AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My lover stilled. “Aah. I… um… you did not apprise me of that.”
Chuckling, I peppered his warm skin with a ridiculous number of kisses for a little longer. “Would it have changed things?”
“Not a chance.”
“He’ll have to get used to it,” I declared. “I want you here every night from now on.”
Charles had several months’ rent remaining on a perfectly respectable house over in Ars. Bigger than my cottage. I suspected the bed was bigger too. Yet now Papi sometimes wandered at night, I was loathe to leave him on his own. He looked back over his shoulder at me, all adorably creased and mussed.
“Is it possible to do a walk of shame down a staircase? Honestly, Flor, I’m forty next month. Way too old for this little scenario.”
I laughed. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Even I felt a little sheepish as I entered the kitchen. Barefoot, Charles trailed after me, one of my worn T-shirts thrown on over his jeans. With his usually neat hair sticking up in ten different directions and his unshaven chin stippled with beard burn, he may as well have dangled a sign around his neck enumerating all the ways I’d wrung every drop of spunk out of him.
Having tired of waiting for his usual table service, Papi had cobbled together his own breakfast. Hunched over his coffee, he peered up at me and then down at himself, with a confused expression.
“These aren’t my clothes, are they?”
He plucked at the expensive linen shirt, bunched around the collar and at the line of fastened mismatched buttons. A few coffee dribbles had made their way down the front where it stretched tightly across his modest belly. On the floor nearby, one of Charles’s upturned loafers pointed in the direction of its mate lying a few feet away, as if signalling we had a visitor. His socks snaked around each other, equally confused.
“Florian? This is not my shirt.”
Charles hung back, unsure of how to respond, looking to me for support. I winked at him. My two worlds had collided, the two men I cherished above all others, and I couldn’t recall being any happier.
“No… no,” I managed, stifling a snort. “Or perhaps I’ve shrunk that shirt in the wash. Let me find you another one. By the way, Charles is still here, Papi. He stayed the night. With me. Charles, mon chéri, pour us both a coffee.”
I’d never know what Papi made of my lover sidling into the chair across from him. Maybe nothing, maybe he’d known all along that me and the Belgian were more than just good friends. Or maybe his brain was too addled these days to put two and two together to even question where Charles had slept. Perhaps he was too occupied with letting me help him out of Charles’s tight linen shirt and into one of his much comfier, soft, checked ones, with his cosy knitted cardigan over the top, to keep out the chill.
Or maybe, he was accepting of all of me, just as I was accepting of all of him, and didn’t feel it worthy of comment.
Protecting his dignity, I shielded his naked torso from Charles as I helped him undress, and my lover busied himself with pouring us both coffee, adding a sprinkle of sugar to his own. Before long, we were all three settled around the table, dipping last night’s bread into steaming mugs while outside the window, the goldfinches chattered importantly and the sun climbed higher into the sky. I imagined many more peaceful breakfasts like this stretching into the future. Although we might need a bigger coffee pot.
Charles kept his head down as if trying to make himself as invisible as possible and my hand found his under the table.
“Ça va, Charles?” I checked. Are you okay?
“Very.”
When I looked up, Papi’s eyes, the same as mine, glinted with contentment. He gave a faint smile in the direction of us both before glancing toward the window. A pair of chaffinches sung at the tops of their voices.
“Good salt weather, Florian, isn’t it?”
I squeezed my lover’s hand. “The very best, Papi. The very best.”
EPILOGUE
CHARLES – ONE YEAR LATER
Bastille day. A day for flags, fireworks, fraternity, and food. A day for families. And according to Florian, for kissing foreign men. Although he made sure to do that every day.
Families were all around us. Jerome, Léa, and their baby were somewhere, the baby—more of a robust toddler now—wearing a pair of cute fluffy ear defenders, by all accounts bought by an adoring grandfather. I’d already observed Michel showing him off in L’Escale. Florian said it made him broody—a concept I hadn’t appreciated affected men, but perhaps my boyfriend was the exception. As long as they inherited his beautiful genes not mine, we could have as many babies as he liked.
We’d left Papi tucked up at home in front of the television with a bottle of beer and his friend, Paul. He’d grumpily declared fireworks to be a pointless waste of money. And I agreed with Florian; dementia, darkness, and the deep waters of the port were never a good combination.
My mother accompanied us, however, flickering in and out of my head in gauzy splashes of yellow. These days, I greeted her presence with open arms. The contemplative beach walks with Papi helped, along with the letters I penned and our silent conversations on that little bench overlooking the ocean. I never brought her flowers, though—she hadn’t been a flowers kind of person. Instead, we had lively debates of the sort we used to exchange when she lived. About art and physics. And about Florian and our beautiful quiet, gentle life. And for as long as I carried her around with me, her spark would never go out.
“Where’s Nico tonight?” I asked, cuddling even closer during a lull in the aerial display. The air temperature wasn’t even cold—it was July after all, but I took every opportunity I could to bask in his silvery warmth.
