“What you said. You didn’t just say you wanted the rest of our lives. You asked me for a promise.”
“Is that different?” Gideon demanded, and then Zeb could all but hear something click in his mind. “Zeb?” he asked, more gently. “You said you don’t break promises. Is that why you wouldn’t make me one?”
“I hate promises.” Zeb was facing away from Gideon, staringat the wall. “I hate everything about them. If someone makes one to me I feel sick waiting for it to be broken, and if I make one it’s worse because then I’m the one who’ll mess everything up. A promise is just wrapping hope around lies, and I don’t want to do that or have it done to me, and we’d only been lovers for what, nine months—”
“I spoke far too soon. Iknow. I was getting it all wrong and it terrified me. I’d had to reprimand you at work that day, and it seemed that everything that came out of my mouth was a criticism, and I wanted to… I don’t know. To make it clear I loved you.”
“But I was terrified too. I couldn’t seem to get anything right as it was, and then you wanted me to make this great promise and how could I? How could I promise you everything and not ruin it, not have to explain why I got it wrong? How could I spend the rest of my life with that hanging over me every day?”
“God,” Gideon said. “That really wasn’t the spirit in which I asked.”
“Iknowthat. But I also knew I wasn’t capable of being what you wanted, so a promise would have been a lie, and I couldn’t bear to wait for you to find out I’d lied to you. I’d be sitting under the Sword of Damocles until whatever I did to make it fall.”
“You thought you couldn’t be what I wanted?”
“I knew I couldn’t.”
“Oh God,” Gideon said. “If you thought that—Zeb, you werewhoI wanted. I wanted you, and you are superlatively and marvellously you, and if you didn’t understand that, it’s because Ifailed to tell you. Because I didn’t know how to be with you, and I got annoyed about thewhat, the lost keys and shirts on the floor, as if those were the things that mattered.”
“But they do matter and you were annoyed,” Zeb said. “There was work, and your family situation, and you were under so much stress, and I couldn’t even do the little things to make it easier. I kept failing. And when you asked me for more, although I couldn’t even seem to handle what we already had—it felt like a rebuke, I suppose, like you were pointing out another way I hadn’t been good enough. And it hurt, and I hit back and pretty much said the nastiest thing I could.”
He’d been ashamed of that for a year. Gideon had been very conscious of his inexperience compared to Zeb’s extensive history. To have thrownI can give you the eveningat him, with its implication that Gideon was merely a casual diversion, had been the sort of shitty thing Hawley would say to end an affair.
“It was horrible of me,” he said. “I’ve no excuse. And we argued, and you went off and I thought,but Icouldgive you the evening.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean—I could have been with you day by day. Not making big promises, or saying I’d always get it right, just waking up and deciding every day we were still us. I’d have done that. I’d have loved that.”
“Oh Christ.” Gideon’s voice was raw. “So would I. I didn’t think you meant that.”
“I didn’t when I said it, but I should have. It was what Iwantedto have meant, because it was what I wanted to have. I lay awake all night working out how to explain that to you. I thought, if I could just explain it, we could make things right.” He smiled mirthlessly at the wall. “And then there we were at Cubitt’s the next day, with you pretending not to look at me, and I had no idea how to broach matters, and the not speaking was unbearable. I had to saysomething. And, you know, I really did just pull you into that stock cupboard to talk, only the way you looked at me—I just wanted to kiss you, and I thought I’d latched the door, or maybe I forgot about it, but either way, Ididn’tlatch it, and there we were. First I panicked and grossly insulted you, and then I decided that I was going to make things work, and managed to go about eight hours before I ruined your life. Sorry.”
Gideon’s free arm shifted. Zeb rather thought he was putting his hand over his face. “Oh, Zeb. Dear God.”
“I’m sorry,” Zeb said again. “I’m an idiot.”
“No. I let you drag me into that stockroom. I let you kiss me, when I was well aware how stupid that was. And I shouldn’t have pushed you as I did that evening. I knew at the time that I was going about it wrong, but I wanted to make a grand gesture instead of, I don’t know, helping you find whatever you’d misplaced without complaining about it, which I expect you would have preferred.”
“Well. Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Gideon said softly. “I did know I was being a prick. I was so worried for my sister and her family, and Ellison was pushing for your dismissal and giving me a hard time for notsupporting him—”
“You didn’t tell me that!”
“No. I probably should have, but you were already so unhappy and nervous at work, I felt like it would only have made things worse. The fact is, I should have stopped being your supervisor as soon as we started. But if I’d passed you to anyone else—”
“They’d have sacked me.”
“Probably. Yes. I was constantly on edge because of it, and I didn’t know what I was doing with you. I couldn’t seem to get it right. So I got it catastrophically wrong, and then you responded badly, soIgot upset, soyoudid that at Cubitt’s, and—God almighty, we’re not fit to be let out.”
Zeb snorted. “It does sound that way.”
“And if that’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Gideon said. “I spent a long time trying to blame you for everything that happened, but the truth is, I precipitated the whole mess.”
“You were trying your best.”
“You were trying when you dragged me into that storeroom,” Gideon pointed out. “One can have good intentions and still make a pig’s ear of things.”
