Howard couldn’t stop himself from feeling uneasy all the same. “What about those people Justin was talking about? People who know me from before, or from when I DJ or whatever it was?” Howard asked suddenly, his voice soft and uncertain. He didn’t look at Jason, but he felt him shift beside him, could feel his curious gaze turn on him. “I mean…he’s not lying, you know? I know there’s probably some people from the old days out there…I can make a guess at who’s saying what…even some people around now probably see me that way still, some of ‘em probably still hold a grudge.”
Howard risked a glance down at Jason then; his piercing blue eyes were fixed intently upon his face, studying him thoughtfully, his lips just parted, his brow slightly furrowed. It was a calm, considering look, full of compassion and free of judgement. Howard wanted to kiss his face and ask him how he put up with him, wanted to stop tempting fate by dredging all of this up. But Jason’s expression demanded his honesty and he found it hard to deny him that. “I did a lot of stupid stuff in the old days, Jay; I’ve never managed to shake that reputation, you know? There’s people who just think ‘Oh, Howard, he’s probably sleeping with everyone and never keeping a promise for more than five minutes, he’s probably off not showing up for something important or breaking someone’s heart, probably planning the next party instead, trying figure out whose sofa he can kip on this week and which gig will be the biggest laugh.’ I mean…you must’ve heard the whispers, every time you showed up to one of my gigs in the early days. All those eyes in the shadows every time we were dancing together.” Jason pursed his lips then, eyes glinting with a hint of defiance.
“Oh, you and me have always had big reputations, Donald – with that crowd, anyway,” he shrugged, a smile playing on his lips. “I’ve gotten my share of eyes and enemies over the years; in clubs and bars and pubs and dingy houses…all that whole scene around Manchester in the early nineties was trouble, one way or another. And who want to know something else? Plenty of those same people you pissed off or partied with? They’d probably heard about me too somewhere down the road, I can promise you that much. Maybe not for the same reasons, but I know there were people with opinions of me who never really got to know me well enough to change their opinion over the years. That whole world was a mess – in fact, I probably slept on some of the same sofas as you, and the only difference? I probably didn’t even know whose house it was because they were probably mates of my brother’s mates who’d never met me in their lives. I was always sneaking out in the early morning – of bars we weren’t supposed to kip at, houses people’s parents were coming back to the next day. The stupid part is, we were probably always a hair’s breadth from bumping into each other in that world – I’m probably caught up in half the stories those same people have to tell about you, somewhere along the line. We probably almost met a hundred times before we said a word to each other,” he said, giving a slight roll of his eyes. “I can tell you this for sure, though: whoever Justin thinks he knows? I know who they are and what they have to say. And unlike Justin? I’ve got a fair idea what all their mates would say behind their back if you got enough drinks in ‘em, so I know they won’t have much of a moral high ground when it’s all said and done,” he added then, voice rough and casual, his expression kind yet still somehow impish. “And none of them know what I know: about who you are now, about the lengths you’d go to to keep a promise when it counts.” He pushed himself up then, turning so that he was facing Howard. He studied his face for a beat, his lips curving into a strangely serious smile, a solemn, intense look in his eye. “None of them got woken up at midnight by you telling them to come over to the other side of town just to meet you in the darkness at the back of the club so we could spend about five minutes together on a rainy Thursday night. And if they did? I bet none of them showed up.” Howard couldn’t help but smile, glancing down shyly and letting out a small chuckle that almost caught in his throat.
“You did though – every time,” he murmured, giving a slight shake of his head. “Three weeks of going out with me and I was so sure I was pushing my luck sending you that text. But you walked through that club like something out of a film that first time I tried it.” He flicked a look up into Jason’s smiling face – shy and cautious. He laughed again, rolling his eyes skywards. “God, everyone in that crappy dive was staring at you and muttering about me…but you…you looked like something out of a film. You walked into that place like you were walking into Wonderland. Like you’d just found a good secret.” Howard sighed, looking into Jason’s face for a moment, smiling quietly. Jason raised an eyebrow in playful enquiry and Howard’s smile widened slightly. “You looked like you didn’t care about a single word they’d got to say as long as you got to dance with me.”
“Funny that, don’t you think?” Jason asked him, somehow tender and mischievous at the same time. “It’s almost as though I just like you…for you? Not some idea of you that was formed before you’d even settled into your own skin.” Howard smiled, leaning his forehead to Jason’s.
“I love you,” he whispered earnestly. Jason looked at him, his smile still quiet and his eyes still bright; he cupped his face in his hands, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.
“You’re no angel, Howard Donald. I know that – I’m not in this thing blind. I know who you were, once upon a time. And I know the bloke you are now. You’re not perfect. But I don’t think anyone is – that’d be too boring. Besides: I’ve always loved a bit of complicated in my life.”
Jason leant back to look at Howard more clearly then, one hand falling to Howard’s neck, the other touching his chin fondly. For a moment Howard almost forgot how they’d got there, lost inside the intensity of the sensation of Jason’s centre of gravity pulling him in. Jason was always so gentle, so softly spoken; even Howard could forget from time to time what it was like to have the full force of him concentrated on you. He was quiet but he was fierce – there was a steady strength in him which Howard knew better than to underestimate. His other hand fell away from Howard’s face then, coming to rest on his chest; his thumb brushed at the pendent around Howard’s neck, pulling slightly at its cord, and the feeling of it sent a thrill of electricity through Howard’s body. “Let them take their swings, How. It doesn’t matter to me any more now than it did then.”
“Even when one of them’s your own brother?”
“Would you leave me if your brother told you to?”
“God no – but he’d never. If anything he’d rather keep you and scrap me,” Howard said, pulling a face, and Jason laughed, rolling his eyes.
“As if, you two are thick as thieves. But my point still stands. Who knows me better? You or him?”
“Me.”
“And who knows us better?”
“Us.” Jason nodded, eyes dancing, and Howard couldn’t help but smile back at him, defeated and beguiled.
“Look, How: no one gets a vote on whether or not you love me the right way except me. You know that. And you know me. That’s what matters: not what someone from however many years ago says, or what my brother thinks he can read between the lines. Definitely not what my dad decides he can know from seeing how you are at parties or whatever else he’s basing his opinions on these days.” Jason shook his head, exasperated and fond as he looked up at Howard with a sigh. “You’ve loved my flowers and my thorns – my shortcomings and my character flaws and my contradictions and my storms. I know you would never come running in to save the day if I told you I had it under control, and you’ll come through if I tell you I’m in over my head after all. You’ll have my back when I’m not as strong as I thought and you’ll call my bluff when I lie and try to front it out. And contrary to what Justin thinks he knows? I know that it’s not a part of who you are to try and stake some sort of claim on me or my life or my choices – you’re fierce but you’re also far too laid back to fall into playing puppet master, Howard Donald. If you didn’t respect me for who I was standing on my own? Then we wouldn’t be standing together now. I changed direction for you, maybe. But not who I am.” Jason lifted one shoulder in a shrug, briefly glancing away with a shake of his head. “And I respect you for who you are, you know: who you always will be, with or without me. I didn’t marry a wolf to tame him, How,” he said in a whisper.
“Then why take the risk?” Howard asked. Jason looked back at him with an almost-smile on his lips and a hint of wonder in his eyes.
