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It would be a lie to say I didn’t cry, didn’t get upset after Glenn left for the airport in a taxi. His departure in the now had been less dramatic than his leaving in the past, but his cool demeanour chilled me to the bone. The knowledge he had to process all I’d said didn’t stop me resenting that silent plea of don’t distance yourself emotionally right when work commitments forced him to distance himself physically.
For all his promises to call when he got back to LA, I didn’t hold my breath. And I resisted the urge to tell myself his stiffness, his detachment, wasn’t barely-suppressed anger, but rather, steely resolve to get on with his necessary journey.
Face it, Afton, I told myself. He’s not acting like this because he doesn’t want to leave. He’s acting like this because he can’t wait to do so.
We embraced before he headed downstairs and I pushed him away specifically so I could later tell myself he didn’t want to go, but I’d made him. So I could tell myself he’d only left, like before, believing I wanted him gone.
It was something to keep in reserve if I ever needed that comfort.
What did I have now, at the age of thirty-eight, that I hadn’t had at nineteen? An established career rather than a fledgling one. Friends. Contacts. Money. A house. I’d been married. And divorced, sure, but someone had wanted me.
Someone had wanted me after Glenn. I knew that I wasn’t completely undesirable. Putting aside the fact Joseph had left me for another woman – whom he’d since left for someone else, from what I’d heard – he’d wanted me. Declan had desired me. Probably still did, as neither of us had ever called a formal halt to our ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement. I had that fucking award on my mantelpiece saying that the spotty-faced wankers (literally) who’d voted for me, judged me the sexiest actress on terrestrial television and that was an award I’d won past the age of thirty, practically pensionable age in this industry.
But there were so many things I didn’t have. The obvious one: a baby. Second option: a successful marriage. Third: I didn’t have Glenn. Uisdean.
Sitting on my couch facing a television that wasn’t even on, I stared into the middle distance and asked myself a question to which I doubted I’d ever find a straight, logical answer: had I ever stopped being in love with Glenn? Was it a feeling that had only ever gone into abatement over the years, masked by some seriously filthy sex with other lovers, a hellishly passionate marriage to Joseph, and casual affairs after the separation? Was I really such a sad act that I could be pining for my first love until the age of nearly forty and not even realise it?
“Oh, don’t be stupid, Afton,” I said to the oh-so-empty room. Glenn didn’t feel the need to fill every moment with chat – he probably got enough of that at work – but even so, when he was in the room, I felt it. I felt him. The surface of my skin tingled with electricity. Hyper-aware was the phrase. Even silent, even not making any physical contact with me, if Glenn Peterson was under the same roof, I knew it.
And his absence now filled the room, forcing the breath from my lungs as I leaned forward and sobbed.
Glenn was gone, needing time ‘to think’, so he’d said, a phrase never easy to hear. And here, in this country, I sobbed for all that might have been, even while urging myself to get it together.
The two sides of me argued; one wanted to cry and feel sorry for myself; the other urged me to blow my nose, dry my eyes, and do what I’d done before – get on with living.
Unlike before, I had an established career to dive into and, indeed, had work coming up very soon. For some unknown reason...well, all right, maybe a little crush on yours truly...a singer-songwriter by the name of Noah Thomas had had his people call my people, and offer me a role in his next video. It involved ballroom dancing with twelve different male partners at once, being passed around from man to man as the song progressed and during the middle eight there would be slicked-back hair and leather catsuits and much writhing. Writhing I could do. And if Noah had asked for me specifically because he thought I’d look good in a leather catsuit and I’d been his first choice, chances were he had a little crush on me, and I couldn’t lie about that – my ego could do with the boost.
That wouldn’t be happening for a couple of weeks and I’d need dance training first. My immediate problem lay in getting through the first day without Glenn and there was only so much home-based silence I could stand, even while distracting myself with reading a script my agent had sent. One of the best aspects of my career these days was the frequency with which I was offered work without having to audition for it first.
“You’ve not done too badly after all,” I said, already bracing myself against an almost inevitable wave of self-pity by reminding myself of what I did have, rather than what I’d lost. Because if I could lose Glenn Peterson by telling him the truth?
He’d never been mine in the first place.
~*~
It was only natural, I supposed, to consider leaving the house a mistake, even if my intent had been to avoid solitude and self-pity by indulging in retail therapy. Going outside to avoid being on my own meant that when I returned to the apartment, I’d only have to get used to that feeling all over again.
