Charles by Con Riley
28
That night, Charles couldn’t sleep.
He got out of bed, grabbed his phone, and wandered. Moonlight flooded through the atria over the great hall, each huge column casting shadows. Charles didn’t linger there, apart from taking a few moments in front of a portrait of his namesake, who had been slim like him, but it was George that Charles saw in the set of his shoulders.
“No children for you either,” Charles whispered. Maybe that hadn’t mattered so much to him. He hadn’t married, after all. It mattered to George though, Charles knew. To him as well.
Charles took the stairs, following the beam of his phone’s torch, his tread light even though there were no staff at home to hear him. He ended up at the nursery bedroom he used to share with Keir. Now it was almost empty, apart from the sole piece of furniture left in one corner—the crib all Heppel children slept in.
He rested both hands on it and wished for good news for Felicity and George; for luck, for love, for a maggot of their own, however they got to bring one home.
Sleep felt no closer, so Charles sat in the window seat and cracked the window open. The night air was a cool shock to his bare chest. Would it be colder than this up on the tors, he wondered? Hugo had mentioned that they didn’t benefit from the same sheltered microclimate that made Glynn Harber balmy. Even the warmest summer days felt fresh on the moor, he’d said, nights cold enough to cause unprepared hikers problems.
Clouds covered the moon, plunging Charles into darkness.
Hugo won’t be cold,that small voice inside him whispered. He’s got Nathan now to warm him.
“Fuck off,” Charles told it under his breath, wishing with every cell in his body that he could rewind time to that morning. He would have stayed in bed with Hugo for longer. Taken more time to look at him; to touch him; to tell him that what had started as fun had shifted into something different for him. But he couldn’t.
Charles did the next best thing. He wrote a text, hesitating before pressing Send.
Charles: Can you talk?
The chances were slim that Keir would be awake, or have decent signal if he was off-shore, but he sent up a silent plea, and his prayer was granted.
Keir’s answer came so fast Charles fumbled his phone accepting the video call request.
“Hello stranger,” Keir whispered, half of his face mashed into his pillow, those steely eyes that missed nothing searching. “Where are you? It’s bloody dark, Charles. I can barely see you. Turn a light on.”
The clouds parted and Charles angled himself to make the most of the moonlight. “How about that?”
Keir smiled, slow, and sleepy. “That’ll do.” The bed seemed to rock, but it was only Mitch turning over in their bunk, to hold Keir snug, as if he’d sensed him waking. “What do you want?” Keir asked, snuggling back against his partner.
That.
That’s what I want.
Fuck sneaking out of a stranger’s bedroom, or turfing them out of my place before breakfast.
I want to wake up with Hugo’s arm around me again.
“I think I’ve fucked up,” he admitted.
Keir raised one eyebrow, saying nothing, giving him the time and space to find words that, for once, came to him with no issue.
“I think I caught something.”
“Oh, no,” Keir groaned. “Not again.”
“No, not like last time,” Charles huffed. “Crabs would be much easier to deal with.” So much. He’d almost swap what bothered him right now with them, given the option. Would sacrifice feeling this bad, even if that came with unrelenting itching. Just about anything would feel better than this sure creep of doubt that doing the honourable thing had been a mistake with no way to come back from.
“Stop it,” Keir said quietly.
“Stop what?”
“Stop thinking about whatever’s made you clench your jaw so tightly.” His gaze turned soft. “It’s much better to let out whatever’s got you tensed up. Believe me, whatever you’re thinking right now is probably much worse than the reality of the situation.”
Charles must have let out some small sound because Keir pulled the phone close enough that Charles could see sleep dust flecking his lashes.
“Charles,” Keir said. “Do you remember when we found those wank mags up in the attics?”
Charles couldn’t help smiling. “Yes. Best summer ever.”
“Also the worst one too, remember?”
Charles thought for a moment and then let out a long sigh, nodding.