“Because I’m the same. Because from the first day we met I’ve known we’re of the same kind, you and me. Partners in crime, maybe – if you’re willing to mix metaphors.” He shrugged. “Since the day we met you’ve been calling my bluff on all of my mess and my nonsense and my pig-headedness. And dancing with me when we should be worrying about a million other things. You’ve worn me down, built me up, called me out and pulled me in all over again. And you are the only person in my life who knows how to read between the lines I’m saying and stand up and fight my corner when I’m tired of it. Because you know me. And I know you. We’re dancers. And fighters. And wolves. And lovers. And prickly and imperfect as it might be? It’s what we both chose.”
“That’s not what your brother reckons: paperwork and wedding rings and bank accounts, they’re all part of my masterplan of control…all part of a life you swore you were never going to have,” Howard muttered, pulling a face. “And we both not he’s not really wrong: you always swore that wouldn’t be you.”
“I said a lot of things when all I had to base my opinions on was my parents’ mistakes and my dad’s disappearing act, How. I don’t think anyone had ever picked me up on it before ‘til one day at the shop we were talking…I told you how I told myself growing up it had to be my fault somehow, how I promised myself not to run the risk of losing anyone else. And you just rolled your eyes at me and told me to stop being so soft, told me off for being big-headed enough to think that all these problems had to come back on me all the time and reminded me to look at the bigger picture, to put the blame where it really belonged even if that wasn’t the solution which kept the most people happy. You called me out. Not for the last time since we met either.” Jason suppressed a slight smile then, pursing his lips for a moment then licking them, tipping his head to one side in thought. “You know…you said earlier you couldn’t believe you got me to wear a wedding ring-”
“I knew you were listening,” Howard cut in with a self-conscious chuckle, and Jason elbowed him lightly.
“For ten whole seconds, Donald – get over it.” He rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. “The point is that…I don’t wear a wedding ring because I think you have any kind of right over me or my choices, or because I feel like my identity is suddenly tied up solely in in being married to you. It’s not because you own me or control me or dictate who I’ll be when I wake up in the morning. It’s because you know me – because you know me better than anyone else and because that goes both ways. Having this ring on my finger? It doesn’t make me any less who I am – it makes me feel more like who I am, actually. Because it reminds me of the person you see when you see me; it reminds me of all of myself, all of my hopes and screw ups and stories. You know: the midnights and the memories, the secrets and the storms?”
“The flowers and the thorns?”
“Exactly. All of it. Even the parts I don’t like but that I know you still love me for. All of the person I am and the person you let me be. So yeah, I wear the ring. Because it’s a good reminder that I asked someone to stay and they did. And that I promised the same. It helps remind me that even when it’s hard? We both are people who chose to stay – and that’s a part of who I am which I think other people should know too. I’m a person who has found their partner in crime, that person who plays by the exact same rules as them…I’m someone who is always carrying someone else with him, even when it takes work. That’s the person I’ve become since I met you – nothing more sinister, nothing in any way less.” Howard felt his breath catch slightly.
“I suppose it goes without saying that I feel the same way about you?” he asked weakly, his smile watery, and Jason laughed softly, his eyes shining.
“Well that’s a relief,” he joked, and Howard smiled back at him quietly, giving a slight shake of his head.
“I’m a mess,” he pointed out, not sure why he felt the need to argue.
“Pot, kettle,” Jason smirked and Howard laughed shyly, glancing away. “You’re my mess, though. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Oh, it counts for something alright,” Howard murmured, looking back up and smiling as he saw the glint in Jason’s eyes.
“I married you because I want your mistakes and your midnights and your most ridiculous stories. I want to dance with you – if you fall through the door at three in the morning after the worst gig you’ve ever played, or if you end up being the talk of all Manchester and I have to get a pass from security just to get to the booth. If you bite my head off and we argue it out or if you go full-on soppy on me and all I can do is roll my eyes. I want your secrets and I want the taste of your lips. I want your promises and crumpled up sheets and the sound of you complaining it’s too early to be awake every morning.” Jason leant their foreheads together. “I want the way you say ‘ok’ every time I ask you to stay.”
“Greedy.”
“Don’t even think about lying and telling me you don’t want all those things back in return – I know you, Donald. And I know you meant it when you told me you wanted everything I had.”
Howard closed his eyes for a moment, smiling as he felt Jason leaning his weight towards him. He placed his hands on his waist and took a deep breath, digging his fingers into Jason’s skin; he gripped him just tightly enough that he could lean back in the embrace, his back arching slightly. Like they were dancing. Howard looked back into Jason’s eyes with a slow, rough smile, drawing in a breath.
“You always see the truth in me. And the good in me. Even when I don’t. Even when I’m screwing up and saying the wrong thing or telling the wrong joke. And every time you ask me to stay…it’s like suddenly there’s hope for me after all. Is that daft?”
“Actually, I think that’s love,” Jason said with a laugh and Howard laughed too, kissing his forehead.
“Shut up.”
“Oh, you want me to shut up now?”
“No.” Howard shook his head, moving his hands to cup Jason’s face. “Never,” he added in a whisper.
“Deal,” Jason told him softly, his lips twisting into a strange, faraway smile. “You got any other requests?”
“No. Just…can you try and remember, even in my worst moments, that the version of me you see? That’s the person I want to be. That’s the one I’m always shooting for even when I mess it up or go AWOL or career off the rails by shouting at your brother over a phone at midnight. Because I’m kind of scrappy, you know? I duck when I should dive sometimes and I screw it up. But…I’m always trying. I swear I’m always trying, even when it looks like I’m just hungover or grumpy, I’m actually, probably, trying. In fact…it’s those times I’m probably trying the hardest, just…maybe not coping. I come with a history, but I don’t want it to be my whole story anymore.”
“And that’s the part I know that those people in the club who used to whisper when they saw me with you at the bar will never see,” Jason said, before narrowing his eyes playfully and leaning in. “But I do. Because I know you the same way you know me. Remember that, Donald.” Howard laughed, touching his finger to Jason’s chin and pressing a brief kiss to his lips.
“Thank you.”
“It’s what I’m here for.” Jason leant back then, wrapping his arms around Howard’s neck and flashing him a mischievous smirk. “You know your problem? You just overthink things,” he said brightly, his eyes dancing with glee and warmth and affection.
And, just like that, Howard felt something shift; the room was still cast in murky shadows, but the air was lighter. Jason wasn’t whispering any longer – his voice neither low nor rough – and all the tension had gone from their bodies. They were still hanging on to each other, but Howard didn’t think their fingernails were making marks on each other’s skin any longer. The only indentations left were invisible, each with the shape of the other imprinted upon them beneath the surface, faint tattooed lines making out the shapes of memories and promises which would never fade. And Howard knew it might only last until morning came – this peaceful confidence that maybe he didn’t need to ‘deserve’ Jason after all. But he felt so grateful for the lightness of that moment that he laughed, throwing his head back to look up at the ceiling.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just have to be told not to overthink by Jason bloody Orange,” he remarked with a rueful groan, shoving Jason playfully away from him and watching him tumble back against the sofa cushions, laughing.
“Shut up, Donald – let me have my moment,” Jason shot back, aiming a harmless kick at him before reaching up to pull him down on top of him.
“Are you still drunk, Orange?” Howard asked with amused affect as he thudded down against Jason’s body heavily whilst Jason still laughed, face suddenly flushed. Howard brought one hand up to touch his cheek, and Jason wrinkled his nose, leaning up just enough to kiss the side of Howard’s face.