“Whereabouts do you want dropping off, love?” the cabbie asked, turning the corner into my street.
“Just about halfway along, here on the left,” I replied, already raking through my handbag for my purse. “Just here will do–” As I raised my head, I startled, something on the edge of my consciousness alarmed enough to tell me sit up, pay attention. Strange, but I had a sensation in the pit of my stomach similar to the night Glenn had first emailed me. When I’d scrolled through my messages and seen his name on the list, but it had taken a while for it to register that yes, it really was who I suspected, after all this time. “Just keep the change,” I said, handing a note over from the back seat and gathering up my shopping bags. I didn’t exactly need a new handbag or two dresses but fuck it, a girl needed a reward sometimes. For what, I wasn’t sure. Surviving another bout of Glenn Peterson without a nervous breakdown this time, perhaps?
There’s still plenty of time for that, I thought, a surge of nerves roiling the pit of my stomach.
“Oh, ta,” the driver said with a surprised smile. “Nice one. Hey, before you get out...”
Smothering a groan, wanting to just get out of the cab and back upstairs, I paused, waited for him to continue.
“I’m sure we’ve met before. Do I know you from some– wait, you’re her off the telly, aren’t you? I–”
“No.” I shook my head, struggling to get the taxi door open but managing it with one shopping back hooked over my wrist.
“Are you sure? Because you look awfy like–”
“I get that a lot.” At last I hauled myself out of the cab but before nudging the door shut, bent over and told the driver, “But I’m not her, honest.” As he drove off, I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Normally I’d stop for a selfie or a chat, no harm in that, but I just wanted to go home, and–
I stopped mid-stride. Funny, after all that had passed, that now was the moment I thought of my divorce apartment as home. Maybe it was less to do with the exact flat I lived in, whether or not Glenn had imprinted his presence on it, and simply down to the fact I was back in the city of my birth, for the foreseeable future, or however long I wanted.
And there it was again; that feeling of familiarity, déjà vu. Something tickling at the corner of my consciousness.
But as I neared my apartment block, it got stronger, and when I finally realised what it had been all along, or rather who, I stopped in my tracks. “Fuck.” I must have caught a flash of his jacket as the cab pulled up, or noticed, from the corner of my eye, his case sitting on one of the steps leading up to the tenement door.
“You realise that was what you said when I first phoned you?” Glenn asked, pulling himself to his feet, groaning as he rolled his shoulders, worked out a crick in his neck.
“What the fucking fuck are you doing here?”
“You really should do something about that potty mouth of yours. You can speak two languages, imitate any number of a thousand accents, and you resort to saying fuck three times before you’ve even said hello?”
“Hello. What the fuck are you doing here?” I demanded, frowning, still not taking another step in his direction. I couldn’t work out my own head, sometimes. The taxi had driven past my block, pulling up no more than ten yards away but I’d been distracted with finding change in my purse and eventually deciding just to hand over a note of far too high a denomination but...but I would have expected to have seen him properly, to have acknowledged his presence.
Maybe my traitorous brain just thought it was too much to hope for and had made the executive decision to tell my conscious mind that he wasn’t really there. Glenn didn’t come back, after all. He left. He left. That was what he did.
“Do you want a hand with your bags?” he asked, trotting down the steps and holding out his hand, as if to take one of my carriers from me, and I flinched and backed away.
“No,” I began. “I–”
“Don’t say it, you just want me to tell you what the fuck I’m doing here. Well...” He looked up and down the street but hardly anyone was about at this time of day, late afternoon, early evening. Those who had normal nine-to-five jobs lingered at the office, or contemplated making their way home, and others? They went about their business, not paying us any mind.
Glenn cocked his head and studied me, hands on hips. “Do you think we could go inside before we start arguing? I’ve been sat on those steps for nearly an hour now and my arse is sore. You know me, I don’t mind a sore arse, but the stone’s a bit cold as well.”
“What–” Emotion, thick in the back of my throat, choked off whatever else I’d been about to say. Don’t cry, Afton. For God’s sake, don’t fucking cry. Swear if you want to, get angry, but dear God, don’t cry. “You...” Somehow, I managed to clear my throat, and the breeze whipped a strand of hair against my face, and my feet hurt, and I couldn’t breathe properly. “You should be thirty thousand feet in the air right now. Shouldn’t you?”
