Always Eli by Charlie Novak
Chapter Eight
Eli
“What are you doing this afternoon?”Orlando asked, looking up from where he was lying on my bed, stretched out in a giant t-shirt and tiny underwear. He was sulking because his men had had a family party to go to this weekend, so he hadn’t been able to see them. He’d spent two days moping around the apartment and sighing forlornly, and I was starting to suspect his relationship was much more than a fling. I, meanwhile, was digging through my wardrobe trying to decide what to wear for my outing, although at that point more of my clothes were on the floor than anywhere else.
“I’m taking Tristan to the Sunset Cinema at the castle. They’re doing a Mamma Mia! singalong, and I thought it would be fun,” I said. The Sunset Cinema was a touring, outdoor cinema that went around to various large castles and country estates in the UK showing a selection of films and musicals. It came to Lincoln Castle for three nights every September, and I’d been several times before with my siblings or Orlando.
“Is this a date?” Orlando gave me a sly smile.
“No. This is just us doing something as friends.”
“Liar,” Orlando said, throwing one of my pillows at me. “You like him.”
“Absolutely not!” That was definitely a lie. I knew I felt something for Tristan, but I wasn’t sure if it was anything more than lust. “He’s just very sweet and lonely and needs to spend time in better company.”
“So you’re gracing him with your presence?”
“Precisely.”
“And you absolutely, one hundred percent, don’t want to bring him back here, bend him over your bed, and eat his ass like it’s made of candy?” Orlando’s smile had widened, his innocent eyes twinkling.
“I have the right to remain silent,” I said, ignoring him and sticking my head into the back of the wardrobe in case I’d missed something.
“That’s a yes, then.”
“No comment.” I grabbed a t-shirt off the floor and held it up. It was just a plain black one, but it still wasn’t right. I dropped it on the floor again.
“So you didn’t deep-throat a lolly in front of him on Tuesday?”
I groaned. Tristan and I had ended up having several more drinks while asking each other increasingly ridiculous questions before we’d ended up getting pizza and later poured ourselves into separate taxis. Then I’d come home and drunkenly told Orlando everything, which in hindsight had been my first mistake. “I was just teasing him! I wanted to see what would happen. I didn’t mean to stun him into silence.”
“It sounds like Tristan needs better sex,” Orlando said matter-of-factly. “If you sucking one ice lolly suggestively is enough to shock him, then he can’t have had good blow jobs in the past. Or many of them. You’ll have to rectify that.”
“Will I?”
“Duh.” Orlando’s voice dripped with disdain as though it was completely obvious and I was purposefully overlooking the point. “Of course you will. Who else is going to blow his mind?”
“I’m not going to blow him.” I grabbed a loose vest top off the floor and pulled it on. Perfect.
“But you want to?”
“Of course I want to,” I snapped. “God, I just want to strip him down and see how long it takes me to make him come. But I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
It was a reasonable question. Usually when I’d decided I wanted someone, I’d go for it. But with Tristan, something was holding me back. There was no question that I wanted him—I’d jerked off every night that week thinking about him—but fucking Tristan came with baggage. Not only was there the whole work thing, but there was my brother to consider too, and while Dick didn’t ever have to find out about it, I felt bad putting Tristan in that position. I didn’t want to force him to pick sides.
Especially because I didn’t know whose side he’d choose.
I’d spoken to Jules and Finn since last weekend’s disaster dinner, and both had agreed Richard had been a twat, but Finn, ever the peacekeeper, had wanted to know if it would really have been so bad if I’d told him. Mum was upset, and I’d apologised over the phone, but she hadn’t understood either. I didn’t really think anyone truly would, except maybe Tristan.
I was banking on a lot there, and there was a good chance I was just projecting my wishes onto him. But a small part of me was holding out hope that maybe Tristan got why I didn’t want to tell Richard everything, simply by merit of knowing my brother so well.
And I didn’t want to muddle that with one night of good sex.
“It’s complicated,” was all I said.
I was still thinking about the conversation with Orlando an hour later when I met Tristan outside the castle. He looked adorable in dark jeans and a grey fleece with a hint of a dark green t-shirt underneath. He was completely the opposite of any of the people I’d previously been involved with and completely the opposite of me. So why did my heart skip a beat when I saw him?
Since when was I attracted to country casuals?
“Hey,” he said, giving me a smile and a little wave when he spotted me.
“Hey yourself. Have you been waiting long?” I asked, trying to act more casual than I felt since my insides were currently tying themselves in knots. I wasn’t sure when my intestines had decided to take up shibari, but I wished they hadn’t picked now to start.
