Whatever the reason, he’d seen the dawn for the first time in…well, just for the first time, he supposed.
He’d lain in bed trying to snatch a few hours as the shadows retreated, to no avail. Finally, all he could think about was getting outside, having space around him, being the only one up in the world, and all these things were so novel and so puzzling that for the few minutes it took him to get ready, he honestly didn’t think at all about Tom, but he wasn’t expecting Tom to keep their appointment.
Tom Collins had many good qualities, but Ollie suspected he wasn’t the kind of man who could stomach the aftermath of what had happened between them the previous night. Or perhaps it was Ronnie’s rejection he couldn’t face…
Ollie had enjoyed many hours working through all the permutations of that awful night, and he could now see quite clearly what had happened.
His mother had initially assumed Tom was his boyfriend. He’d informed her in no uncertain terms that they were definitely not together. Had he not gone out of his way to say that Tom was married, baby on the way, i.e. straight? He’d brought David Gandy home and she’d
wanted
him. Ollie had an image of her juicing Tom as effectively as he’d squeezed the oranges.
And the attraction had clearly been mutual. Ollie was sure about that now. All the silences between Tom and his mother, the studious attempts not to appear to be giving each other too much attention. Ollie had watched it all, getting steadily drunker and more jealous.
Then they had engineered their little tryst, getting
him
out of the way.
But something had gone wrong. Maybe she didn’t like a hand on her throat either. And what had Tom done then? Hard, needing relief?
He’d gone for a quick fumble in the dark with a sort of look-alike loser with no self-respect: that’s what Tom had done. In the darkness of the drop-off to fucking nowhere,
he’d
looked enough like his mother to…
Shit
. Ollie guessed, when you got right down to it—cock in hand, so to speak—they simply hadn’t been alike enough.
“Morning.” Ollie jumped and spun around. Tom was shuffling one foot in the dirt, his hands deep in the pockets of his shorts, shoulders hunched. “Have you warmed up?”
Ollie nodded.
Tom began a slow jog.
Ollie was so tense he felt something pull as soon as he made to follow, but he kept his wince inside.
Tom Collins was looking incredibly rough. A small surge of warmth shot through Ollie, and he felt immediately better. He kept glancing over at the red, puffy eyes, the wayward hair, thick stubble, almost beard. No, Tom wasn’t doing well at all.
Ollie had suffered a bad night too, so his sympathy was in very short supply.
Tom coughed. “Sorry I was late. I didn’t sleep well.”
Ollie wasn’t inclined to give Tom Collins much latitude and so didn’t comment on this one way or the other.
They took a shepherd’s path that led up the hillside behind the house. It was steep, and Ollie became winded within a few minutes. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t want to talk anyway, so having no breath was ideal. His thoughts were making him sick, nausea from the exercise only added to the bitterness.
When they reached the summit, they both paused and, once again, Tom held out his water bottle. Just before Ollie made to take it, Tom snatched at his wrist and held it forcibly. “I feel like a total shit about last night. I was drunk. I’d had way more to drink than I normally do. I was nervous, Ollie. I always drink too much when I’m uptight.”
Ollie was about to make a clever comment, but he only nodded and extricated his hand. He’d been uptight every day of his life since he was seven.
“I totally fucked something up because I’m dumb. I’m really sorry.” Tom stared off into the distance. “My life is complicated at the moment. It’s…all a bit shit if you want to know the truth.”
Ollie sniffed and then ventured softly, “My mother is toxic, Tom. Don’t…get involved with her.”
Tom snapped his gaze back from the distant view. “What do you mean? How did you know? Who told you?”
Jesus! It is true
. Ollie faltered. “I…saw you together, last night.” Which wasn’t entirely true. He’d spent most of the night imagining it though, which was almost as bad.
Tom frowned. “You, what, heard us…arguing?”
For one moment Ollie was about to snap back, “
No! I saw you fucking each other!
” but then realised that, actually, what Tom had said was the truth. He had merely heard them arguing, and the rest he’d made up in his head. Occupational hazard, he supposed. Tom was glaring angrily at him, but for some reason, Ollie didn’t think the anger was directed at him for once. “I thought…she’d gone off with you, so I assumed you’d…you know…had sex…” Ugh, no son should ever have to use that word in the context of his mother. It was the map and fun thing all over again.