“Ah.” Glenn nodded. “About that. I kind of...didn’t get on the plane.”
“I can see that.” Still my words came out more confrontational than I’d intended, but in the back of my mind lay the barely-suppressed urge to demand he tell me what the fuck he was playing at, mucking me around like this. If he was gone, let him be gone. I didn’t want to keep coming home and hoping he’d be there and why the hell couldn’t I just enjoy the fact that he was here, now? Making a half-hearted attempt to square my shoulders, I demanded, “Why?”
“I would have thought that was obvious. I left my favourite t-shirt here and I wanted to pick it up before I went back to LA– you, Afton, you muppet. I came back because of you.”
“Me?”
“You can either stand there in the middle of the street repeating everything I say, or you can come upstairs with me and we can talk properly. Honestly, I’ve not slept in...well, God knows how long. I barely know what day it is, and I’ve just had the world’s most pointless round trip flying down to London for a connecting flight I didn’t take in the end and I’m really hungry because I haven’t eaten since breakfast around five o’clock this morning, besides a sandwich in London while they got me a return back up to– wait, are you crying?”
“No.” But I sniffed, which probably gave the game away. Pouting like a little child didn’t help, either.
“You are; you’re–”
“Oh, why the hell have you done this to me?” I demanded, and his eyes widened in shock, before he braved a few steps and came close enough to make himself heard without speaking above a normal ‘inside’ voice.
“Done...you...done this?” he asked. “What do you mean by that? Because I’m mystified right now, Afton. I’m trying to figure out if you’re angry or upset or if I’ve done something wrong in coming back here. I thought you’d be happy that I did, but...for God’s sake, just tell me what it is I’ve done.”
“I don’t know,” I said, finally giving in and letting the tears roll down my face.
“Okay, look.” Glenn slipped a hand round my shoulders and guided me towards the steps, where he’d left his case, carry-on, jacket and laptop bag. No-one had approached us as we’d spoken, or as Glenn had pleaded and I’d sworn at him, so his belongings had been safe. I’d just been too occupied by him to consider mere things. “Let’s just go upstairs then you can tell me exactly how I’ve fucked up this time, because–”
“Because I don’t want to get used to you being there,” I snapped. “I hate this. I hate that you’ve missed your flight so you’ve come back. Do you realise every time I turn the corner now, I’m going to think about the time you were sat on my front step, and wish you were there again?”
“Well you won’t need to because I’ll be right beside you,” he blurted out, looking just as surprised as I felt at his words. “Oh.” He tapped his bottom lip with his forefinger. “I hadn’t meant to sound quite so much like a stalker, but...I guess you can always take a restraining order out on me if you want? I...guess?”
Apparently shock at his words had stopped me crying so I took a moment to calm myself (some hope) and nodded down at my handbag, which I wore cross body, and at my hip. “Can you, uh...? My keys are in there. My hands are full, and...”
“Oh, sure, sure. What would you do without me? It’s just as well I came back, or you’d have really struggled to get the apartment block door open and then where–”
“Just stop making a joke about it, Glenn, for fuck’s sake. Don’t make a joke about it. Not that.”
Rather than asking me for specifics, Glenn held the door open for me, before retrieving his belongings. We climbed the stairs to my apartment without another word being spoken and when we were both finally, properly indoors, I dumped my bags where I stood, slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, hands covering my face.
Strangely, the emotion that stood out from all the others in this mass of confusion was anger. I hated that he’d done this to me, surprised me with his presence when I’d been not exactly used to him being gone, but reconciled to the fact I’d just have to deal with it and somehow get through. It hadn’t been a surprise, like the breakup with Joseph, and though it felt traitorous to contemplate my ex-husband at such a time, the comparison was a fair one. It hadn’t been easy to say goodbye to Glenn but at least this time I’d known it was coming, and to where, exactly, he headed.
Or so I thought.
“Hey.” Glenn slid to the floor beside me, giving my shoulder a nudge, probably concluding that an arm around my shoulder would be too much physical contact right now. The nudge was just to let me know he was here. Somehow. “I didn’t mean to upset you, you know. I just wanted to come back, so I...” As I lifted my head again, he rolled his shoulders. “I didn’t exactly miss my connecting flight, I just...”