“You clenched your jaw just like that when you realised what liking the men more than the women in the photos meant. I still hadn’t figured it out for myself, but you clenched your jaw for a week before you marched down to breakfast and told George. Remember how he reacted?”
Charles nodded again, recalling a morning after another long night of lost sleep, prepared for shouting, steeling himself for it, only to meet George’s gaze over the breakfast table to see acceptance. Support. The shoulder he’d needed.
“Is there a chance that whatever’s got you in a knot this time might be more of the same?” Keir asked. “You being muddled about something that’s clear as day to everyone else around you?” He waited for a long beat before asking. “What is it that you think you’ve fucked up?”
“Hugo,” Charles admitted. Even saying his name aloud in the dark like this did something to him. Stirred a place inside that hadn’t ever been troubled until Hugo had pulled back that curtain. “I never meant to start feeling things for him. I didn’t intend to. I didn’t realise that was what was happening. The penny didn’t drop until I realised I wouldn’t get to….”
“Get to what?” Keir asked, his gaze dark and steady, and Charles wasn’t sure he’d ever loved him more than in this quiet moment. He dragged in a harsh breath and got honest.
“Get to keep him.”
“Because?”
“Because someone better for him turned up. Smarter. Much more”—he reached for the right word—“worthy.”
“Not possible,” Keir stated, maybe with a touch more stridency, because Mitch lifted his head from the pillow behind him, spying Charles and blinking.
“Sorry mate,” Mitch said, his voice thick with sleep. “My three-in-a-bed days are over.” He found Keir’s hand and grasped it, Charles taking a moment to parse that he’d lifted Keir’s hand to his mouth, smacking a kiss to his knuckles before levering himself up and over Keir and out of their shared bunk, while naked.
“Well,” Charles said, pulling a prim face that made Keir chuckle. “That was a lot more tackle than even a slut like me is used to seeing.”
“He’s got more tackle than a fleet of fishing trawlers,” Keir said smugly. “And you’re not a slut. You’re an extremely generous person with perilously low standards.” He settled back and stretched. “Mitch has gone to the galley, so why don’t you spill everything else that’s got you calling me at”—he peered at his phone—“just after one in the morning.”
“Sorry. I didn’t think about the time difference.” He also bet that Nathan had no trouble with the twenty-four hour clock. His sigh must have been audible because Keir repeated what he’d said before Mitch had woken.
“Charles, it simply isn’t possible that there’s anyone better than you for Hugo on the face of the entire planet. Do you want to know how I know it?”
Charles nodded, eyes blurring for no good reason as his best friend, the boy he’d lived with since he was seven, the man who he’d trust with his life said, “Because I don’t know anyone with a heart bigger than yours. You think he needs someone smarter? More worthy, whatever that means?”
Charles nodded and then shrugged.
“You need to go take a long look in a mirror. You’re the smartest person I know. You’ve always known what you wanted to do with your life. You didn’t let anything stop you doing it. And worthy? Really, what does that mean to you?”
Charles didn’t have an answer.
“I can’t think of anything much worthier than the way you are about children. Or maybe fierce is a better word for it. When it comes to kids you’re ferocious. Channel a bit of that for me, will you?”
“How do you mean?”
“This is someone who’s got you losing sleep, right? Someone who, it sounds like, you want to be more than yourself for?”
“Yes.” That was it exactly. Being more was exactly what Nathan was.
Keir fixed him with a sure look. “I promise you that when you want to be more for someone, that means you’re enough already. So what’s really got your jaw clenching?” And this must be what it was like to face Keir in a courtroom, Charles decided. He left no stone unturned to unpick what Charles was feeling. “Is it the shock of realising that love’s not just for songs or movies, or is it the keeping him part that’s got you frazzled?”
“Both?”
Keir watched him from somewhere in the Mediterranean, quietly processing, offering support in the form of a question.
“Have you ever eaten an elephant, Charles?”
Charles snorted. “Is that a sex euphemism? Because, I’ve come face-to-face with some very big—”
“No it isn’t,” Keir said, reproving. “Your poor jaw, Charles.”