“Not at all. So, what are we going to see?”
One of my eyebrows quirked in surprise. “You didn’t look it up?”
“No.” Tristan sounded almost offended. “You said it was a surprise. I only realised it was the Sunset Cinema when I arrived and saw the banner.” He pointed to the large sign that had been hung outside the castle.
“I would have been straight on my phone to look it up,” I said with a laugh. My heart skipped again. I was really going to need to see a cardiologist at this rate. “Since you said you’ve only ever seen one musical, I thought we’d go and see it again. We’re going to the Mamma Mia! singalong.”
A mixture of expressions cycled across Tristan’s face—horror, fear, potential excitement, shock—and then he burst out laughing. “Okay,” he said. “That’s a new one for me. I’m not a great singer. I’ll warn you now. And I don’t know the words.”
“If you’re seriously telling me you don’t know the words to one ABBA song, I will have to reconsider this friendship.” I grinned. “And don’t worry, they print the words at the bottom of the screen, and everyone will be singing, so if you really do sound like Scuttle from The Little Mermaid, nobody will notice.”
“Okay then.” He gave me a little smile, and the expression in his eyes was one I hadn’t seen from many people before. It looked like trust. “Do you want to go in?” He paused. “Did we need something to sit on?”
I gestured to the old backpack I was wearing. “You don’t think I would invite you out and make you sit on the grass, do you?” I asked, bringing my hand to my mouth as if utterly scandalised by this accusation. “I brought some blankets, some drinks, and some snacks. Technically, Orlando packed the snacks because he’s been fucking miserable all weekend, and it gave him something to do.”
I gestured to Tristan, and we began walking towards the high, open arch that would lead us into the castle grounds. I rummaged in my jacket pocket for my phone so I could pull up the booking email with the tickets attached.
“Is everything okay? With Orlando?” Tristan asked as I presented the man at the gate with our tickets. He stamped our hands, gave a cursory glance at the inside of my backpack, and waved us inside.
“Yeah, he’s fine,” I said as we strolled into the grounds. A gentle hum of noise surrounded us, and the smells of a hog roast and fried food wafted through the air. “His boyfriends had to go to some family event for the weekend and couldn’t take him with them. He usually sees them every week, so he’s sulking.” I looked over at Tristan trying to gauge his reaction, my body tense. “But I get it, even if it sucks. His boyfriends are married, and this whole thing is very new between them. I’m not even sure they’re actually boyfriends because it started off as just sex, but considering how miserable Orlando is—”
“It seems like there are feelings involved.”
“Exactly.” I felt myself relax like I’d been waiting for Tristan to say something negative. “But I’m not going to push it. If I do, he’ll start getting involved in my dating life again, and that’s the last thing I need.”
Tristan laughed. “Is he nosy?”
“Worse. So much worse!” I laughed. “He needs to know everything. And he’s always trying to set me up with friends of his. It comes from a good place though. He doesn’t want me to be lonely.”
“I know what you mean, and I know where he’s coming from,” Tristan said softly. “I don’t think anybody really wants to be alone.”
I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. There was a wistful note in his voice that spoke of heartache and loneliness, and it made me want to reach out my hand and bring him close against me, making him promises I knew I couldn’t keep.
It was almost terrifying how much I wanted to make Tristan feel loved.
We’d reached a small fork in the path, and we followed it around to the right to an open lawn. A large screen was to the left of us, stretched against the wall of one of the inner buildings, and to our right the lawn was already filled with people on blankets and foldable chairs. Some of them even had immense picnics, and I wondered whether what I’d asked Orlando to pack would be enough.
“Shall we go over there?” Tristan asked, pointing at a spot towards the back where the lawn sloped upwards onto a shallow bank. “That should give us a good view.”
We picked our way across the lawn, circling around various groups of people, some of whom seemed to already be down a couple of bottles of wine, until we’d reached the spot Tristan had seen. I pulled off my backpack and unzipped it, pulling out the two old blankets I’d found and spreading them across the grass. I’d wanted more than one so we’d have plenty of space to spread out. This wasn’t a date, so there was no need for us to sit on top of each other.
I glanced back into the backpack, frowning. I’d expected there to be maybe some crisps and some brownie bites, but there seemed to be a lot more than that. There was a Post-it note stuck to a tub of mini Scotch eggs that read:
Enjoy your date ;)
Orlando xxx
That sneaky bastard! I ripped the note off and scrunched it in my hand before Tristan could see it. Then I flopped onto the ground next to him and began to pull things out, muttering variations of “What the fuck?” to myself as I spread a literal feast across the blankets.