“You just...?” I prompted, sniffing away the remainder of my sobs, not really caring any more how awful I must look. Blotchy and red-eyed.
“I swerved it. Just didn’t bother getting on.”
“You deliberately didn’t get on your connecting flight?”
“Yep. That’s right.”
“But why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I gestured with one hand to my scattered shopping bags and his luggage adding to the new-found chaos. “Would I be in this state if it were?”
“Because you’re more important to me now than a bloody television show, you fool,” he said with a laugh, giving a watery smile, more than likely waiting for my reaction, to see if I believed him.
I wasn’t sure I did. I wanted to, but...it seemed far too good to be true. “So...so what about the show, then? You can’t just not show up for work on Monday.”
Giving a similar gesture to my look at this mess motion, Glenn waved a hand at our scattered detritus, and us ourselves. “I guess that’s exactly what’s going to happen because I appear to be sitting on your hallway floor in Edinburgh, rather than thirty thousand feet up over the North Atlantic.”
“But...but what will they say when you don’t show? How can they–”
“Oh bloody hell, Afton, it doesn’t matter. I got the plane down to London, realised I’d monumentally fucked up in even going that far, and decided not to compound the error by making my connection. I’d like to say I turned around and came straight back up to Scotland, but with the lack of availability, I had to just bunk up on a bench for a while until they found me the first seat they could. Fucking gouged me, too, they did. My credit card took a hammering, but it was all very last minute after all. To be expected. And all I’ve had to eat in I don’t know how long was a curly cheese sandwich and a shit-ton of airport coffee.”
Nodding in recognition of his latest, safest, addiction, I said, “Of course. You’d have to have caffeine. My God, what’s the producer going to say? The network execs?”
“Oh, screw them,” he interrupted, grimacing. “Actually don’t; I was hoping you’d screw me, later, but I mean...Afton, I’m wrapping things up on the show at the end of the year anyway; what’s the worst that could happen? They fire me?”
“Do you think they would?” I ventured, and he shook his head, no. “Playing truant like this after they gave you time off to come to Edinburgh, and now you’re late back.”
“Doubt it very much. And even if they did, so what? I lose a few months’ pay. Of course, technically there’s probably some kind of breach of contract in there somewhere, but they wouldn’t go that far. Once it hit the headlines, we could just counter with some how dare they stand in the way of true love; don’t they have souls bullshit, or...well, it wouldn’t be bullshit, of course, but how we chose to phrase it would be. Really going for the public sympathy vote. Poor us, apart for years, I’m late by a day or two, or however long, and in a fit of pique, they cancelled the King of Late Night just because he dared realise he was still in love with the woman he’d been pining for, for twenty years...” Glenn’s eyes lost focus and he appeared to read some imaginary newspaper or website headline in the middle distance.
“Now hang on.” Turning to face him properly, though we both remained seated on the carpet, really not the most dignified place to have such a conversation, but I didn’t want to break the mood by suggesting a move to another room. “Standing in the way of true love?”
“Yeah, everybody loves a happy ending, don’t they?” he asked. “Least, I do, especially if it involved lashings of lube and your tongue on my b–”
“Glenn.”
“Not the time?” At least he had the good grace to look sheepish.
“Not the time.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Pining for me for twenty years?”
“Ah. Now.” He tapped at thin air with an extended forefinger. “That might have been a slight exaggeration. Just a teeny-weeny one. For dramatic effect, you see. You’ve been married to someone else, so have I. We’ve both loved other people, no pining involved; that would be a bit...Romeo and Juliet...and we both know how they ended up. But.” He gave a Gallic shrug, shoulders hunched, palms upturned. “It would sound good, if we wanted to get people on our side if we needed to counter any bother from the TV execs, which I doubt we’d have to. I don’t mean to brag, but...”
At that, I snorted with laughter.
“Okay, okay, I do mean to brag. I’m a pretty big name at that station, and you can call me a big fish in a small pond if you want, but what I mean is, they gave me a sabbatical to come do the Fringe so I obviously have some pull, right? I can’t see them giving me any grief beyond a Jesus Christ, Glenn, for fuck’s sake telling-off. But the other part of what I said is true.”
“Which part?” I asked, frowning, and laid a hand on his thigh. Yes, he was definitely here. Solid and real and sitting on my hallway floor, leaning against the bathroom wall.
