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It felt...scary and also liberating to say that aloud to Mordant. He hadn’t told anyone who hadn’t been there at the time. Pete Heggarty knew there’d been something; but Pink had kept quiet about it with his colleagues. No-one gossiped like AV technicians and he didn’t want to be known on the circuit as the guy who’d had a breakdown when his boyfriend left him.
Which wasn’t what had happened; but it was how it could be framed if people were uncharitable.
He found he was frightened to look at Mordant’s face and see what it was doing; but when he made himself, there was no judgement or scorn there. A little piece of the fear left him.
“What happened?” Mordant said quietly.
“Oh, nothing much. I got the landlord to change the locks on the house after he wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept coming round. I blocked him on the phone and my socials. The GP gave me antidepressants to get me over the hump while I had some therapy for the anxiety. I came down here for a few weeks and had a rest away from it all. He backed off, a bit.” He swallowed, throat dry. “Every so often, though, he’d still come round, once I went home. Mostly when he was pissed. He didn’t have keys at that point, so he never got in. I used to be terrified he’d break a window or something, though. It was a relief to give the house up in the end.”
Mordant said, “Bloody hell, Pink. I’m so sorry.”
Pink didn’t tell him about the couple of times he had got in before the locks were changed, in the week or two after Pink had ended it. He wasn’t going back there, even in his head.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “It is what it is. I was so happy to give up the house when the tour began. A new start and all that. I didn’t want to make a police report about Ant in case Malc was able to find it somehow and he worked out what I was working on.” He fumbled with the duvet, to avoid looking at Mordant. “I just want to forget all about it and move on. The last thing I want is to have him turning up at jobs.”
His throat was dry again. He made himself look up. “I’m not a basket-case, I promise. It’s only... it’s been a rough few months.”
Mordant smiled at him. “I don’t think you’re a basket-case,” he said.
Pink smiled back. It felt like a fragile thing, whatever was growing between them, something spun out of spider-silk. He wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“Do you want some lunch?” he asked, looking over Mordant’s shoulder at the clock on the bedside table. “It’s three o’clock. We haven’t eaten.” All of a sudden he realised he was starving.
Mordant was clearly as relieved as he was at the change of subject. “Yeah,” he said. “I could eat. Can I take a quick shower?”
Pink nodded, rolling out of bed. “Help yourself,” he said. “I should, too.”
“Together?” Mordant grinned at him from where he still lay in the sheets.
“No! Definitely not! I’m hungry!”
Mordant laughed and went to wash.
****
“What are you going to do about Malcolm wanting you to speak up for him?” Mordant asked a bit later on as they were sharing a beer at the garden table and waiting for the lasagne Pink had thrown together to finish cooking.
Pink picked uncomfortably at the label on the damp bottle, not meeting his eyes. This was what he was worried about. Anyone he spent time with...liked...having opinions about what he did with his life. He could feel his hackles rising defensively.
“Nothing,” he said. “I don’t want to do anything. I want to let it go and forget about him.” He glanced across the table at Mordant. “Like I wanted to with Ant.”
Mordant pulled a face at him. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t have done anything about that even if I knew your reasons for wanting to stay a bit under the radar. By the time I’d got back to the gig, Pete had called it in and had a crime number.”
Pink sighed. “It’s fine. I can see why he did it. He’s right—the guy shouldn’t be working on the circuit with an attitude like that.” He paused. “It’s not like Malcolm can’t find me here if he wants to. If he sees the report, he might even assume the broken wrist means that I won’t be on the tour any longer.”
Mordant reached out a hand and laid it gently on his arm. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see. What are you going to do about his letter?”
“I’m going to ignore it.” Pink felt a curl of satisfaction at getting the words out. It was hard, but he did it. “I’ve got no obligation to stand up and tell people about him, one way or the other.” A little flame of humour from deep in his chest made him say, “Although it would be really satisfying to turn up in court as a character witness for him and then tell everyone what he was really like.”
Mordant snorted beer out of his nose.
“Yeah,” he said when he’d finished choking. “Yeah, that would almost be worth doing.”
Pink finally managed to look up and meet his eyes. They were warm brown across the table, filled with gentle humour and... something else Pink wasn’t quite ready to analyse. Instead he got to his feet, saying, “The lasagne’ll be ready. Do you want salad with it?” and made for the safety of the kitchen.
Mordant followed him to the kitchen door. Pink reached out to open it and, as he’d been that morning, Mordant was close behind him. This time, though, instead of hesitating and doubting himself, Pink turned round and leaned back. “What?” he said in his most throaty voice, deliberately looking up at Mordant through his eyelashes.
Mordant smiled. He put a finger under Pink’s chin and tilted his head back a bit. “You know what,” he said quietly, dropping a soft kiss, gentle as a moth, on Pink’s mouth.
Pink shivered. “Do I?” he said.
“Yeah,” Mordant said, not moving his hand, but drawing back a bit to look Pink in the eye. “Yeah, I think you do. Don’t you?”
Pink bit his lip. It was an effort not to look away. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
He didn’t know what else to say. He did know. This thing between them had been brewing from the first time they’d met at that terrible pub gig. They’d spent three months stepping round each other on the tour to avoid addressing it. And yet here they were.
He leaned forward and brushed his mouth over Mordant’s. “The lasagne’s going to burn,” he said. “Come on.”
Mordant smiled again and reached around behind him to open the door. Pink turned, liking the way he was pressed between the warmth of Mordant’s chest and the cool safety glass. Mordant pressed a kiss to the back of his neck and he pressed the handle down and guided him inside with a hand on the small of his back.
