With or Without Him (16 page)

Tyler really didn’t want to tell him what he’d been doing on Saturday nights. “I avoid anything that costs money so my options are limited.”

“You watch TV?”

“I don’t have a TV. I play my acoustic guitar. I leave the electric one at college with my sax. That’d be a sure fire way to piss off the neighbors.”

“Do you read?”

“Yeah, I like reading, when I have time.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Science fiction, techno thrillers, fantasy. But I guess I’m not going to be doing as much reading in bed as I’m used to.” He grinned at Haris who smiled back.

Tyler gave a silent sigh of relief. They could make this work.

Haris suddenly stopped walking.

“What is it?” Tyler asked.

“Let’s get you a phone.” He nodded toward the store they’d stopped next to.

He bristled. Hadn’t he made the point clearly enough? “I’ve got a phone.”

“An iPhone?”

Oh fuck.
Tyler wanted to say no but he couldn’t. He’d seen others using them, drooled over what they could do and desperately wished he had one. His phone was a cheap-ass piece of crap, an ancient pay-as-you-go with no features whatsoever if he didn’t count buttons that tended to stick.

Fifteen minutes later, he walked out with something he never thought he’d be able to afford. Well, he couldn’t but Haris could.
How shallow am I?
The clothes didn’t work but the phone had. Now he could listen to music, take pictures, surf the Internet.

For four months. Tyler told himself to stop being such an ass. He knew the deal. And he really liked the phone.

“You okay?” Haris asked.

“Yeah. Thanks for the phone.”

“You’re welcome.”

They crossed the road into Hyde Park and lights suddenly lit up the trees.

“Wow. You must be important,” Tyler said. “That’s quite a welcome.”

“Funny guy. So what are we doing?”

“You’ll see.”

Tyler hoped he’d play along or it was more money down the drain. He’d have to go and book a time which meant leaving Haris for ten minutes or so. A crowded Christmas market came into view and Haris groaned which earned him an elbow in the ribs.

“I have to check on something,” Tyler said. “Want to buy us a couple of mulled wines and wait here?”

“Fine.”

Tyler pulled the two hats out of the bag and bit off the price tags. He put the blue one on his head and the other on Haris’s. “Just to make you easier to spot.”

The empty bag went into a trash bin and he headed through the crowds looking for the ticket office. This was more money he shouldn’t be spending, but it felt as though he was redressing the balance in the relationship in a slight couple of pounds sort of way.

In his dreams. And it wasn’t a relationship. It was an arrangement. And the tickets cost a fucking fortune.

He bought two and made his way through the jostling crowds. Haris stood with his back to a tree, holding two plastic cups, looking as though he had a stick shoved up his ass. Maybe he wasn’t going to relax. Maybe he didn’t want to have fun, he just wanted to have sex.
Have I got this wrong?

Chapter Nine

Tyler’s heart sank at the expression of horror on Haris’s face.

“Oh Christ, no,” Haris said.

“It’ll be fun. Take off your shoes.” Tyler handed over the tickets. “Two size 12’s please.”

Haris groaned. “I really don’t like—”

“Live dangerously. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“I break my arm, my leg, my head, both arms, my butt, your arm, your butt…hmm…your butt.”

Tyler laughed. “Try not to break your butt or mine.”

Haris stopped moaning then and looked at him. Tyler’s cock perked up, hard as iron but more breakable. He winced.

“What just went through your mind?” Haris gave him a puzzled stare.

Tyler leaned to whisper. “There is one thing I really don’t want to break but give me a minute and it should stop being a problem.”

Haris snorted with laughter.

They exchanged shoes for boots and put them on. The ice rink was set around a Victorian bandstand and according to the sign, illuminated by more than one hundred thousand lights. They were strung on lines from the center out to the surrounding trees and made the whole scene look as though it were smothered in stars. Tyler tottered over the matting to the entrance, stepped onto the ice and his legs went out from under him. He flailed, slid to his butt, tried to scramble to his feet and the skates went in different directions. When he tried and failed to get up, he crawled to the side and hauled himself upright.

Haris was creased up laughing. “I thought you could skate?”

“Did I say I could? Come on, we’ll learn together. Where were you? I expected you to break my fall.”

“Wasn’t that the other way round?”

Haris kept hold of the side as he stepped onto the ice and then shuffled until he was next to Tyler. “Now what?”

“It can’t be that difficult. Look at those little kids. You have to push out with one foot and then the other. Keep your head up. Okay. Let’s have a go.”

He launched himself out on the ice, pushed with his right foot which slid farther than he’d expected and quickly dragged up his left foot, just having time to register it would have been a good idea to learn how to stop before he set off. He lunged for the side and plastered himself to it. When he looked round, Haris was skating properly, elegantly, like a pro. As soon as he was within reach, Tyler clutched hold of him.

“Bastard,” he whispered in his ear.

“I said I didn’t like it, not that I couldn’t do it. Come on. You had the right idea. Bend your knees and push off with your weight on one foot, then change to the other. If you want to stop, you can turn in both edges or one.” Haris glanced over his shoulder. “There’s a gap. Go.”

Haris skated backward—
I hate him—
and Tyler followed, arms waving madly, his back arching and straightening as he tried to get his balance.

“Look at me,” Haris said.

Tyler looked straight at him and wanted to melt into his arms. Preferably with Haris flat on his back on the ice and him on top.

“Longer glides,” Haris said. “You’re supposed to be skating not staggering.”

Several minutes later, it dawned on Tyler that he was doing it, not without a bit of arm waving, but he was skating. Haris swerved round to glide beside him.

“Now show me how to do a triple salchow double toe loop flip half twist thingy,” Tyler said.