“Oh, uh...” He flushed momentarily. “The part about being in love with you. That bit.”
For some reason, a wave of nausea washed over me; not the typically romantic response to someone declaring their feelings, but being loved scared me because it meant chances were, I’d love him in return and that made me vulnerable. But I did. Oh God, I did.
“That’s why you came back,” I whispered, more to myself than him, but I had to bed the words down, make myself understand what was going on. The threads of something begun years before finally wove together.
“You want to know why I came back?” Glenn asked, and he took my hand. He’d been inside me three different ways, yet this simple act of physical contact blazed with intimacy; I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye for fear of bursting into tears.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“Really, really want to know?”
“Yes.” And at last I looked at him, surprised to find his eyes were slightly downcast, not looking straight at me. Almost as if Glenn felt as nervous as I did.
“Partly guilt, I have to admit,” he confessed, chewing his bottom lip. “After everything you told me, I don’t think I reacted in the right way.”
“It was a lot to take in. It’s old news to me, but you were hearing it for the first time.”
“And that’s the point. It shouldn’t have taken me nineteen, twenty years for me to get the fuck over myself and consider how you felt when I first left to go to the States. That’s the thing, Afton,” he said, patting my leg then shifting his posture to face me. “I should have considered you more, back then. But...”
“Let’s face it, you were in no fit state to conduct a proper, grown-up relationship. Neither was I.”
“And together we were a mess.”
“Definitely.” But even while in the midst of that mess, I’d still longed for him. “God, I adored you,” I blurted out. “Even though you were high most of the time and I was drunk and heading for a nervous breakdown, I fucking adored you.” And I cursed the tear that rolled down my cheek, willing myself not to fall headlong into yet another crying jag.
“I know.” Again, Glenn patted my hand. “I didn’t deserve you. I needed rehab. Even if it did take a few goes for it to stick. I kept falling in and out of drying-out clinics and in and out of bars for God knows how long until one day...I wasn’t a mess any more, like I was way back when.” He looked around the hall, craning his neck to take in the ceiling rose and picture rail, as if viewing a stately home for the very first time in his life. “Neither of us were in a fit state to be parents, really, were we?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry you had to cope with all that alone.”
“Well.” I shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “You had to go rehab-shopping. I had to deal with my own issues.” My attempt at taking a deep breath morphed into nearly choking on a last, remaining whimpering sob. “I meant it, you know. Even after all that, I’d rather you were alive in another country if that’s what it took for you to get well. Even if it meant me losing you. And I wanted to tell you for the longest time, I really did, but I guess for the early part of your stay here I was spending a hell of a lot of energy on convincing myself there was no attraction left and we were just friends, so there was no point in raising the subject. Then when we...you know...”
“Became physically involved?”
“Yes. That. It all got so damn complicated. For me, at least. I didn’t know if it was a fling, or if it would go anywhere, and how much I should tell you, and most of the time we were in bed–”
“Or on the floor, or up against the kitchen counter.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“You have that effect on me, Collier. I can’t control myself whenever you’re around.”
“What I’m saying is, you’re... You overwhelm me.”
“I...?” His eyes widened in genuine, unmistakable shock. “I do?”
“I was trying desperately not to get in too deep, like the nineteen-year-old version of me had, and I kept biting my tongue, trying to pretend it was only a fling to me, and perhaps it could have been, if we didn’t have that history always in the back of my mind, and...oh God, it just wouldn’t go away.”
“Probably because all along you felt I ought to know. Maybe there was a part of you that thought, this is what you left me with. This is what I had to deal with on my own.”
“You had your own problems.”
Glenn wove the fingers of one hand through mine, and the continuation of physical contact throughout such an awkward conversation settled my stomach just a little. He was here, and he was staying. For how long, I didn’t know. I doubted he had a clue, either.
“You know, Collier, you’re really far more understanding than I deserve. I was an unmitigated shit to you.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“I meant today. Heading back to work and leaving you to think...well, who knows what? But I was making the same mistake sober this time, and I call myself lucid? Christ, it must have looked like I didn’t care, and I do.” Glenn’s voice cut off for a moment. “I do care.”
“I know.”
“And I am sorry.” He squeezed my hand. “For all of it.”