“Oh, shove off – no more than you are,” he said breathlessly, falling back and looking up at Howard with unfocused eyes. His smile was hazy and his cheeks warm, his hair falling in a muss over his face; he was gorgeous and sleepy and unguarded and – yes – perhaps still a little buzzed. Howard felt his heart heave itself up into a somersault as he looked down at him. “What?” Jason asked him then, laughter still in his voice, and Howard smiled at him, shaking his head slightly.
“Nothing. You’re just…something else, you know that?” Jason reached up to touch Howard’s face, his lips quirking into a wry smile.
“Now who’s drunk and rambling?” he asked and Howard stuck his tongue out at him.
“Smart arse.” He paused then leant down and kissed Jason again, and this time Jason deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him closer. Howard surrendered easily this time, smiling into the kiss and letting the weight of his body lean into the embrace as he buried his fingers in Jason’s hair. And outside the rain was still tapping out its staccato beat against the windows, casting dancing shadows across their skin.
***
“So, wait, let me just go over this one more time…because it’s, like…a lot.” Mark let out a laugh, his head falling back as he let out a groan that was only partially in jest. Ashley sat up a little straighter to punctuate her interruption, suddenly all business, narrowing her eyes at him playfully and waving long, elegant fingers at him by way of a ‘hear me out’ gesture as she sat forwards slightly, picking her drink back up, swirling the liquid around in its glass so the ice clinked against the sides.
She had a wild, striking face; her smile was shimmery and her large grey-blue eyes were expressive and unapologetic, everything about her electric, beautiful and bright. She looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine article about New York street style, her hair breezily tousled and an oversized scarf tucked artfully about her neck and shoulders, whilst her make-up was subtle but perfect and there was an appropriate level of sass in every movement she made. She was one of Emma’s closest friends in New York, who often stopped by during the early-evening lull at the bar to gossip, giggle and show off pictures of her pet cat. That evening she had sauntered in as usual, in ripped jeans, a leather jacket and glittery eyeshadow, all ready to launch into the eye-roll-filled tale of her shocking day, when suddenly she had spotted Mark and Jamie at the piano and exclaimed with genuine warmth ‘Oh, you must be the British friends!’, before dashing over to them in order to throw her arms around them in effusive hugs. From there she had proceeded to mine them both for their life stories, unashamedly curious at every turn. There was something about her which Mark clicked with instantly, because she was somehow the person her was trying to be – she was contradictory and at peace with it: bubbly and complicated at the same time, unafraid to still be searching and free to admit she wasn’t always ok. He had found himself talking to her like he’d known her a lifetime, and he was powerless to object when she had insisted he explain exactly why it was he had come to find himself moping around New York. The two of them had drifted across to one of the bar’s quiet corner booths, letting Emma return to her work behind the bar whilst Jamie wandered over to the piano and began to play hazy half-tunes across the keys.
Ashley’s face was the picture of concentration for a moment as she looked away then back at Mark with a knowing smile. “You love this guy, right?” she asked him bluntly, tucking her ash-blonde hair behind her ear and tipping her head, expression almost impish as she met his eyes. “Right?!” Mark squirmed slightly under her determined, knowing stare.
“On some level I’ve probably always loved him, you know? Ever since we met. A different sort of love…but he’s always been someone I wanted to know. Wanted to be around.” Mark shrugged awkwardly, looking down into his glass with a sigh. “Besides, he’s gorgeous, so…” he added then and Ashley smirked.
“Oh, real deep,” she teased, and Mark flashed her a small smile.
“Hey, you wanted the truth – that’s at least part of it,” he pointed out and she laughed, nodding thoughtfully.
“Ok. Ok, I’ll give you that much. But the point is still the same,” she stated carefully. “I’m putting this out there again: you love this guy – in fact, you think you’ve loved him since you met him, on some level or another anyway.”
“So?”
“So?! Mark Owen, you don’t say ‘so?’ to that kind of thing!” she laughed, reaching across to give him a playful smack on the arm. “So you love him! So you two have always had all this musicality thing going on and have known each other a really long time without really properly blowing up ‘til now, so you’ve called him your best friend like twenty times already, so he’s gorgeous and you fancy the hell out of him, so he’s the person you want to tell stuff to, even the really inane every-day stuff that should be super-easy to tell anyone…and apparently hopping over to a whole other continent hasn’t gotten you over him?” she said, smiling despite the exasperation in her tone.
“But I don’t get over things…I’m not built that way. I feel everything forever – even when it hurts,” Mark said dolefully, and Ashley frowned at him, sighing.
“Let me guess, that was a reference to this ‘Rob’ character you used to go out with?” Ashley remarked sharply, arching one perfect eyebrow. “I do get it, you know. Having a relationship end with no closure, maybe still having some feelings somewhere that will probably never go away because, you know, they were your best friend once and you made memories and in-jokes together and nothing ever replaces that. I’ve been there with guys, with school friends, even with family sometimes; relationships change but they don’t go away, and no matter how badly a person hurts you, if they meant something to you? You’re always going to love some part of that person; an old version of them, a night you spent together, a secret they told you…something.” She shrugged. “But from everything you’ve told me, it sounds a lot like you feel way more than that for Gary, you know? I mean…with the Rob thing, it sounds like you love the person he used to be, and were hurt by the person he became. Gary though…you adore the person he’s become, you love him in that forever kinda way that people dream about. It’s the person he used to be that’s scaring you off. And that’s not fair. Not when you’re every bit as scared of the person you used to be too.”
Mark winced and looked away, closing his eyes for a beat. And then he felt Ashley lay a gentle hand on his arm. “Hey, babe: no one’s judging, ok?” she said softly. “Trust me, I’m the last person with room to talk, you know? I’ve been headstrong and crazy and made bad choices – I’ve been there, a lot of times. But the people who really love us? They don’t judge. Because they know you’ve seen all their screw ups too – been there for their worst lies, their worst mistakes, firestorms, earthquakes, the whole nine yards…and you’re still there.” She smiled. “Level playing field, you know? I think that’s the secret.”
“All in,” Mark half murmured, his lips quirking slightly as he thought of Howard and Jason. Ashely waved her hand vaguely, her smile suddenly softening and turning sad.
“Listen, I don’t know much about anything in your life. But I know about the people in my life who matter – and that’s always the way it goes. And for all that I may have gotten mine broken? I still know hearts – I know they have a wild capacity for forgiveness when someone they love is involved. Trust me. I’ve been there.”
“You make it sound like that didn’t work out so well for you though,” Mark said quietly, studying her sharp-edged face; she was all winged-eyeliner and quick comebacks on the surface, but in that moment Mark realised she was just as fragile as any other human. It was a predicament he understood – being full of contradiction and never knowing for sure when it was ok to switch sides. Ashley flashed him a knowing smile.
“It hasn’t always. But I’m a big believer in keeping the faith. I’m stubborn like that,” she said, eyes glimmering slightly. Mark smiled back at her, nodding thoughtfully.
“I’ve got a couple of mates like that. Me? I’ve always been more of a pushover,” he admitted, pulling a face and taking a long sip of his drink. “I don’t get why everything has to be such a fight all the time, you know? I think sometimes you should just be able to have the good stuff.”
“But without the hard part, how exactly are we supposed to put all that good stuff into perspective and really appreciate it?”
“Should part of the hard part really be someone who is supposed to love you looking you in the face and calling you a liar though?” Mark challenged and Ashley smiled at him in mild amusement, rolling her eyes and tipping her head back.
