Page 38 of Electric Boy

“I, um, can I come in? I’d murder a cuppa.”

Julian took in the red, running tip of Rahul’s nose and how he kept his hands under his armpits and sighed. “How long you been out here, then?”

“Not long,” Rahul lied.

Julian descended the stairs, making the seamless transition from deity to mortal. As he stood beside Rahul to unlock the door, Rahul got a whiff of his hair on the breeze. It smelled of citrus, not at all like Julian’s usual lavender. It hooked the knife into Rahul’s belly, poised to gut him at the slightest provocation.

Once inside, Julian tossed off his parka and sauntered into the kitchen. Rahul followed behind, the knife slicing his innards open as he saw Julian was wearing the same clothes as the night before, looking distinctly more wrinkled than he remembered them.

“Twinings black all right?” Julian asked offhandedly as he opened his cabinets.

“Mmm,” was all Rahul could manage without his voice breaking.

Julian plugged in the kettle with rather more force than was strictly necessary and propped himself against the counter with one hip, arms folded over his bruise-coloured top. “So, now that I’ve got you out of the cold, you want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” Rahul blurted before he could think better of it. “Really I am. I -- I don’t know what came over me. I was worried about you. Can you blame me? I’d never thought you were gay or -- or -- whatever, and suddenly there’s this bloke following you around who looks like he’s about to eat you up with a dessert spoon and I just wanted to make sure you were all right. If I’d known you were interested in men -- or whatever -- I’d have thought differently, wouldn’t I? And you can forgive me for being confused when all I’ve ever heard you talk about is women and all the many, many -- many -- things you’ve done to them or would like to do to them.” Rahul recoiled at the mere memory of these “lad chats.”

Julian had the courtesy to look abashed. “It’s complicated, innit? You don’t have to be one or the other, gay or straight. You can like a bit of both.”

The kettle went off and Julian turned his back on him, continuing on as he prepared the tea. “And it’s not like it’s come out of the blue or nothing. I’ve always been curious about boys -- or whatever. Every now and then I’ve found a guy attractive and maybe wanted to do a bit more than just look.”

Rahul could feel the staccato rhythm of his heart in his throat as he watched Julian’s back, his eyes subconsciously tracing the lines formed by the wrinkles in his shirt, trying to find a pattern in them. He held his breath, his lungs too afraid to move lest they distract Julian from the direction he was headed. He was going to talk about It. That night. What happened back in their first year of uni. They’d sworn never to speak of it and Julian was going to bring it up now. Finally. It was the one moment Rahul had been waiting for since he’d come back to London. Proof that he hadn’t wasted years of his life pining away for nothing.

“But it’s not like I ever really had a chance to give it a go, did I? There was always something, and then there was Aisling.”

Rahul’s breath left him in a rush. It was a harsh rush that scraped at his insides and left him feeling raw. It was almost admirable the way Julian’s mind worked. It had glanced so seamlessly off that forbidden topic, as if it were coated in Teflon. Or as if that night, the one that had meant so much to Rahul, hadn’t even happened at all. It was enough to make a man question his sanity. Had it even happened? Had it all been a feverish figment of an overactive imagination? A boy who’d been so lonely that he’d fabricated a single night of happiness for himself?

“But now, with Michael, I’ve got a chance to give it a go,” Julian continued as he passed a steaming cup to Rahul. Rahul held it between his frozen hands, wishing the mug would warm them but knowing that nothing could penetrate the bone-deep weariness he felt.

“And I do want to give it a go,” Julian said into his own tea, looking pensive. “A real go. Like I did with Aisling. Do you know what I mean?”

Rahul hadn’t thought he could feel much more gutted than he already did, but hearing Julian say, with his own mouth and in his own words, that he wanted to have an honest to goodness relationship with this Michael character, when Rahul had gone so long thinking Julian simply wasn’t interested in men and that was why he wasn’t interested in him, was just too much to bear.

“I know I ought to have said something sooner about seeing Michael and about being a bit sideways -- or whatever,” Julian said defensively, mistaking Rahul’s crumpled expression for one of betrayal. “I am sorry about that. But you can’t blame me, can you? It’s not an easy thing to tell your best mate, is it? ‘Let’s have another pint, eh? By the way, I fancy a bit of a cock. Pass the pork scratchings.’ It just doesn’t come up naturally in conversation, does it?”

Rahul shook his head, not quite trusting himself to speak. It seemed to satisfy Julian enough.

“The thing is about Michael, I was waiting for the right time, you know? I wanted to wait until it was something worth talking about. I wasn’t about to make a mountain out of a molehill, if we were only just carrying on. I wanted to wait until it was serious.”

“And it…” Rahul’s voice sounded rough even to his own ears, so he cleared his throat before continuing. “It is serious, then?”

Julian ducked his head, taking his bottom lip shyly between his teeth. Rahul knew that look, that coy look. That was his “in love” look. Rahul wondered how quickly he could get to a table knife and jam it into his own jugular.

“A bit, yeah,” Julian said softly, sounding all warm and fond and absolutely horrendous.

“That’s great,” Rahul ground out between clenched teeth. “I’m really happy for you. For you both.”

“You’re not.”

“I am. This is my happy face. I always grimace like this when I’m happy.”

“You don’t. You look like you’re trying to pass a drawing pin out your urethra. You look like you just sucked a racist lemon.”

“I can’t help what my face does when it’s happy for my best friend. My friend who’s come out of the closet and has started dating a very tall, blond sociopath.”

Julian took a perfunctory sip of his tea that spoke of not having tasted it in the slightest. “Look, it’s this kind of thing that’s got me all torn up. You’re my best mate, yeah? You know how hard it is to have your best mate and your b -- the person you’re dating hate each other? It ain’t chocolate buttons and Maltesers, I’ll tell you that.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I like Michael just fine.” Rahul put his mug down so hard that it cracked.