“You’ve apologised before, Glenn. There’s really no need–”
“For being a drunk who wasn’t the man you deserved twenty years ago. And for not being the kind of man you could trust with the truth now.” He dipped his head to insinuate himself into my eyeline. “Mentally, emotionally, I was prepared to head out and go back to work, and to sort us out later, then I got down to London, had a bit of time to kill between flights and thought, Glenn, you fucking idiot.”
“Not Oosh?” I teased him, and he gave a brief smile.
“One of these days I’ll get you to call me that again.”
“Chan eil fios agam carson a tha e cho cudromach dhutsa, Uisdean.”
“And one of these days I’ll get you to stop doing that as well.”
“I don’t know why it’s so important to you, Uisdean; that’s what I just said.”
“Yes you do; because then it’ll mean we’ve gone back to what we were to each other all those years ago. Or something like it.”
I wasn’t entirely sure that was possible. Or even that I would want it if it were. We were both different people now; not completely alien to our former selves, but older and wiser, with established careers and, I hoped, fully-formed personalities. “I was so completely lost in you, back then, it scares me to think of being that dependent on you for my happiness ever again.”
“Would it make any difference if I promised not to leave again?”
My head flicked up at the exact moment my stomach flipped over in shock. “You can’t just stay here, Oosh–” And I bit my lip. He, on the other hand, grinned in triumph.
“Fucking told you you’d do it eventually.”
“Oh, screw you.”
“Any time. But yeah, I’ll have to go back at some point. Fucking work, Afton. I’m embarrassed I thought that should be my immediate concern. I suppose I should call Tom at some point, and a few other people. I could just give them an excuse like whoops, I accidentally missed the plane but you know what? They know what people in showbusiness are like. They’ve had to cover over people ODing or heading into rehab or being caught balls deep in people they shouldn’t be all the damn time; what’s wrong with me saying, actually, I deliberately didn’t get on the plane because I decided going back to Edinburgh to tell Afton I loved her was far more important than taping Monday’s show? I do, you know,” he said, swapping moods so quickly he made my head spin. “Love you, I mean. That’s why I came back. It was too much like the time I’d left before. I hated how shady I felt waiting for a flight, down in London. Like the lowest of the low. Didn’t want to risk leaving it that way, as if history was repeating itself.”
“And I was scared I’d never see you again because it felt too much like before.”
“But you were still somehow pissed off when I did come back and show up on your doorstep.”
“I’m a woman; we’re allowed to change our minds.”
“Yeah, great way to confuse me. It’s hard enough for me to understand you at the best of times.”
“I have to keep you on your toes.”
“You certainly do that.” Glenn looked straight at me and paused for a few seconds before continuing. “Do you forgive me?”
“For what?”
“Leaving. Coming back. Anything I might have done to piss you off that I’m not currently aware of; I have to cover all bases. You have told me everything, right? Everything?”
“Yes,” I promised. “And I’ll have a word with the Pope later, see if he can sort you out with some kind of universal, perpetual indulgence. We’re good friends. Bit of a language barrier, though. My Latin’s a bit rusty and he’s not so hot on the Gaelic, but we get by.”
“Maybe I should see if I can rustle up some energy then, commit a few sins while I can, if I’m going to be forgiven anyway. I’m sure I could manage to do a few ungodly things if I tried really hard.”
“To be honest, Glenn–”
He cleared his throat loudly. Extremely loudly.
“Oosh.”
“Thank you.”
“To be honest, Oosh, I think given our history with drink and drugs, we’ve already got the sinning covered between us.”
“But we’re clean and sober these days, right? So we’ll just have to stick to anal sex, French kissing and butt plugs.”
“You romantic old fool.”
“I do my best.” Glenn leaned over, pulled me in at the same time, and kissed me on the lips. “I did the right thing in coming back.”
I let out a long, slow, heavy breath before replying. “Yes. Yes, you did.”
“Oh, I wasn’t asking for your opinion, Collier,” he said. “I know I did. Even if you’d seen me and told me to fuck off, at least then I’d know. I had to come back and try to undo the mess, from the past few days. From twenty years ago. I had to know what you’d say if I came back. Will you come back to LA with me?”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Of course I am.” Glenn flinched back, frowning, as if he couldn’t understand my confusion, or fathom why I would doubt him. “It’s a bit difficult to have a relationship with someone when they’re in a different country. Especially on a different continent,” he added. “I still have a few months of the show to finish up, that’s if I’ve still got a job when I head back, in which case...” Glenn shrugged. “Fuck it, I don’t need it anyway. That’s why I quit. But in the new year, we can figure it all out. Where we’re going to live, and so on.”