“Ok, fair point. But as I’ve already told you: you’ve come to a whole new country and you’re still not ready to let him go…so my question would be…how convinced are you exactly that you’re not already on the road to forgiveness?”
Mark considered it for a moment, allowing himself, just for a moment, to tentatively let in some of the feelings he’d been attempting to ignore; the love, the forgiveness, the homesickness. Ashley’s words had got to him, but he didn’t want them to – for once he didn’t want to be a pushover, he wanted to be stubborn and strong and wilful, like Jason and Howard. Being a pushover with Robbie had caused him nothing but pain, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake with Gary, didn’t want to open himself up to that kind of tumult again. Maybe Ashley was right – maybe he didn’t love the person Gary had been, but what if that was the person he was turning back into? At least Robbie had had the excuse of the drugs and the alcohol, but what was Gary’s excuse?
“The love…like I said, you know – with me? It won’t go away. It’s never going to. I know that no matter what. But that makes it harder for me to tell if it’s going to be enough. I mean…it doesn’t make the other stuff go away. The doubts, the secrets, the harsh words. It’s not fixed. It doesn’t make any of this any easier – it just makes harder and harder ‘til I can’t even see the wood for the trees.” Ashley laughed – not unkindly – and rolled her eyes.
“Definitely, absolutely true,” she agreed emphatically, grinning brightly and making Mark chuckle. She beamed at him, her smile twinkling and mischievous. “But…” she added then, pursing her glossy lips for a moment as if in thought, tilting her head to one side. “It is a starting point,” she said, looking at him with eyebrows raised, curious and expectant.
“Is it?” Mark asked and Ashley smirked.
“You know, I know nothing about successful relationships – I’m just warning you, I mean, my longest and most profound relationship is with my cat…followed closely by my outrageously annoying, brilliant, crazy-gay BFF who wouldn’t agree to marry me if you paid him…so, yeah, there’s that. But one thing I do know for sure is that humans screw up. It’s what we do. Nobody’s perfect and no love story works out like in the fairytales. Not exactly anyway. There’s a lot of ugly stuff that comes out when you are completely yourself with someone – a lot of stuff they don’t show you in the movies.” Ashley’s smirk was devilish, but there was something genuine in her tone that made Mark smile.
“But how ugly do you go? Where do you draw the line between being human and being…not the one for you? I mean are we talking ugly like I don’t like how loud he is first thing in the morning or ugly like the big stuff, like this mess right now?”
“If he doesn’t say sorry, doesn’t see your point of view? Dump him. If he does it all over again or makes anything feel like your fault when it’s absolutely not? Dump him. If he hurts you and knows he’s doing it? Dump him. But…if he apologizes, and admits to you he’s kind of a disaster…I think you’re pretty much required to give him another chance on that one. I mean…you’re kind of a disaster too, right? And if that wasn’t something people in relationships could work around then we’d all be screwed – this world is built on second chances if you ask me.”
“You’ve known me for an hour!” Mark protested with a soft laugh and Ashley shrugged.
“An informative hour,” she grinned. “And anyway, I’m like the most unbiased observer you’re going to get with this, because Em over there has known you since you were both kids and she’s known this Gary character actually in the flesh rather than through a grainy picture on a cellphone screen – although, FYI? Even a grainy cellphone picture is enough for me to know your friend Howard is hot so, you know, if he comes to New York ever then please feel free to let me know and I will happily show him around,” she added, wagging her finger at him impishly and flicking her hair out of her face with a bright laugh. Mark smiled slightly, shaking his head; Ashley actually reminded him of Howard a lot, something about the rough edges and honesty of her.
Ashley shifted in her seat then, laying her hand on his arm once again and leaning forward in order to better meet his eyes. “Look, I’m not saying take my advice, ok? Like I said: I’m single over here, so what do I know? But…looking at everything you’ve told me, about the two of you and your big fight and how miserable you’ve been in New York – New York, for God’s sakes! I mean this place is amazing! – I’m just saying that maybe you need to swallow your pride, admit that you stormed out pretty quick back there – because, admittedly, he was behaving like a dick – and just…agree you need to work on things. Like sharing your secrets more, or, you know, just admitting you’re not perfect all the time. And when you’re both on a level playing field, admitting all the back and forth and owning the mistakes, that’s when you can talk it out and see where that leaves you.”
Mark nodded slowly, looking away for a moment and biting on his lip in an effort to keep a handle on his emotions.
“But what’s there left to say?” he asked at last, his voice small and cracked. He flicked a look up at Ashley, nervous and hopeful and devastated all at once. “We’ve said it all, Gaz and me…I’ve known Gary Barlow long enough to know everything he could possibly say to me and I don’t know if any of it could make it better, you know? I don’t know how to get past things that are part of who we are.”
“Oh, come on,” Ashley scoffed, taking a sip of her drink. “Seriously? You don’t think there’s anything he could say that could at least put all this in perspective?”
“We talk around in circles him and me – we could make whole albums out of all of the miles of words we’ve spoken.”
“But isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t music you guys’ language?”
“But it doesn’t get us anywhere when there’s no melody. And when there is…we don’t take it in because it’s ‘just a song’ and we treat it like it probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“And you’re sure that in all of those miles of words you’ve spoken and all of those hours of songs you’ve written, there’s nothing that ever didn’t make the final cut? No lines that got away just waiting to be spoken out loud for the first time?”
“I don’t know…I’m pretty sure we’ve spoken them too, you know? You know, in the in-betweens and the silences. And those are almost worse than the words. When I think about going home and talking it out, I just picture myself standing there with nothing to say: just this silence going on for days and days, staring into space, nothing to say that actually…matters, not anymore. I think we’ve heard enough: shouting at each other across our kitchen table until there’s nothing left to break that’s not already broken, nothing to say that’s not been spoken…all that hurt just out in the open is all that’s left to show of the two of us being together and even the tears are gone because it’s just empty. The whole thing makes me feel empty now: not angry, not sad. All that’s left is knowing I miss him, I love him…but that he didn’t even seem to know me at all.” Mark closed his mouth abruptly, looking up at Ashely in slight surprise that he’d said so much. She quirked her lips up at one corner and arched an eyebrow.
“You’re literally writing a song about it right now, you’ve noticed that, right?” she said softly. Mark shrugged.
“It’s sort of how I process my life.”
“Ah, you see: you just said it right there,” Ashely shot back quickly, sitting up a little and pointing a perfectly manicured finger at him, eyes narrowed and sparkling.
“Said what?” Mark frowned. Ashley’s smile softened and she sat back with a breezy shrug.
“Processing,” she replied. “You’ve already started the song in your head, which means you’ve already started processing what happened…which means you’re at least three quarters of the way to figuring out exactly how you feel about all this, even if you don’t quite realise it yet.”
Ashley stared him down for a moment with her glinty eyes. She was worrying at one of her plump, glossy lips, still swishing her drink around absently. “Ok, once more with feeling,” she sighed, playfully exasperated, and Mark let out a small, confused laugh, sitting back and looking at her expectantly.
“Go for it,” he sighed, resigned and vaguely amused. Ashley smiled like she knew she’d won and he rolled his eyes at her, surprised at how much affection he felt for this girl who’d barely known him for more than a few hours.
“Ok, so in the last two minutes you’ve told me the only thing you have left to say to him is that you love him – you didn’t say that in so many words exactly but I read between the lines and it was definitely there, trust me-”
“I didn’t-” Ashely held up a finger to cut him off and Mark blinked, bewildered, glancing over towards the bar, where Emma had paused in her work in order to eavesdrop, an amused, knowing smile on her face as she flicked a look up at him and arched an eyebrow.
