Alex follows and uses the bathroom. When he’s
under the warm cover again, he kisses Chris.
“Thank you.”
“Pleasure’s all mine.”
~~~
Alex approaches his parents’ house with dread.
His mum’s panicky voice on the phone was not
unexpected.
Gary’s been roughed up.
She ushers him into Gary’s room as soon as he
arrives. Gary’s face is covered in bruises, one
around his left eye socket, and the eye almost
swollen shut. He also has a busted lip, though it’s
not that bad, all things considered.
Gary lights a cigarette and refuses to look at Alex,
who about has enough of his brother’s antics.
“What’s going down, Gary?” The least he can do is
be honest.
“My mate and I borrowed some money for the
garage. When we have the cash flow sorted, we can
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pay them back, y’know?” He sucks hard at the
cigarette. They would act like idiots and go to the
loan sharks, wouldn’t they?
Alex sighs. “How much?”
“Twenty grand.” It’s not that much—if Alex were
still at the top of his game. But he’s not, and his
family is leaning on him to do something.
He clenches his jaw as he considers this.
“I’ve seen Tony about a comeback, but there
won’t be a next time. All right?”
Their mum has been hovering near the door. She
pipes up, “Your dad and I are going to do this place
up and sell.” Directing her comment to her older
son, she says, “Gary, what you got to do, huh? You
can’t live in dreamland your entire life. You’ve long
sucked us dry of the last of our savings.”
Gary looks up. He seems so tired and weary; his
hunched shoulders make him appear a good ten
years older. “I swear I won’t get into trouble again. I
promise ya.”
For some people, promises are cheap, but he’s
family to Alex. I feel like I’m prostituting myself.
Alex thinks about Chris and what they said about
boxers parading in front of people and showing
their muscles. The comeback gig has become
increasingly like selling his body to millions of
unseen TV viewers.
Gary exhales, and for once, he’s not flippant or
cracking a cheap joke. “I’ll work for my mate’s
garage. Good, honest work. Okay?”
“You understand the concept of good, honest
work, then?” their mum remarks with an arched
eyebrow.
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Alex will have to do the fight, but it will be the
absolute last time. Then he’s going to retire for real
and persuade Chris to move in with him. A new
beginning for them.
225
CHAPTER 12
FLIGHT
ALEX HAS BEEN withdrawn with the prospect of the
upcoming boxing match. Tony sent him the
contract, but he has avoided reading it. Now Tony’s
left yet another message on his mobile to chase him
up.
Chris and Alex haven’t touched each other since
the night they held and rutted against each other so
tight that they both came. Alex is on the night shift
and he’s plunging lower and lower into the deep,
debilitating him, afraid he’ll let down the people
closest to him, especially Chris.
~~~
Chris is making dinner when the revelation comes
to him. He stares at the spatula he’s holding,
sadness filling his heart as he becomes infected by
Alex’s darkness. Most days, Alex goes to work,
comes home and stays in his room, avoiding his
flatmates. Chris tries to coax him out, cooks for him
and makes jokes, and Alex politely goes along with
it as though he wants the distance between them to
grow.
“Knock, knock. Hey, you fancy some pasta? It’s
your favourite!”
Alex opens the door, but he seems half asleep, his
hair spiking in all different directions. He’s wearing
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an old T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.
“Hey.” The lack of energy in that one word hits
Chris in the gut.
“Come on. I put extra tuna in it for you and your
protein!” Chris puts on a big smile, trying to be as
cheerful as possible. He grabs onto Alex’s elbow to
drag him out of his room.
Alex sits at the dining table, and Chris serves up a
huge bowl of pasta, as always.
“You working later?” Chris asks.
“No, not today. I’ve got the day off. I was going to
Dex’s club, but…” It’s Tuesday; Alex normally goes
to train the kids and work on himself, but…
“You okay?” Chris stops eating because Alex has
been stirring his food around. The giant usually has
an appetite to match.
“Yeah, fine.” Alex puts some pasta in his mouth.
“You?”
“I’ve got an appointment later.” Should he worry
that Alex will flee like all his previous sexual
partners? After these past two weeks, Chris is
starting to doubt Alex wants him even though he’s
said he loves him. Chris distrusts any declarations
of dedication. Alex has lost interest already, even
before they’ve properly started. Just another page in
the tragedy of Chris’s life.
“Why don’t you come in the taxi with me? I’ll
drop you off at the club. The guy said he’d pay me
the cab fare to the hotel.”