“We’re going to...live together?” I ventured, narrowing my eyes and studying his every reaction to my words. Caution wasn’t the right word; it was more fearful than that. Despite being hurt so badly by Joseph, I wasn’t completely off men, but Glenn wasn’t just any man. Finding him again had been almost too much to hope for. Finding and keeping him was on a whole other level.
“Unless you can think of a way to have a monstrous amount of sex with someone while living separately, then yeah, I’m afraid we’re going to have to. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”
“Monstrous sex,” I echoed quietly. “But of course.”
“No, no, no,” he shot back, pointing at me with an accusatory index finger. “The sex itself will be filthy. It’s the amount of sex we’re going to have that will be monstrous. Dear God, Collier, get it right. Speaking of which, will you be changing your name?”
I said nothing in reply, merely cocked my head and waited for him to continue. He sounded as if he were saying a particular thing, but I needed clarification, dared not even ask for it.
“I think I just proposed. Not very romantic, I know, but...do you think you will? I guess your career’s established as Collier but privately you can call yourself Peterson. I’d like that.” He leaned his head back against the wall, a half-smile playing at his lips. “It makes sense, if I’m going to be knocking you up as soon as possible, everyone having the same name. What did you do when you were married to Joseph? Did you change your name privately? Because I’m not being sidelined just because I’m your second husband. You’ll be my second wife, but I guess you can say everyone’s allowed to make a mistake once in their life. I don’t even like referring to them as mistakes, because past experiences make us what we are and all that. Are you okay? You look a bit pale.”
“Wait, wait.” I patted the air between us with what I hoped was a calming, soothing hand. “Just to clarify...we’re supposed to be running away to LA together, living together, getting married, you’re going to knock me up after lots of monstrous–”
“Excuse me?”
“Monstrous amounts of dirty, filthy sex–”
“That’s better.”
“You want me to change my name privately if not professionally, and...” My voice trailed away for a second, until I found my voice again. “Have I forgotten anything?”
“No. No, I think that just about covers it. There’s the whole where are we going to live thing, but we can deal with that in the new year. I assume you’ll want to keep this place; after all, I can’t see you ever again not having a base in Scotland, and I’m sure there are plenty more dirty weekends to be had in the Highlands.”
“Slow down, would you? I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up with you. After everything we talked about, before you left this morning. How I was when you first took off to the States. Me drying out, the abortion, the nervous breakdown, all that. It doesn’t bother you?”
“Why would it?” Glenn shrugged. “Aside from the fact I’ve clearly got a lot of shit to make up for, which is why I’d quite like to get started as soon as possible. Make up for lost time, and all that.”
“You don’t think that would be rushing it a bit?”
Glenn’s sharp bark of laughter echoed round the hallway, and he did a double take. “Wait, you’re actually serious? Afton, it’s been twenty years. I hardly call that rushing it; would you? I’ll need to make a few phone calls pretty soon, and get online to look for another flight. Why don’t I book us both on–”
“No.”
“–a plane as soon as– Wait, what? No?”
“I can’t fly over yet; I have dance classes in Glasgow for the next couple of weeks then I’m in London for filming a video with Noah Thomas.”
“Fuck.” He tutted loudly, and leaned his head back so sharply it almost thudded into the wall. “Well either you put the kibosh on your pop video career just to keep me happy and sexually satisfied, or I’m looking forward to a few weeks’ cold showers in Glendale while I wait for you to show up.”
“Stock up on Kleenex and hand cream, you’ll be fine.”
“Sometimes I wonder about your cold-hearted lack of sympathy for my sexual needs, Collier. Oh, speaking of which, you never did answer my question.”
“I didn’t hear any; it was mostly your plans. Or should I say orders.”
“About changing your name.”
“I...” It occurred to me he might be serious about this, us, and my childish teenage daydreams about how our names might sound together had a conclusion in reality after all. I’d never gone so far as to practise an Afton Peterson signature, but it might be time to start. “I...guess? If you want me to?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I want you to. It’s either that or I brand you. Maybe some kind of tattoo or certificate of ownership so everyone knows you’re my bitch.” He slapped my thigh through my jeans, grabbed himself as much flesh as he could. “Fine filly. Strong teeth, too,” he added, taking a hold of my jaw, until I pulled away, laughing.