He saw Tom’s face relax. “Jesus. I thought you’d…Ollie, I did
not
sleep with your mother last night. Hand on heart and hope to die.”
“It’s cross your heart, and I’m not ten.”
“Sometimes you act as if you were.”
“Have you heard the joke about the racist pot and the kettle?”
“What?”
Ollie sighed and was about to gesture for them to continue, proof to himself that he was seriously out of kilter, when Tom grabbed his arm. “Ollie, none of this is your fault. I mean, what happened last night. It was
my
fault. I fucked up and you got hurt. Again. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Can we please forget it happened?”
Wow, Tom was a cliché of a cliché. Was there a word for that?
Ollie wasn’t in a particularly forgiving mood, despite the apology, which he had to admit was a very good one. It was clearly sincere. He toyed with the water bottle for a moment.
“Ollie?”
He looked up.
“I was completely out of my depth last night at that party. I was halfway through a long description of wood grains with Luke before I realised even I’d nodded off with boredom. When I woke up, he asked me what colour lipstick I was wearing.”
Ollie smirked. He couldn’t help himself. “Luke and I once discussed wood for quite some time. He seemed very knowledgeable on the subject.”
“Trying to give you…doing…last night…it was the dumbest thing I have ever done and I once tried boiling eggs in a microwave.”
Ollie wobbled his hand. “I once stole my flatmate’s milk and continued to swear blind it wasn’t me. After a month she told me it was her breast milk.”
“I bought my first girlfriend bathroom scales for Christmas. I’d bought her a paleo diet book for her birthday, so it seemed like a really good combination.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
Tom took the water bottle off him. “How’s the hemorrhagic fever coming on?”
Ollie chuckled. “Nicely, thank you for asking.” He risked a small punch to Tom’s arm, which he thought was particularly manly and struck exactly the right tone with a guy who’d been holding his cock a few hours ago.
Tom ruffled his hair and jabbed him back. It was almost a
Tomorrow Belongs to Me
moment. Ack, Ollie felt lame for absolving Tom, but he now didn’t feel sick, the sun was shinning very brightly on the frost and he was warm in places that made him want to grin. Who was going to call him on his weakness?
They both started jogging again.
Ollie frowned and glanced back at the rest place. “We’re going the wrong way.”
Tom chuckled as if he found this funny.
“No, seriously. The house is back there.”
“We’ve been going…ten minutes, and five of those were taken up with chatting.”
“But we’re at the top. I thought we’d be going down again now.”
Tom pointed vaguely to a distant something or other on the horizon.
“What! That’s…miles away.”
“Three.”
“And back? Six miles?”
“I mentioned the still talking thing, yeah?”
Ollie shut up.
After another ten minutes, he wasn’t faking his distress. He could barely breathe.
Tom, who didn’t appear to actually be running at all, as smooth and fluid on the ground as if he were floating in a slightly different gravity to Ollie, kept flicking his gaze at him. After a few more quick assessments, he asked, “Why do you think you’re blocked? With your novel?”
“What? You…want…me…to…talk about…? Sheesh…I don’t…”
“Could it be you’re trying to write about the wrong thing?”
“Huh?”
“Well, I guess you’re not writing a gay novel—because of Oliver.”
“You guess right.”
“Well, what if that’s the problem? Sometimes I set out on a path, and it’s the wrong one, and I can’t get any further along it. So I stop and re-evaluate.”
X-Files
time; this was brilliant! “You actually hit…what? Like a glass wall and just stop? That’s so freaky.”
Tom gave him an odd look. “Not when I’m
actually
…running. I meant one of those things that means something else…?”
“Metaphor?”
Shame
. “You think I
should
write a gay novel? Because, what…? You think I’m gay?”
“Not at all. Gay people write straight novels, don’t they? So why can’t it be the other way around as well?”
Ollie thought about this for a while.
“And you know a lot about the gay life, don’t you? I mean,
theoretically
. Your mother’s friends…
her
books.”
“I don’t want to write
anything
like the Oliver books.”