“Ok, so I’m kind of paraphrasing, and maybe ad-libbing a bit. But I heard what I heard and you know it’s true,” Ashley conceded, pulling a face before setting down her drink and placing her palms flat on the table, looking Mark solemnly in the eye. “But consider this: you still love him, you both find it hard to deal without hiding behind your songs…maybe you both are partly to blame for what happened?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe – maybe – it might seem like you have nothing left to say. But what if you started over. Back to basics. Like…an ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I love you’ or…maybe even just ‘You’re my person. Let’s start over. Let’s talk. Let’s be us and see where it goes’? I mean…you obviously both had a hand in making things get to that place, right? You both have to have had a hand in things getting so bad you feel like there’s nothing left to say to redeem things. So you’re still equals here; like nothing ever happened, like you’re both still standing at the start of something trying to figure each other out. Only the difference from being at the very, very start? You already know you love him.”
For a moment, Mark found himself being stared down – with playful intensity – by an almost-complete-stranger and, surprisingly, it helped. Ashley had known him for less time than Gary – less than Jason or Howard or Jamie, certainly less than Emma. But she had seen him, all of him, even the bits he usually made more of an effort to hide. And somehow, in all the back-and-forth of confessions, jokes and anecdotes, Ashely had heard him. And that alone made it seem more possible that Gary – who had known him so much longer, so much more closely – might have seen more, noticed more, than he had let on in the heat of anger and under the influence of nostalgia and a not-so-good old friend.
Mark opened his mouth, about to protest, then closed it again and slumped slightly, frowning to himself and looking down into his drink thoughtfully. “Ha – can’t think of a good answer back!” Ashley exclaimed, delighted. “See, Em: I told you I could be trusted with your friends,” Ashley added brightly, turning to look over at the bar with a cheeky wink. Emma was about shoot back a retort when the chime of Ashley’s phone cut into the room and she fished it out of her bag. “Crap,” she muttered as she looked at the text she had just received and hastily began to tap out a reply. She glanced back up at Mark apologetically, pulling a face. “I was supposed to meet my BFF Adam like ten minutes ago – if I stand him up, he will make my life hell for the next week so…I kinda need to get going,” she sighed. “Promise to keep in touch?” she asked Mark before quickly looking back over at Emma. “Em, make sure he tells me how all this pans out, ok? Because I’m going to need to know how this story ends so badly it’s not even funny,” she said firmly, grabbing up her jacket and sliding out of the booth. She stood and paused, looking back over at Mark with a soft, kind smile. “Seriously though: good luck, ok? I hope you figure it out,” she said gently, bending to press a quick kiss to his cheek and giving his arm a squeeze.
“Oh, I think he will,” Emma said quietly, and Mark looked up at the two women curiously as they conducted some sort of silent conversation with their eyes that ended with Emma rolling her eyes and leaning conspiratorially towards her friend. “I’ll text you later,” she said in a low whisper and Ashley raised her eyebrows, clearly intrigued, glancing back at Mark one last time before nodding slowly.
“Ok, well, providing Adam hasn’t murdered me for keeping him waiting? Then I will definitely be expecting word soon,” she warned Emma playfully, and, with a flurry of goodbyes and blown kisses, she left the bar.
The room seemed to fall into a sudden stillness without Ashley in it, kicking up the dust with her sparks-flying smiles. Mark’s shoulders sagged a little in response; he hadn’t realised it, but he had been feeding off of her electricity, and now she was gone he was becoming painfully aware that his own tank was actually empty. The bar was quiet but for the soft, meandering tune which Jamie was absent-mindedly playing, and the air was heavy and warm. Suddenly Mark realised how tired he felt – or rather, how homesick he felt. He missed the unique blue-grey of a Manchester rain-shower on a breezy summer day, the sound of damp tarmac and trams and Jason and Howard bickering and Gary making tea. The stuffy, dusty afternoon heat of the shop and the orange glow of the streetlamp through the gap in the bedroom curtains. The smell of hot chocolate in Jason’s kitchen at midnight and the soft, mumbling sound of Northern accents mingling as they all talked over each other in their favourite booth at The Rose And Crown. And…and…and…he squeezed his eyes shut and shook the feeling off, not wanting to be reminded of how much of his life was tied up in a world he had built with Gary by his side, his best friend for so long now it was hard to think about his life in any other terms than Before Gary and After Gary.
“Did I do the wrong thing? Letting Ash have at you all evening?” Emma asked him quietly, breaking into his thoughts. She was leaning on the bar and biting guiltily at her lip, studying him with open concern. And seeing her kind, caring face made the homesickness abate a little – he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed her until he’d come here, and maybe at least some of his sadness was simply nostalgia for the time when she had been in the same time-zone as him every week, always just a couple of bus rides away whenever he needed a friendly face, a kind word and a cuddle. Jason and Howard were brilliant mates to have – they were his lifeline. But Emma was his peace, his comfort-blanket. His oldest friend. He gave her a sleepy, lopsided smile.
“Don’t be daft, Em – you could never do the wrong thing for me,” he assured her softly. “And Ashley’s been great, actually. A good antidote to all my moping. I mean…she’s funny and direct and honest. She’s got that brutal-kind thing about her…kind of reminds me of Howard, you know? When he lets his guard down and he lets go it’s always open mouth first, ask questions later. Them pair would get on.” Emma laughed.
“Do me a favour and don’t say that anywhere near Ash for me though? Because then she might actually make me introduce the two of them and I don’t think Jay would ever forgive me,” she said, grimacing slightly and leaning against the bar with a sigh. “In fact, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself if I split those two up: they’re like my favourite rom-com come to life,” she added then, smiling softly and resting her chin on her hand. Mark laughed slightly, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, come on, though, Em: we both know Jay doesn’t have anything to worry about on that score,” he pointed out, his smile turning fond but distant as he leant back in his seat. “I think maybe that’s the whole romance of Jay and Howard: the man who worries about everything finding someone who makes him feel like he can have a little peace of mind in at least one part of his life.” He glanced down at his hands. “It’s funny when you think about it: them two finding this big romance when they don’t even really believe in romanticising anything…and then there’s me and Gaz. Hopeless romantics who can’t make it through the smallest storm.”
“Don’t say that, babe,” Emma said gently. “You don’t know that yet – you don’t know that you won’t make it through this, not until you go back and talk this out with him.” She tilted her head, trying to get him to look up at her. “You know, I doubt every day is a fairytale in Howard and Jason’s world, in fact, I’m willing to bet they wouldn’t want it to be. I know after Rob…because you loved him so much and it wasn’t enough, you decided that the only way to ever be sure was to find something that was all blue skies and summer days. But the real world doesn’t work like that – you should know, babe: you live in Manchester.” Emma arched an eyebrow and Mark smiled slightly, pretending to shoot her a glare. She smirked and shook her head. “Had it ever occurred to you that maybe Howard and Jay survive life better because they actually acknowledge that bad stuff happens? You can’t prepare for everything. But you can at least accept that not all plans work out the way you think they will – and that’s not always a bad thing.”