“Piss off, you idiot.”
“Strong breeding stock. Should be able to take you to market in a few years; you’ll fetch a good price.”
“I swear to God, if you mention childbearing hips, I’ll lop your dick off.”
“I hope you’ve got a big wheelbarrow, it’s a whopper. Actually, don’t do that; we’ll need it. I assume you do want children?”
Unable to answer, I bit my lip.
“Come on, Afton. There’s no point being reticent about what you want. You’re allowed to want stuff.”
“Okay then, yes I do. And given my age, as soon as possible.”
“Can do,” he said with a grin, going for his belt.
“Christ.” Unsuccessfully attempting to smother my laughter, I shook my head and looked at Glenn’s grinning face. “What am I going to do with you?”
He shrugged. “I was hoping for a lot of anal sex and a couple of hand shandies, and that’s just for starters.”
“To think yesterday, or whenever it was...we had a pretty serious conversation and now you’re...we’re...”
Glenn raised his eyebrows.
“...discussing what a good breeder I am, as if I were a horse, and...just as well I’m not a horse; have you ever tried getting a hand job off of something with hooves?”
“I’m not sure, but then I did spend a large part of my twenties and thirties blackout drunk.”
“Can you be serious for five minutes? Even one or two? Maybe?”
“Okay, then. I massively fucked up. We both did. And now we have a chance to make things as right as we possibly can. You ought to come live in Glendale with me until the show’s finished, until the New Year when we figure out where our official base will be. Meanwhile, we get married, you change your name, and if you’re not pregnant by the time my contract is up, there’s something wrong with my sac. Deal?”
“I...” No more words emerged; instead, I just knelt there staring at him, my jaw hanging open in...it wasn’t shock. Or even nervousness, not really. Excitement? Whatever the emotion was that churned my stomach at that second, I needed to process it, to accept that yes, this was really happening. “I...guess so?”
“That wasn’t really a swooning acceptance of this great honour I’m willing to bestow on you, Collier-soon-to-be-Peterson.”
“Five seconds ago you were talking about being so drunk you wouldn’t remember if you’d ever had a hoof-job off a horse and offering to dump a sacload up me by Hogmanay, so you don’t really have a leg to stand on there,” I pointed out.
“You’ve bested me again, Afton. You’ve bested me again.” Without warning, he pulled me over to him and rolled me over onto my back. “See? I’m still slick and flexible for an old guy.”
“I suppose you’ll do.”
“If you can stand to put up with me for however long I’ve got left after I explain my absence to my bosses, get your jeans off, woman, we need to consummate the marriage–”
“You are making zero sense; we’re not even married yet.” Yet. Jesus Christ, I was going to marry Glenn Peterson. I had no idea how I’d gone from the depths of despair to oh my God I’m getting married and moving to America in the past twenty-four hours, but...I supposed I’d better latch onto him as soon as possible before he changed his mind.
“I need to try you out a few times first, make sure I want to keep you,” he muttered against the side of my neck.
The way we were wrapped around each other made it difficult as hell to toe my shoes off and undo my jeans and Lord, how I wished I’d worn a skirt or a dress that morning but I hadn’t expected to end my day like this, with Glenn somehow here again and pulling clothing off me in between undoing his own belt and stroking his erection, urging me to hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.
“Wait.”
Glenn groaned, his breath hot against the side of my neck. “What.” Obviously said through gritted teeth.
“You do realise I’m still on the pill.” So pregnancy wouldn’t be an option quite yet even though we’d agreed without saying as much that condoms were no longer an issue.
“So stop taking them.”
“I...” As simple as that, then? I cleared my throat. “Are you sure about this?”
“Never more so.” Without another word, he pushed into me in one stroke, and the sudden feeling of being full of him took my breath away. He stilled then, every muscle in his body taut, almost trembling under the tension of...restraint, I supposed. “I wondered what this would feel like.”
Despite the seriousness of the moment, I chuckled. “We’ve done this before, remember?”
“First time I’ve been inside you bareback and sober.”
“My God, you’re a romantic old soul, aren’t you?”
Glenn smiled and kissed me, before beginning to rock back and forth inside me. Slowly, but just enough for me to realise this was really happening. “Get used to it,” he said. “You’re stuck with me now.”