Alex stabs the table with his fork, causing the
plates to jump an inch. Chris leans back in his chair,
willing himself to be absorbed by the scratched and
faded patterns of the table.
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“Fuck’s sake. I don’t want to know you’re
spending the night in a hotel with some guy, Chris.”
Here we go. Seeing Alex react is better than
nothing at all. It means he does care after all.
Chris has looked into the nursery nurse
qualifications. He needs a few good GCSEs and then
two years full-time or three or four years of part-
time study. He has saved some money, but how is
he going to stop working for four years to support
himself through college? How much does waiting
tables pay again? He knows daydreaming doesn’t do
any good. He learned that from an early age.
Alex rakes through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m
exhausted.”
He looks it. Bags have appeared under Alex’s
soulful eyes, revealing a darkness almost as bad as
his mood. He doesn’t return Chris’s gaze but picks
up the half-finished bowl of pasta to take it to the
kitchen, leaning against the counter as though he’s
trying to regain his composure, to gather up some
courage to go on.
Chris follows him into the kitchen.
Alex wraps his bowl with cling film. “I’ll eat the
rest later. I need to go and lie down. Thanks for
dinner.” He kisses Chris’s forehead.
Damn it. Chris watches Alex retreat to his room.
It’s as if Alex is fading away right in front of his
eyes, and Chris hasn’t a clue what to do to make
things better or at least back to how they were.
Chris has lost his appetite too, so he puts the dish in
the fridge and gets ready for his appointment. The
client is not a regular, and they are meeting in a
business hotel in the rejuvenated dockland area in
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East London. The john is paying more than his
usual rate, making it worthwhile. Chris has given up
the client whose sessions left him with the bruises
Alex saw and was outraged about.
During his appointment, Chris can’t help but
become preoccupied with Alex’s depression. Sex
with the john is pretty vanilla, so he can do it with
his eyes closed and his mind someplace else. He
calls Chris ‘babe’ as he comes. Right. Chris often
wonders about his clients and what they say in the
heat of the moment. It doesn’t take a genius to know
the endearment is often involuntary.
Chris gazes out of the taxi on the way back,
suffocated by the loneliness inside him. He knows
about Alex’s moods, but it’s still hard to accept that
it’s not him; it’s not rejection. It is depression. Deep
down, Chris knows that, but it still hurts. Whether
he hurts for Alex or himself isn’t clear. Chris has
always believed physical and emotional pain are
indistinguishable, and now Alex’s have become his.
A big cosmic joke on Chris that is not remotely
funny.
The neon lights and the blurred rainbow colours
of the shop signs fly by, making him want to reach
out and grab hold of something vibrant and
unreachable. Like happiness. Or euphoria. He has
never known it. He doodles on the moisture
covering the cool window of the taxi.
Chris alights the car still engrossed in his
thoughts when the stale night air hits his face.
About ten men and women crowd the door to the
building. It takes him several seconds to realise who
they are. One of the women surges forward.
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“Hey, do you live in this building? Have you seen
Alex Whale, the boxer?” She has a notepad and a
pen, and another reporter with a camera paces by
her side.
Fuckety fuck. Chris wants to punch the living
daylights out of the pair of them. He hesitates. The
other paparazzi are coming forward like zombies in
a terrible B-movie.
Chris retreats, trying to reach the door, away from
their threats.
“No.” He turns on his heel, unlocks the door and
runs upstairs. He’s panting and sweating by the
time he arrives home.
“Have you talked to the paparazzi downstairs?”
Chris snaps at his Italian flatmate once safe in the
apartment.
Freshly rolled joint in hand, Alberto looks up.
“Nice to see you, too. Haven’t seen you in days, bud.
What’s up?”
“Sorry! Did you speak to those people about Alex?
There’re a dozen of them downstairs with cameras
and everything.”
“No! I didn’t speak to anyone.” Alberto lights his
blunt. “What’s going on?”
Instead of explaining everything to Alberto, Chris
glances over to Alex’s room. “Is he in?”
Alberto shrugs. “I guess so.”
Chris knocks on Dmitri’s door as well. The zany
Russian appears in his boxers, showing his tattooed
torso. In the past, Chris might have jumped the
man. That Chris—the one who never cared about
anyone or himself—has gone; the realisation causes
his heart to miss a beat.
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“C. What do you want? Drugs. Those I have.” The
Russian speaks with his familiar accent.
“Fuck, no! Did you have anything to do with the
paparazzi downstairs?” Chris demands.
“The what?” Dmitri’s eyes widen with shock.
“Someone alerted them that Alex lives here.”
Chris folds his arms across his chest.