When Mark didn’t meet her gaze, Emma sighed and pushed herself up, coming out from behind the bar and sliding into the booth opposite him. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye – sad and cautious – and she offered him a small smile, reaching across the table to put her hand on top of his. “You two are best friends with a lot of shared history, and that makes it easy to forget you were different people before. Maybe that’s part of your problem: you met at a time when you were both so desperate to start afresh. But now? You’re at a point where the only things holding you back are the things you were both running away from back then. You act like you’re still snagged on those thorns, but really? You’re both just holding onto them for dear life. And they’re hurting you both because you just keep squeezing onto them tighter. But just look at Jay – look at Howard. They’re covered head to toe in mud and scratches and raindrops and every type of bruise. But they’re still moving forward. Proof that even the thorniest past? Isn’t as tangled around you as you might think.” Emma gave his hand a small squeeze and he finally looked her in the eye, realising his own eyes were watering but finally not caring to try and pretend he was ok. Emma gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You look up to Howard and Jay so much, put so much stock in their ‘perfect’ relationship? Well then take their advice. Establish once and for all that you two are both looking for the same things in life, that you’re both pulling in the same direction. And make sure you’re not both in it just to run from your pasts. Look forward. Let go. Listen to each other. And while you’re at it? Take Ashley’s advice too. Forgive when give the opportunity to – I’ve heard it helps with the moving forwards thing sometimes, you know?” Mark offered her a watery smile and a small nod, sniffling slightly.
“Thanks, Em,” he whispered huskily and she flashed him a wink.
“No problem. And hey, don’t forget: I’m living proof that you can know every version of Mark Owen from the age of eight and still love him for all of it and more. Don’t doubt that so much. Give people a chance to remind you that your skin – cut up and bruised as it might be – is all yours and it fits you perfectly.”
Emma patted Mark’s hand and then slid out from the booth, pushing herself up and cutting across to the piano to whisper something in Jamie’s ear. Mark hardly noticed the two of them glance back at him then cross over to the opposite side of the bar. He was too lost in his thoughts – finally letting some of the many words people had been saying to him over the past days actually sink in. Emma and Jason and Howard and Ashley: they all made it sound so simple. But Mark had spent a long time trying to be someone – something – that he felt made sense. The frightening possibility that he was a person who didn’t make sense, a creature of contradiction and empty spaces, of hope and stars and midnights and music (so much music) was becoming more and more real to him. He was something which couldn’t be neatly boxed off into any one category – he was riddled with cuts and bruises and the only-semi-faded tattoos of past hopes and past heartbreaks and his skin, damaged as it was, never quite seemed to fit. It shrank and grew and shifted over him, changing for the moment, for the people he was around, for the story he wanted to be part of at any given time. But happy endings were made of neat edges, not his own book’s tatty corners. Or were they? Howard had told him once that he had never felt like he’d fit in his own skin properly until he met Jason, when he’d realised that, rough and ready as it might be, it was fit for purpose after all – and even though Mark wasn’t sure of all of the ins and outs of it, Mark also knew Howard had a past he wasn’t proud of. Both Howard and Jason’s pages were crinkled and torn and faded – but the story they told was the closest thing real life had to a fairytale, at least in Mark’s eyes.
Mark wasn’t sure what made him look up when he caught the movement in the periphery of his vision – it wasn’t as if he was in the mood for forcing smiles at strangers. But as he slowly blinked his tired, unfocused eyes, he realised he recognised the outline of the figure which had appeared in the bar’s low, dingy doorway. It took a moment for the message to reach his brain, and for a minute he stared in mute stillness, his bones suddenly feeling heavy and his head feeling full of cloud. Mark blinked again, and when he reopened his eyes the signal finally started to come through. He took in the pale, jet-lagged complexion and the crumpled clothes, the anxious, sleep-deprived eyes. Gary Barlow.
Mark sat up a little, and that was when Gary finally spotted him, his lips parting just slightly, his taut, solemn expression shifting into something which was somehow hopeful and hopeless at the same time. He was rubbing his hands together and shifting from foot to foot, but as their eyes met he stilled, his forehead creasing just slightly, and his expression became more open, plaintive and wounded. His jacket was spattered with raindrops, his hair flattened against his head, and as he looked at him Mark felt something inside him begin to shift; the sensation was almost physical, like something grazing the inside of his ribcage. He took in a shuddery breath and Gary attempted a smile at him, though it missed the broad shape of his usual beams, coming out tight-lipped and watery. Mark felt his own lips twitch, though what expression they formed he couldn’t be sure – he felt like he was underwater and even the slightest movement was suddenly an effort.
Mark watched, unmoving, as Gary took a tentative step forwards, crossing the room with a peculiar mix of caution and determination, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets and clearing his throat apprehensively. Mark swallowed, his throat suddenly raspy and dry.
“Would it be ok it you and me talked?” Gary asked him in a low, quiet voice. Mark opened his mouth and then closed it again, glancing behind him and realising for the first time that Emma and Jamie had disappeared, leaving him and Gary alone in the now-empty bar. He looked back up at Gary slowly, uncertain and trying desperately not to show it, then wet his lips gave the smallest shake of his head.
“Is there even anything left to talk about?” he asked, his voice smaller and more uncertain than he had hoped for it to sound. Gary offered him a wan, sad smile, glancing down at his feet with a heavy sigh.
“More than I thought there was, as it turned out,” he murmured, looking back up at Mark from the corner of his eye. He held Gary’s gaze for a moment, his eyes wide and nervous as he looked up at him, chewing absently on his bottom lip. Staring up into Gary’s face – his brow furrowed and his brilliant blue eyes so solemn and intense – he found himself closer to clarity than he had felt in a long time. In that moment, a memory drifted back to him of something Jason had said once in an unguarded moment during one of their late-night talks over hot chocolate, after Howard and Gary had already fallen asleep beside them in their seats: “You have to keep some control over your own destiny sometimes though, to stop from going insane: maybe you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with or when. But you have to consciously choose to stay. You have to always be choosing to still be in love with them – that’s what makes it important. It’s something which is capable of changing, but they don’t want it to. They choose to seek you out, not because they don’t have a choice – but because they have every choice in the world and they don’t care to take any of them except you.
“Mark-” Gary said hesitantly, cutting himself off when he saw Mark jump slightly as the sound shook him from his thoughts. He blinked a couple of times, trying to readjust his eyes, and when he looked back up at Gary he found he saw him slightly differently somehow, trying to readjust the picture of him standing there in light of Jason’s words. He drew in a shaky breath; Gary had made his choice by being here, and that meant it was time for him to work out if he was ready to make a choice of his own. “Even it doesn’t change anything, can I talk anyway? Just…at least to apologize?” Gary asked him slowly, and Mark felt a pang of homesickness wash over him again at the low, Northern rumble of his voice. He nodded, glancing down, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Have you apologized to Jay yet?” he ventured tentatively. Gary looked down at the floor, nodding his head vaguely and shuffling his feet.
“I did, actually. And after Howard gave me a well-deserve ear-bashing…we cleared the air. And the two of them actually reminded me that being a drama queen and moping at home all day was going to get me nowhere…and that I should be grateful that I at least knew I still had a chance to apologize, even if it meant running the risk of this – of us – being officially over for good.” Mark looked up at him, frowning slightly, curious, and Gary gave a small, uncomfortable shrug. “I think a part of me was hoping if I just kept my head down and didn’t talk to anyone, then it wouldn’t hurt if you told me you couldn’t forgive me. Howard pointed out that unanswered questions have never solved anything…and that sometimes you have to fight for the things that matter to you because-”
“It’s part of how you know they matter,” Mark finished for him softly, giving him a tight smile. “Yeah. I’ve had a few people telling me that too lately.” Gary smiled back at him, nodding.
