Page 221 of Love at First Fright

I’d look at him across the breakfast table—this broad-shouldered, conventionally attractive bloke who’d once called me a delusional pervert—and had to remind myself that Bat lived behind those blue eyes. My Bat. The one who’d died in 1999 wearing excessive amounts of eyeliner and a puncture wound between his ribs.

Some mornings I’d wake up and panic, thinking I’d imagined everything. Thinking Brad would roll over and sneer at me.

But then those strong, comforting arms would wrap around me, and Bat would whisper good morning against my neck in that way that made my toes curl.

Bat struggled too, though he tried to hide it. I caught him staring at his reflection more than once—not in vanity, but confusion. Like he was trying to recognise the stranger looking back. He’d touch himself sometimes, absently, fingers tracing features that didn’t belong to him. The thick jaw. The complete absence of his scar.

“Do you still see me?” he’d asked one night, voice small. “When you look at me, is it still me?”

“Always,” I’d promised. And I’d meant it.

And we had other challenges too.

Massive, identity-theft-level challenges that neither of us had been remotely prepared for.

The first one: we didn’t even know where Brad lived.

I’d stood in Gerald’s office three days after the fire, Bat’s hand gripping mine. Gerald had been hunched over his desk, turning something over in his fingers—something dark and glassy that caught the light wrong. Something about that object nagged at me. It was familiar, somehow. Like I’d seen it before but couldn’t place where.

He’d jerked when he noticed us. Shoved the thing under a pile of paperwork.

“We’re resigning,” I’d said. “Both of us. Effective immediately.”

Gerald’s milky blue eyes had gone wide. “Right. Fine then. Just go tell Ted.”

Bat had laughed—this bright, genuine sound that Brad’s vocal cords had never produced before.

“That’s it?” I’d said.

“What do you want me to do?” Gerald had leaned forward over the papers, protective. “Beg you to stay? There’s always more idiots who think they can handle ghosts. Now if you don’t mind—”

He’d made shooing motions with his hands, desperate for us to leave.

We’d left feeling vaguely insulted that he hadn’t even tried to stop us.

Ted had been very helpful. He’d handed over Brad’s address from the payroll paperwork without question, probably relieved to have two less nightmares to manage.

Brad’s flat had been exactly what I’d expected. Studio in Croydon. Dingy. Beige walls. Framed photos of rugby teams covering every surface. Protein powder lined up on the kitchen counter like soldiers. Not a single book in sight except for some self-help rubbish about alpha male success strategies.

We’d grabbed his passport, birth certificate, National Insurance card, driving licence. Everything we’d need to fully inhabit his life.

We already had his phone—it had been in his uniform pocket, and somehow survived the basement, unlike mine. Bat’s fingerprint unlocked it instantly, and we’d scrolled through his contacts whilst sitting on Brad’s lumpy sofa.

Brad didn’t have many friends. Surprise, surprise.

A few names from his supposed professional rugby days. Mostly contacts for tradesmen, a dentist, his gym. No record of that infamous lesbian cousin he’d told me about. But there, near the bottom of the list: Dad.

Bat had stared at that entry for a long time. “We can’t just disappear on him,” he’d said quietly. “That’s cruel.”

I’d wanted to argue. Wanted to say Brad’s father probably didn’t deserve our consideration, that we owed him nothing. But Bat’s face had done that thing—softened with an ache I recognised. The same ache that still appeared whenever he mentioned his own parents, the ones who’d quietly rejected him for being gay before he died.

So Bat kept up the relationship.

Sent texts. Made phone calls. Visited Bradford Senior every few weeks in his terraced house in Sutton. Brought me along as his boyfriend, which seemed to surprise the older man every single time.

“Nothing wrong with it, of course, but I just didn’t know you were… that way inclined, son,” he’d said during our first visit, eyebrows raised.

“It took me a while, but I finally gathered the courage to come out,” Bat had replied smoothly. “Charlie’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”