Dmitri frowns, grooves deepening between his
brows. “Hey, would I involve the media given what I
do? And…you know I don’t dare to cross you,
Christine.”
Chris has to smirk at that. Chris has ripped him
one quite a few times in the past for doing what he
does—like selling crack to Liam, who’s a reformed
drug addict.
Dmitri shakes his head. “What has your boyfriend
done now?”
“Alex used to be a famous boxer, all right?” Chris
flips him off with his hand. “Anyway, he’s not my
boyfriend.”
Not yet. They’ll deal with that after this
emergency. Chris is determined not to let the pack
downstairs win.
Dmitri rolls his eyes. “You’d have fooled me, the
way you two carried on with each other. What about
that new kid? Paul?”
Chris forgot about the latest addition to the flat,
the fucking rat-arse kid who looks about eighteen
and is fresh out of prison. If anyone might want to
make a quick buck by tipping off the media, that
creep is the prime suspect.
“Is he around?”
Alberto pipes up, “Don’t think so, no.”
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“I bet it’s that twat. Don’t you speak to the
newspaper people, okay?” Chris directs that to
Alberto and Dmitri. He knocks on Alex’s door.
Alex’s muffled voice drifts through. “Hmm?”
He enters. Alex’s room always strikes Chris as like a
prison cell, and it’s particularly oppressive tonight.
Alex is lying sideways but he’s not sleeping. Chris
sits on the edge of the single bed that’s barely big
enough for Alex.
Alex sits up. “Hey, you back from work?” He
reaches out and cups Chris’s head and kisses him
with some urgency.
“Yeah.”
Another gentler kiss. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
Alex rubs his day-old stubble on Chris’s neck; the
friction feels like heaven. Chris inhales, loving
Alex’s unique scent.
“It’s okay. We’ll talk later. Have you been
sleeping?” Chris ruffles Alex’s messy hair.
“No, I can’t…” He lifts Chris’s shirt and touches
his chest and back, still rubbing his prickly beard on
Chris’s skin. The hard-as-nails boxer and the cynic
—as Chris used to think of himself—turn to putty in
each other’s company, and Chris doesn’t have the
heart to tell Alex what’s waiting for him downstairs.
“I can’t sleep if you’re not next to me. I feel so
dark inside when I reach out and you’re not there.”
His callused fingers touch Chris’s face as though
asking for help.
Chris decides he won’t mention the paparazzi
until the morning. He will protect Alex. “Are you
going to work, darli
ng?”
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“Hmm. I’ve got a seven o’clock start.”
Chris stretches over to have a look at the time on
Alex’s mobile. It’s nearly one o’clock so Alex will
need to be up in a few hours if he is going to work,
and the man needs his rest.
“Alex, try to sleep. I’ll talk to you in the morning,
okay?” He takes off his clothes and burrows under
the cover, his body warm and fresh after the quick
shower in the hotel.
Holding on to Chris’s body, Alex finally gets to
sleep, though he moves in the night as peace eludes
him.
~~~
The alarm announces the start of a difficult day. If
Chris had a say, her day would start at twelve, and
everyone would only need four hours’ sleep without
getting scratchy like old cats.
Alex shifts. The two of them have slept
uncomfortably because they have been pressed
together in the confined space. They should have
gone to Chris’s double bed, but Alex was far too
confused and cute a few hours ago for Chris to ask
him to move. At least they managed to shut their
eyes.
Alex’s rough palms caress Chris’s arse, sending a
smile to her face. “I’ve got to get up.”
He stretches.
Chris places her hand over Alex’s. “Ah. It may be
a good idea for you to take the day off.”
Alex frowns with concern. “Why? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Chris gazes at him, and sighing, she
tells him the bad news.
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Alex runs his hands through his sleep-tussled
hair. “Fuck.”
Chris hugs him. “I have an idea. It’s not a very
good one… Basically, we run.”
Alex pulls away and scowls, while she tells him
her plan.
“Is that all you’ve got?” He looks so miserable. “I
can’t go to my family. Coach’s house is too crowded.
Anyway, I can’t bring troubles to my family and
friend like that. I’m sorry for burying my head in the
sand.”
Seeing Alex like this makes Chris more
determined.
“Come on. I’m your bodyguard, remember? Trust
me.” She grins despite the impending threat.
Alex nods. “There is no one else in the world I
trust more.”
Chris instructs him to gather some clothes,
essentials and his medication in a holdall. He has
few other possessions anyway. While Alex gets
ready, Chris makes the call.
She knocks on Alberto’s door first. The Italian