Niamh stayed at mine last night. I didn’t want to leave her, wanted her with me. I wanted her to feel safe, loved. We had breakfast together, in silence, out on the porch. Then I asked whether we could spend the day together. She was out in the stables with me all morning; she used to love brushing down the horses, feeding them, talking to them. When I asked whether she wanted to come on one of my group excursions later, she said she’d rather stay back in the hotel, maybe spend some time with Dad. I couldn’t be happier.
I got to work feeling calmer, more chatty than usual. The guests in my group were happy. I get back to the stables in early evening, just as the sun is beginning its descent. I could’ve gone straight home, but I knew there would be no one there waiting for me. So I decided to stay with the horses for a while: the only beings who can listen to my pain without needing to speak.
“You were right about everything.”
His voice paralyses me.
“I’m scared, Silas.”
I turn slowly. Leo is really here, I’m not just imagining it. He came to my place.
“I’m scared of hurting you again, after everything I’ve already done. Scared that I really am the wrong man for you. Scared I won’t be able to let go, to learn from my mistakes, to forgive… Myself. Scared for Noel, scared he’ll never fully recover, never be able to let go himself. Scared of leaving him alone with his thoughts.”
I look into his eyes, absorbing his words, so true and so painful.
“I feel like I owe him. I feel responsible, you know?”
I nod slowly.
“I can’t abandon him. I can’t be so selfish, give myself a second chance when he never even got one. And I really want to believe in us, give myself this life together and give you everything you’ve ever wanted, but I can’t. I’ll never be able to leave him – and not just out of duty. I don’t… I don’t want to.”
He lowers his gaze and sighs, exhausted.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could be better, I wish I could…” He shakes his head. “Please, forget me. Just forget about me. It’s for the best– it’s what I deserve.”
He hesitates a moment then turns to leave the stables – but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know that I’m the one who can’t abandon anything: not him, and certainly not us.
“I love you.”
He stops dead in the doorway.
“I know you know that.”
He turns slowly, his eyes filled with tears.
“I’ve always loved you. Since that first day. I’ve never loved anyone but you. At least, I don’t think I have.” I let out a nervous chuckle. “I’ve never felt anything similar for another guy, another man… I’ve never suffered so much for one person.” His eyes grow sad, but it’s the truth. “I’ve never cried for anyone.” Now his own tears begin to fall. “I’ve never waited, hoped… Felt someone the way I feel you. It’s always been this way. That will never change. And you can keep turning your back on this, on us, but I won’t forget. I’ll be here, reminding you of what we are, every time you forget.”
“You love me?”
As if all the moments between us, all the silences, the breaths, the panting, the kisses, had ever been anything but love.
As if we had ever been anything but love.
“After everything I’ve done. All the distance, the absence; despite the fact I broke your heart.”
I nod, air trapped in my throat.
“It took me so long to understand,” he says, his voice reduced to gravel. “Years of unanswered questions, of doubt, guilt… Years fighting against myself. It took me years to understand what I felt for you.” He steps closer to me, his hand brushing against mine. I squeeze his fingers tightly, so that he knows he can hold onto me, now and forever; that there won’t be a single day when I’m not by his side.
“I don’t know what I am, Silas. But I know that I start and end with you. And that will never change. Even though I know that you deserve someone else, you deserve the world. Even though I know that I’ll never be good enough for you…” I pull him close to me, my hands on his hips.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re so beautiful, strong, confident, adult. I’m useless compared to you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sometimes I feel intimidated by you, by your confidence, by everything that you are.”
“Do I make you feel like that?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just that… I’ll never be the man for you, but I really want to be. I want… I…” I rest my other hand on his face and dry his tears with my thumb.
My heart is exactly where I left it: in his hands. And I don’t want it back. I want it to stay there forever, in its place.
I pushed him too much. I put pressure on him, made him feel overwhelmed. He’s alone and scared, and he needed help. He needed me. And I won’t turn my back on him.
“I want to help you. I want to help you understand, find a way to help your brother, too.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll only ever love you.”
His mouth pushes against mine for a moment – just long enough to taste him on my lips again.
“I don’t know if…”
I grab his T-shirt and pull him into me.
I don’t want any more words, not now. Now I just want to taste him again, to feel his love all over me.
I press my mouth onto his; his hands are in my ear, my own hands gripping at his shirt. His mouth reclaims me, his body pushing against mine, my back against the fence, his erection straining towards me.
“God, I want you,” I pant onto his lips. “Here, now…”
“Oh, God, yes…”
I lift away from the fencing and push him back, making him fall onto a hay bale. I lie on top of him.
“I want you to fuck me,” I tell him.
A panicked expression crosses his face. I smile reassuringly at him. “Not now, not here. But I’d like that, if you’d like it.”
“Fuck, do I want it.”
I laugh, then suddenly fall serious again. I need him to believe me.
“I want to be yours, Leo.”
“You want that?”
“Absolutely. Only yours.”
“I don’t deserve you to be mine.”
“You’re the only one who could ever deserve it.”
His lips are on mine before Leo takes control, laying me out on the hay beneath him. His hands are on my jeans, unbuttoning them quickly; my hands mirror his movements, his hard erection freed from his trousers. His hand wraps around my own erection.
“Fuck, I missed you,” he groans onto my mouth, his hand moving slowly up and down as I do the same with his. “I’ve been thinking about you so much, about this…” He bites my lip so hard that I fumble my grip on him. He lifts up just enough for his dick to push against mine, before moving around on top of me, our erections pressed together, his tongue in my mouth. It’s so exciting, so real; the past and the present, the memory of what we’ve shared melding with everything we’re experiencing. Desire, passion, bodies and souls finding their way back to each other.
Leo breathes into my throat and I squeeze his arse, feeling a wave of pleasure wash over us both in the same moment; a moment which feels like everything we’ve been and everything we can still be together.
Leo picks a few strands of hay from my hair, his eyes landing on mine.
“This has just become my favourite place.”
“This place?”
He nods, his mouth still red and swollen from my kisses, my biting.
“I’m glad, because it’s my second-favourite place in the world.”
“What’s in first place?”
I try to mask the tension in my face, but it’s not easy – not when Leo is looking at me so intently.
“Your arms.”
Leo inhales slowly, expelling the air nervously.
“I don’t have much to give you,” he says, embarrassed now. “To be honest, I have absolutely nothing. I work in a pub, and for my brother. I don’t…”
“Shh.” I rest two fingers against his lips.
“I want to believe in this, in us. I want to believe it’s possible.”
“And I’m here to help you. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“I don’t know if I really deserve that, Silas.”
“Honey,” I say, stroking his face with the back of my hand. “Let yourself go. You just have to leave the past behind and look to the future.”
“You. I want to look at you.”
I smile, emotional.
“I’ve done nothing but think of you for my whole life, and I can’t bear the thought of spending another instant without us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. And it’s not true that you have nothing. You have this,” I say, resting a hand on his chest.
Leo rests his hand on mine.
“Yours. It belongs to you.”
“I don’t need anything else. And I don’t want anything else.”