They’d come to a rock formation. Tom went one way around it, and just to be contrary—why ruin the good habits of a lifetime—Ollie went the other. When they met back up, Tom asked, clearly amused and annoyed in equal measure, “What is it about Oliver Fitzroy that you specifically don’t like? Other than the fact he’s stealing your life?”
“I—the decadence.” Ollie surprised himself. He’d never actively put that thought into words before, and now that he had, it was like one of his cyst videos—the puss plug was removed, so all the nasty filling came leaking out. “They’re sordid and take themselves so
seriously
. It’s porn masquerading as art, and because he was so young everyone seems to fall for it. They should have been shouting ‘No clothes! The Emperor’s naked!’ And perhaps, ‘Hey, he’s only seven and a little boy. Why can’t you let him have his bike and his teddy bear and his Famous Five books without making it all into something it’s not?’ They’re bitter and make me depressed when I read them.”
“Okay, so write something different then—something amusing.”
“I’m not a very funny guy.”
“That’s hilarious to start with. Look, why don’t you write about yourself…as if you thought you
might be
gay. How would you go about exploring that?”
“Oh, let me think. Azaleas might come into it.”
Tom had the grace to flush slightly, which was interesting, as the run wasn’t even breaking him into a sweat. “Well, there you go. That would make an amusing opening scene…But seriously, isn’t it a little bit funny? A straight guy trying to be gay because his mother wants him to be?”
Ollie thought long and hard about this, his feet mechanically hitting the ground and negotiating the rocks and uneven terrain without even noticing. He’d always thought it very comical to be a gay guy trying to be straight purely to thwart his mother…
“You think I should…what…? Start trying to be gay? Go on gay dates? For research for a…” It was as if a literal glass door had at that instant opened up in front of him. It was a
brilliant
idea. It had been done for the guy, girl thing—my worst dates. Possibly even for two gay guys. But not for a straight guy doing research, dating gay guys…a novel about the disastrous dates…He thought it was funny already, and he hadn’t even started writing it.
He suddenly realised he’d done the disappearing thing again.
Tom had stopped.
Ollie slid to a halt too and jogged back. “What?”
Tom looked pale, which seemed odd to Ollie. “I didn’t mean
actual
dates. With other—I mean
real
men. You’re a writer; can’t you sort of…I don’t know…imagine it? Make it up? Isn’t that what you authors do?”
“Wow, author in air quotes. That’s painful. Wait while I take the knife out of my back.”
“I don’t want you to go on dates with other men! Shit. I mean—”
“Let’s go back. I want to draft out some notes.”
“No! I meant—”
“Hey! Look how far we’ve come! Did I run all that way?”
Tom bent over and put his head down as if he was fatigued, which was clearly entirely faked because he wasn’t even sweating. He said neutrally, “You’d hit a wall, that was all. Once you got your second wind you’ve been fine. I was only trying to distract you.” He straightened, his face stormy with some repressed emotion. “We’re halfway now. You could be a really good runner one day. You have a runner’s build.”
“Well, I’ll give it back to him as soon as I catch him up.”
Three miles! He’d run three miles cross-country and he hadn’t even noticed. He was definitely sweating; he was panting but…he was okay. “So…I guess I get to go out tonight and find some gorgeous gay guy. Research purposes only, of course.”
Tom grabbed his arm. “Look, listen to me. That isn’t what I meant at all! You don’t physically have to date for real to write about it…writers who do those serial killer books don’t actually have to
kill
people to imagine what it’s like, do they?”
Ollie was tempted to reply that you didn’t have to be a crime writer to imagine murdering people either.
“I mean, look at your mother—she’s not gay!”
“Or…a man…”
“Exactly! Or a boy. Yet, she writes books about a gay boy who becomes a gay man. Use your imagination!”
But Ollie rather liked the idea of going on dates for research. It was something that particularly appealed to his sense of superiority—‘I’m on this date for authentic research purposes only, and not because I am a. gay; b. sad; or c. lonely’. Of course, he could also see how this attitude might have led to him not, in reality, having many dates in his life…Or friends come to that.
Now all he had to find out was were there gay bars in Queenstown…? Cafés? Bookshops…