“More like my poor anus.”
Mitch reappeared then, climbing back over Keir and settling behind him, one thick arm slung across his chest, his voice rumbling. “What’s wrong with your anus, Charles?” He propped himself up and winked. “Fully qualified nurse here if you want to send me a photo for my professional opinion.”
“Mitch! Please!” Keir elbowed him into silence. “Did you ever consider that I only agreed to marry you because you’re one of the few men in Britain who hasn’t seen my best friend’s arsehole? We were having a bonding moment. Please stop interrupting.” He drew his phone closer, blocking the sight of Mitch with his shoulder. “Don’t send him a photo,” he whispered. “It’s the thin end of the wedge, believe me.” He spoke a touch louder. “Now, elephants. Have you ever eaten one?”
Charles wished his phone was bigger then. Wished it was a window he could climb through to share a bed with this man like he used to. Keir spoke his teasing language, and knew how to cut to the heart of the matter. To the heart of him, which was why he’d always be his first port of call when hearing hard truths mattered.
“No, Keir, I haven’t.”
“Well that’s what being in love for the first time feels like,” Keir said, and Charles wondered if he was aware that he brushed the arm crossing his chest with his thumb, a small sweeping motion that said, I’m trapped but I love it. “It’s too much. You can’t face it. Can’t see a way to get through it. Not when it comes with so many feelings that won’t stop. Emotion that you can’t outrun no matter how much distance you try to put between it and you.”
He had run from it, Charles admitted to himself. Sprinted without stopping instead of facing up to what had really lit a flame behind him. Gone, instead of standing his ground and fighting. “Did you try to run from it?” he asked Keir.
“Run? No.” Keir clasped Mitch’s arm closer to him. “I flew. Got myself on a plane, and prayed for take-off to get away from the feelings.”
“Several times,” Mitch said from behind him.
“But it made no difference,” Keir added. “All those feelings I didn’t know what to do with only came home with me in my suitcase. The only way to get through it was to face it, but not all at once. Bit by bit, one bite at a time,” he advised. “Then it’s not so overwhelming. What would be your first bite, Charles?”
“Telling Hugo how I feel about him.” He stared out of the nursery window rather than into Keir’s kind eyes, the moon reflected on a lake they’d both loved since childhood. “What if I mess it up?”
Keir thought about that, still frowning when Charles refocussed on him. Eventually he said, “Do you remember when your brothers both taught us to ride bicycles?”
“In the long gallery and great hall?”
“Yes. Do you remember how it took you longer than me?”
Charles nodded and an image of George holding the back of his saddle and shouting, “Perseverance!” in the same Latin as the family motto surfaced. “I remember George wouldn’t let me stop even when I wobbled. Made me keep trying until I got it.” And hadn’t it been magic, that first soaring, swooping moment when he’d pedalled unassisted? A similar swoop to the one he’d felt back in a sculpture garden, only that time, it had been Hugo who had held him.
“That’s all you have to do,” Keir promised. “Start, and don’t worry about falling. You just have to keep trying.”
“Go and talk to him right now,” Mitch said, peeking over Keir’s shoulder. “Bet you he’s lying awake too.” His eyes were as kind as Keir’s.
“I can’t. I’m at home.”
“And he’s back at Glynn Harber?”
“No. He’s on the moor. Will be all week. I said I’d go with him,” Charles admitted. “But I didn’t.”
“Yet,” Keir said. “You didn’t go with him yet.”
“Well there you are,” Mitch said as if the solution was easy. “You’re at home. He’s not at Glynn Harber. He’s slap bang in-between you. So?” He waggled his eyebrows as though the answer was obvious.
“So?” Charles asked, the answer already forming even as he said it. He stood up and crossed the room, lingering by a crib that he hadn’t known his brother had struggled to see in his own future.
“So,” Keir picked up from his partner, finishing his sentence. “Go and meet him in the middle.”