Haris laughed. “No such thing. And I can’t jump.”

“Thank God. I was beginning to think you were perfect. Is there anything you can’t do?”

When Haris didn’t answer, Tyler laughed.

“Well?” Tyler asked.

“I’m thinking.”

They skated round the rink and with every circuit, Tyler grew in confidence and moved faster.

“Why don’t you like skating?” he asked.

“It’s a combination of the going in circles without actually getting anywhere and the risk to my limbs if I fall.”

Tyler had hoped Haris would see this as more than going in circles. They were getting to know one another, having fun.

“I suppose the chances of breaking anything are small,” Haris said. “I’m enjoying it.”

Tyler smiled. “Even the hat?”

“That’s going too far.”

“But you look cute.”

Haris scowled. “Which is a reason never to wear it again.”

Tyler leaned to whisper in his ear. “If you keep it on, I’ll show you how I can suck myself off.”

Haris slipped, knocked into Tyler, and they went down in a tangle of limbs, sprawling on the ice like stranded starfish. Tyler lay on his back, laughing. He stared up into the strings of lights and for the first time in a long while, he felt pure happiness. No more fucking Prescott, no more fucking
for
Prescott. No more Lu, no more Gerald. He liked Haris. Maybe too much.

Haris stood over him and nudged his leg with his skate. “I hope you’re not dead.”

“Not quite.”

“You haven’t broken that bit I intend to make use of tonight?”

“Which bit?”

“Ah. Both bits.” Haris grinned.

“Going to give me a hand up?”

Haris skated in a circle around his supine body. “No. Get up yourself.”

Tyler tried. And fell. Tried. And fell. Then he knelt on the ice and pushed himself up on one knee, brought the other leg up, wobbled but managed to stay on his feet.

“Well done.”

“I’m going to have bruises on my bruises. I’ve had enough.”

“I’ll give Wilson a call.”

They made their way to the exit and walked across to the benches to take off the skates. Their gloves went in their pockets but when Haris tried to take off the hat, Tyler caught his arm. “Remember what I said?”

Haris let out a choked groan, tugged the hat back on and brushed his fingers over Tyler’s cheek. “That was fun. Thank you.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Haris took out his phone and Tyler put his hand on it. “You don’t need to call him. We can take the Tube or catch a bus.”

“A bus?”

“Yeah, you know those big red vehicles with upstairs seating that get their own lanes.”

Haris smiled. “Okay. A bus. Why not?”

They wandered back through the market past the tempting aromas of roasted meat, cinnamon, cloves, chestnuts and beer toward the tree-lit path that led to Hyde Park Corner.

“Did you know the first nude statue in London was erected in Hyde Park in 1822?” Tyler said. “It’s an eighteen foot high Achilles dedicated to the Duke of Wellington made from melted down cannons captured when he was campaigning. Because the women of England had paid for it, a fig leaf was put over his tackle to spare their blushes.”

Haris laughed.

“The fig leaf’s been broken off a few times. I always wondered whether gay men or curious women were responsible. Or maybe there’s some family out there with a fig leaf collection. There’s a huge nude of Napoleon in Apsley House and he’s wearing a fig leaf too.”

“Are you an expert on the nude statues of London?”

Tyler nodded. “I am actually. I memorized a lot of crap because I used to be in the college pub quiz team.”

“Where did London begin?”

“London Bridge. Built by the Romans. Well, not the bridge that’s there now obviously.”

Haris rolled his eyes. “Where does the name Soho come from?”

“A hunting cry used by the Duke of Monmouth who had a house near Soho Square.”

“Have you and Jeremy fucked?”

Tyler glanced at him in surprise. Haris looked as shocked as him that he’d asked the question.

“I told you that you weren’t buying my personal life.”

“He seemed…interested.”

Had Haris seen the way Jeremy stroked his calf until he’d twisted aside? He opened his mouth to tell him not to worry, that he and Jeremy weren’t an item but Haris got there first.

“Remember the terms of our arrangement?”

“Yes. I won’t break them. You can trust me.”

“Can I?”

“Oh fuck off,” Tyler snapped.

He strode faster and Haris caught hold of his coat sleeve and dragged him to a halt.

“I’m sorry.” Haris wrapped his arms around him and pressed cold lips against his.

A surge of lust burst like a balloon inside Tyler. Annoyance evaporated in a flash and he sank into the pleasure of kissing and being kissed. He forgot about the fact that they were doing this in public, forgot it was something he didn’t do, forgot…his own name.

When they moved apart, Haris’s green eyes were glazed and Tyler breathed in fits and starts. It looked like sex could solve any issue between them, and he wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not about that.

“We’ll get a cab,” Haris blurted.

“We’re at the bus stop now.” He needed to get his head back in gear. “Stop K. The 148.” When he looked up, he saw the right bus coming and laughed. “That
never
happens.”

They hurried to the stopping point and as Tyler put his hand out to signal to the driver, Haris banged against him so heavily that he staggered, lost his footing and fell into the road. Haris tumbled on top of him and knocked the air from his lungs. There was a loud squeal of brakes, several people yelled and Tyler instinctively shoved hard at Haris to push him into the gutter, away from the approaching vehicle. The double-decker screeched to a halt with its front wheels a couple of feet from Tyler’s head.

“What the fuck?” Tyler gasped.

“Are you okay, mate?” A black guy hauled Tyler to his feet, and he stood shaking as a white-faced Haris came to stand beside him.

The bus driver jumped off and hurried over. “Oh my God. Are you hurt?”

Haris looked ill. Tyler’s heart pounded all over his body. What the hell had just happened? Had Haris tripped?

“You were pushed,” the driver said.