“Yeah. Yeah, it was something along those lines,” he said quietly. “Would it be ok if I…” he trailed off, pointing to the seat across from Mark, and Mark shrugged, watching silently as Gary slid into the booth opposite him.
“You’re soaked,” he remarked as Gary sat down and pressed his palms flat against the seat.
“Mood weather,” Gary said with a slight chuckle, giving an awkward little jerk of his chin by way of acknowledgement.
“What?” Mark frowned.
“Oh, sorry…just something Howard said when we were driving to the airport. It was chucking it down the whole way and he said how he didn’t mind because the rain was the only weather you could count on to fit your mood at any given time. Something about how water covers all the extremes – it can cleanse and it can ruin, nourish and destroy…”
“Carry home or drown?” Mark suggested and Gary looked up from the table then, a small smile on his lips.
“Yeah. Those too,” he murmured.
The two men stared at each other for a moment, taking in each other’s faces, their expressions guarded. Mark was the first to look away, glancing up at the ceiling and taking a steadying breath.
“Why are you here, Barlow?” he asked quietly, giving a small shake of his head. “Why have you come half way round the world just to come and talk round in circles with me?”
“What makes you think we’re going to talk in circles?”
“Because it’s what we do, isn’t it? The two of us. We talk but it never gets us anywhere. There’s too many doors we don’t want to open, too many questions we don’t want asking.”
“But what if we made a promise to each other, right here and now? What if we made the choice to lay down some new ground rules between the two of us; like, not holding each other to such impossibly high standards anymore?” Mark looked down at his hands, shaking his head again.
“I don’t know…”
“Mark…I am so sorry for all those things I said. I’m sorry for doubting you and I’m sorry for not just telling you the whole story before Nigel even showed up again never mind after…” Gary huffed out a breath and rubbed his hands over his face. “I understand why you might not ever forgive me, but if you do decide you can’t forgive me…I at least want you to do it knowing that I’ve regretted every moment of it since the second the door closed behind you that night. If it’s something you can’t get past then…you’re more than within your rights. But please, you just have to know how sorry I am. You have to know how much I love you – how much I believe in you and the unbelievable goodness of your soul.” Gary faltered then, his forehead creasing into a stormy frown and he closed his eyes for a beat. And Mark felt something in his chest ease slightly. He reached out a hand and placed it over Gary’s, and Gary opened his eyes immediately, looking back at him, curious and uncertain.
“I know,” Mark whispered, firm and steady, and Gary offered him a tiny nod of gratitude before Mark carefully withdrew his hand and sat back a little.
They both fell silent again, unable to look at each other. Gary looked down at his clasped hands and Mark stared blankly at the display of bottles behind the bar, his eyes unfocused and his head full of static.
“Markie, I…” Gary blew out a breath and let out a humourless laugh. “I know it doesn’t justify anything or make it right but…I didn’t say those things or act that way because that’s the person I want to be, because that’s really the way I see my life going. I might not have told you all my stories, but everything I told you about who I am and what I want in life…I wasn’t lying.” Mark looked at Gary sceptically, and when their eyes met he saw the wince of pain which crossed Gary’s face. “That side of me – the side from the old days, the side Nigel brought out…you knew it was there, you know? On some level – you must’ve done because you’ve seen me blunder like that before, like with Jay and Howard’s wedding for a start. I’ve never tried to pretend that I’m not driven and ambitious and single-minded sometimes…I’ve never tried to pretend that I’m not bothered about success and I’ve definitely never hid what music means to me from you. The part I didn’t tell you was…the part where I never stopped wondering. The part about me always feeling like maybe I’d lost something when I walked away from the band, and maybe I’d even stopped trying to find it. The part where I was willing to go against my own moral compass sometimes just for a shot.” Gary pulled a face. “God, I know it’s pathetic I just…I’ve spent a lot of my life assuming I was meant for something bigger than what I was doing. And Nigel played right into it – talking about record deals and song rights, acting like what the four of us had achieved together was pathetic and that I was letting myself get held back. It played on all my fears about myself whilst giving me other people to blame – people other than me. It was a way out and I took it far too easily.” He shrugged. “Hearing from Nigel again…it brought up a lot of memories, of being so sure I was ‘on the path’, of him being this big supporter of my talent and my hard work. I felt like that kid again, who actually believed Nigel wanted what was best for me and not just what was best for himself. The kid who didn’t really think there was anything more important than the music. I got carried away and I let him get in my head. I forgot that Nigel’s price was one that I’d grown out of: the price of going it alone with nothing but scorched earth behind me. That’s not who I am anymore though, not deep down. And that’s what I’ve come to realise since you walked out, Marko. I’m not that bloke anymore. Somewhere along the way I grew up…and I realised that, even more than making some good music? I’d made some bloody brilliant friends. And that was what I was more scared of losing – not the old dreams of that driven, selfish kid I used to be.”
When Gary finally lifted his eyes back up to meet Mark’s, he flashed him a wry, gentle smile; the shadow was somewhat lifted from his face, his eyes a little brighter and his expression more open, like a weight was gone from him not he’d admitted his flaws. There was something more settled about him, Mark realised – not just more settled than when he’d come in the door, but more settled than he’d seen him in a long time, maybe more settled than ever. And as he took it in, he realised the admission had a similar effect on him too. It was strangely comforting to realise that Gary wasn’t so perfect after all, that maybe they were more alike in that way than he had ever realised before. He worried at his bottom lip and took a deep breath.
“Gaz…I want that to just make it ok. And it…it does go a long way, you know? I know that you don’t want to go down that road any more. But…” Mark raked a hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling in an effort to stop the tears which were prickling the backs of his eyes from falling. “Talking to Jay, I think I’ve sort of got a hold of how this bloke operates – Nigel, I mean. And it’s not that he just pulls stuff out of thin air and gets in your head with it. He finds a weakness that’s already there and he uses it as his opening: like with Jay he used the doubts that were already in his head because of the way things were between him and his dad. So…all those things you told me, all that stuff you were accusing me of…” He let the words hang there, lowering his gaze back to Gary and staring across at him with glassy eyes – his expression pleading, some part of him desperate for Gary to tell him he was wrong. But Gary simply gave him a sad, apologetic half-smile, glancing down.
“All of those accusations must have come from somewhere. I must have already been doubting you,” he finished for Mark, leaning back and closing his eyes for a moment, giving a slight shake of his head. “I’ve always been in awe of you, Marko. I’ve always been so life-within-the-limits; even with my music I’ve always found it difficult to really push outside of what I know. But you: you’re full of comets and dreams and lost worlds. You’re wild and…sometimes that does scare me. Not because I don’t love that about you, but because…I don’t have that inside of me, and I never will. It scares me that I might not be enough. Not for you and not for my music.”
“Gaz,” Mark breathed out, hardly aware he was saying the word out loud until Gary looked at him, curious and hopeful. “You’re so much more than boring or straight-laced or within-the-lines, you know? You’re our anchor, the backbone of everything we do. And I need that sometimes or I get lost – sometimes it gets too much to never know your own limits. Sometimes it’s the best thing in the world to look over at someone beside you and have them tell you ‘enough’.”
The two of them stared across the table at each other in an almost electric silence, each studying the other’s face in a subtly different light to before. Mark was suddenly hyper-aware of the quietness of the bar, the near-eerie stillness which had settled over the space – a peace which was incongruous in the middle of the bustle of New York.