“I thought you said it was just snacks,” Tristan said, staring at a tub of mini cheese and onion muffins that I’d just stacked on one full of dinky little Cornish pasties.
“So did I.” This must have cost Orlando a fortune. I was going to have words with him later. “He said it was just a few little bits.”
“I mean, they are little.” Tristan chuckled. He picked up a tub of fat, green olives. “I love these.”
“Seriously?” I grinned. “Me too. Most people I know hate them.”
“They’re missing out.”
“Right?” I examined everything I’d pulled out of the bag, amazed at the sheer amount of food Orlando had managed to cram into the space. I thought the bag had felt a bit heavy, but I hadn’t questioned it. At the bottom, I found a couple of cans of Fanta and a couple cans of pre-mixed Pimms. They were still cool, condensation dripping down the sides. I offered Tristan a choice, and he took a can of Pimms, cracking the tab open and sitting back on the blanket, stretching his legs out in front of him. The sun was setting behind the walls, turning the sky into a vibrant kaleidoscope of colours, and beyond it, I could see a dusting of stars, waiting to emerge.
The cinema company had set up lanterns in the trees and there were solar-powered lamps hammered into the grass around the edge of the lawn that were just starting to glow. It gave the whole thing a little bit of an ethereal air. In the background, the screen had started to play a few adverts—mostly for local businesses, the castle, and other venues on the Sunset Cinema tour.
We chatted quietly about nothing much in particular as we began to pick at the food, passing various packets and tubs back and forth between us. I kept telling myself it wasn’t a date, that it couldn’t be a date, but the whole situation seemed to scream date. Every time Tristan smiled at me or offered me some food or told me a ridiculous anecdote about his dogs, my insides squirmed. It reminded me of the time we’d gone on a family holiday to France and taken the ferry, my stomach swooped and dropped like it was riding the swells of the sea, except this time I didn’t think I was going to vomit spectacularly all over someone’s shoes.
“Oh, I think it’s starting,” Tristan said, glancing over at the screen that had suddenly gone black. I looked over and saw a cinema certification fading away. The image of moonlight dancing across water appeared on the screen, and music swelled through the speakers, the first few notes of “I Have a Dream” filling the air around us.
“Are you ready?” I wasn’t sure if Tristan was quite prepared for what was about to happen. I’d been to a couple of singalong screenings of various musicals in the past, and they were always fucking bonkers. Given how much some of the audience had already had to drink, I didn’t think this was going to be any different.
“Ready for—” He didn’t get the question out before the whole venue seemed to burst into song, in perfect albeit somewhat drunken harmony with Amanda Seyfried. I watched Tristan’s face as I began to sing, unable to stop myself from smiling as I did. I knew the words to this musical by heart since Mimbles had been a diehard ABBA fan since she’d first seen them on Eurovision in the seventies. I’d grown up on the lyrics. Tristan’s mouth split into a grin as he looked around then up at the screen, watching the words across the bottom as they lit up.
“Just like karaoke,” I said as Sophie pushed the letters to her three potential fathers into the post box and the film cut to the three men preparing for the trip.
“I’ve never done karaoke before,” Tristan said, sipping his second can of Pimms. “I’m very boring, remember?”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” I scooted slightly closer to him so I could nudge him with my shoulder. “There’s never been a more perfect time to pop your singalong cherry! And don’t worry, nobody but me is going to hear you.” Tristan nodded. I reached for the tub of strawberries by my foot, ripping it open and holding it out in front of him. “Want one? They’re not quite cherries, but they’ll do.”
Tristan reached for one, and I watched him lift it to his mouth, mesmerised. His lips wrapped around the fruit, and I wondered if this was how he’d felt on Tuesday when I’d teased him with the lolly. The only difference was I’d been doing it deliberately, and I didn’t think Tristan had a clue how much he was affecting me.
I heard shrieking from the film, and I knew “Honey, Honey” was coming up. I swallowed. I’d definitely be revisiting this moment later. The crowd began to sing, and once again I was swept up in the moment, my mouth moving without me even thinking about it. I looked at Tristan, who glanced at the screen and then back at me. Then he began to sing.
He was quiet, not everyone was a natural show-off like me, but the sound coming out of his mouth was the most beautiful baritone. Fucking hell, the man had a voice! I wanted to ask him if he knew how fucking amazing he sounded, but I didn’t because I knew the moment I said anything he’d probably clam up. So I grinned and smiled and sang along with him, our shoulders bumping gently.
It wasn’t a date. I knew that.
But even so, it was the best non-date I’d ever had.