“It’s amazing what actually talking about stuff can do,” Gary murmured, his smile rueful, and Mark let out a small, nervous laugh.
“Does this mean we have to tell Howard and Jay they were right all along?” he replied, pulling a face and coaxing a slight chuckle out of Gary, who nodded slowly, his eyes turning down to the table.
“So…” he said, his expression fading into a frown.
“So…” Mark echoed, suddenly aware of how tight his lungs felt and how quickly his heart was beating. Gary looked back up at him for a long moment, his blue eyes unreadable and sharp, before carefully he reached across the table and took one of Mark’s hands in his own, leaning in to press a kiss to the back of it. When he sat back again he kept hold of Mark’s hand loosely, his eyes not leaving Mark’s as a thin, pink half-smile came to his lips.
“Surely we must be in sight…”
of that dream we long to live…” Gary’s singing was so gentle and warm that somehow it didn’t disturb the thick calm that had settled around to them, instead seeming to add to it, and Mark felt a smile coming to his own lips as Gary raised his eyebrows at him slightly, hopeful and inviting and mischievous all at once. “If you stop and close your eyes,
you’ll picture me inside.
I’m so cold and all alone.” Mark tried to keep himself from grinning and failed, letting out an affectionate laugh and shaking his head, looking up at the ceiling for a moment then back to Gary, his cheeks hot.
“Are you seriously writing a song right now? After all this?” he asked, still grinning despite himself, and Gary chuckled, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug.
“It’s one I’ve been working on for a few days now actually…but the pieces of it fit together a lot better when I’m looking at your beautiful face,” he murmured. Mark looked away, somewhat shyly, then glanced back up at Gary slowly, narrowing his eyes.
“Go on then,” he challenged and Gary laughed.
“Go on?” he said, quirking his eyebrows in a show of temerity that no longer convinced. Mark grinned and nodded.
“Go for it.”
“All I do each night is pray,
hoping that I’ll be a part of you again someday.
All I do each night is think,
of all the times I’ve closed the door to keep my love within…” Gary began to sing, eyes glinting, and Mark had to swallow hard to keep his smile from running wild. At the same time, he could feel tears prickling his eyes – overwhelmed and giddy, confused and hopeful, anxious and gleeful, lost and found and in love. Gary brushed his thumb tenderly – understandingly – across the back of Mark’s hand. “When the time drew near for me to show my love,
the longer I stayed away for.
Hiding from a word I need to hear now,
don't think I'll hear it again.
But the nights were always warm with you,
holding you right by my side.
But the morning always comes to soon,
before I even close my eyes.”
“But where’s this going, Gaz? You and me and the music and the relationship and all the stories? What are we doing jumping into this again?” Mark interrupted, his voice a near-groan even as he smiled despite himself. Gary didn’t miss a beat.
“If you can't forgive the past I'll understand that,
can't understand why I did this to you.
And all of the days and the nights, I'll regret it;
I never showed you my love,” he sang, gentle and lilting, and Mark rolled his eyes fondly.
“This isn’t talking,” he pointed out and Gary pulled a face.
“But maybe this is part of our version of it – our way of putting things into words without putting our feet in it?” he suggested gently. Mark’s lips twisted up at one corner as he considered it – after all, Ashley had suggested as much too – and Gary tipped forward just slightly, dipping his head so their eyes were level. “Maybe that’s our way forward, the best way we have of being honest with each other, you know?”
“You’re talking about moving forward like we actually ever go – but ask yourself honestly, Barlow…how far have we even come? Are we moving at all or are we just going to stay put forever, hoping that the happy ending will materialise somehow if we just don’t rock the boat too much?”
Gary was quiet for a long time after that, and at first Mark worried that maybe he’d ruined it, maybe he’d presented the one problem there was no answer to. He was indecisive and turbulent, but he relied on Gary to balance that side of him, to pull him in when all his edges wanted to do was bleed out: he hadn’t asked the question to tell Gary he didn’t want him back, he’d asked it to prove how badly he needed him back. Gary gave his hand a tiny squeeze and Mark let himself breathe out slowly, still watching Gary’s face with apprehension and hope.
“I’ve been thinking about it too, you know – for most of the flight here, to be honest,” Gary said slowly at last, his eyes still downturned and his forehead creased in concentration. “It’s funny how scared I was of standing still – with my music, with us, with life as a whole. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more it’s started to occur to me that the staying still doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Not if you’re happy. Sometimes you can stay still and move forward at the same time, you know? You grow where you’ve been planted. In fact…sometimes I reckon it’s the staying that takes the most willpower. Sometimes, I think you need to realise that the promise to stay, to love someone always…is far more of a choice than always tearing forwards, grasping at shadows.” Mark felt a tiny smile twitch at the corner of his lips.
“It’s not about not having a choice – it’s about having every choice in the world and still choosing to stay,” he half-whispered, shaking his head slightly, eyes shining.
“You sound like Jay,” Gary smiled and Mark let out a laugh, the sound catching in his throat.
“There’s a reason for that: Jay told me, a long time ago. I guess I wasn’t listening closely enough the first time round though,” he admitted ruefully, pulling a face and looking down at the table with a sigh. Gary chuckled and gave his hand another squeeze.
“He’s right though…about the staying. About the decision to love someone forever. It’s not easy always…but there’s more reward in it than a ‘happily ever after’. Because you know the effort that’s gone into that promise, that choice…” Gary leant in, pressing another kiss to the back of Mark’s hand and dipping his head to meet his eyes again. “I know that none of this – none of what got us here, to this moment – was conducive to a proposal…but, I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve decided I can’t not ask. So this is the truth, Marko, the most important thing I need you need to know about how I see you and us and our way forward. I would like, very much to marry you. And I really hope you would like to marry me too. So…would it be alright with you if maybe…we got married? Not despite everything but…but maybe because of it?”
Mark blinked, staring blankly into Gary’s for a beat before letting out a small, strangled laugh. He opened his mouth then closed it again, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling. He was aware of the feeling of Gary’s eyes on him, of the roughness of his fingers around his hand and the sound of his breathing; New York all but disappeared from his awareness, and he felt his shoulders sag a little, felt his heartrate finally slow. He didn’t feel homesick any more. Or afraid. Or uncertain. He felt safe. He felt found. He squeezed his eyes tight shut and sucked in a breath, trying to tamp down the wild smile which was bubbling up inside his chest, and when he opened them again he looked immediately back at Gary, taking a beat to study his face, gathering himself before he dared speak.
“None of this should go hand in hand, Gaz…it’s messed up and backwards and upside-down, you know? The way this came about, the way we got here…it’s not conducive to marrying you.” He swallowed, placing his other hand on top of Gary’s gentle and squeezing tight as a crooked smile broke out across his face. “But do you know what?”
“What?”
“I think maybe you’re right.”
“Seriously?” Gary asked, half-laughing, and Mark laughed too, shrugging helplessly.
“Yeah, I think so…I think…I think you got it in one, you know? The fact we’re sitting here in some bar in New York, talking like this after I only even ended up here because I was sure I would never be able to look you in the eye again? That’s the proof. We’re still here: not despite it all, but because of it all. So…let’s do it, Barlow. Let’s get married.”
“Really? You’re sure about this?”
“The most sure I’ve ever been about anything, actually. This is mad and crazy and not how I saw this conversation going…but I can feel it in my bones, Barlow. This is how it’s supposed to be.”