Page 5 of Sunshine Boy

When he caught sight of Rahul he pushed lazily off the wall and dropped his cigarette to the floor, snuffing it out under the heel of his black, lace-up boot.

“D’you need to use the loo?” Rahul gestured behind him with a thumb. “There’s plenty of urinals, you didn’t have to wait in the --”

Henri shut him up by grabbing him by the front of his jumper and pulling him down into a searing kiss.

Rahul had never kissed anyone aside from Julian before. He’d never even been interested in kissing anyone other than Julian before. And though it had been seven years since, he could still vividly recall the details of their last encounter. Rahul would therefore have been capable of cataloguing each individual difference between Henri and Julian’s kisses. He would have… if his brain had at all been capable of thought in that instant.

His brain was only supplied with enough blood to formulate the thoughts “we’re kissing” and “Christ, this is nice.” The rest of his blood dove, predictably, straight to his groin. His senses were overwhelmed with the swell of music, the rich scent of leather from Henri’s jacket, the sharp vermouth on his tongue. Rahul’s hands clutched involuntarily at Henri’s hair, half expecting it to feel like fine silk, but instead finding the shaggy mop of curls as thick as treacle.

Despite being nearly a full head shorter than Rahul, and as wiry as a whippet, Henri easily manoeuvred him back against the corridor wall. His sure fingers carded through the short hair at the nape of Rahul’s neck, up underneath his T-shirt to palm at the small of his back. Rahul envied them. He hardly knew where to put his hands. He wanted to put them everywhere at once and ended up unable to decide and just kept them in Henri’s hair, which admittedly felt almost too nice to give up.

Henri’s thigh pressed between Rahul’s, nudging the hardness there and making Rahul gasp into Henri’s mouth. He still couldn’t quite understand what was happening. Even though they had probably been talking for hours, it seemed to Rahul as if they’d only just met. The Frenchman had shown a passing interest in him that could have been construed as flirtation, but he couldn’t have dared imagine it might progress from such a coy exchange to something so… graphic. It felt as though they’d skipped a half-dozen steps. And just like jumping the last few steps down to the landing, he was left feeling breathless and dizzy. He knew fifteen years pining away probably wasn’t the standard, but four hours was probably rushing things a bit, wasn’t it?

Out of the corner of Rahul’s eye, back towards the club, he thought he saw a figure standing there, glowering at the two of them. It appeared to be a lanky figure in a sparkly jumpsuit.

When Rahul managed to pull away from the kiss enough to turn his head, the figure was gone. Henri used the opportunity to kiss and suckle at the tender spot on Rahul’s neck just below his ear, and Rahul decided he’d probably imagined it. After all, he’d been imagining Julian for years. It was high time he stopped.

Chapter Three: How Soon Is Now?

Rahul and Henri began seeing a lot of each other after that night. A lot.

It began with another night of drinks followed up by another session of heavy petting, and continued the next week with lunch, then dinner, then more snogging and groping. Soon, they were seeing each other practically every other day. Rahul was the one coming in late from lunch now, with a handsome gentleman caller bidding him a lip-locked farewell at the shop door. It might have seemed excessive to anyone else, especially considering how short their acquaintance had been thus far, but to Rahul it felt natural.

He never tired of Henri’s company. They could spend hours talking and not even realise the passage of time. Rahul was in utter awe of him. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone so clever before, especially someone of his age. The young man was brilliant, eloquent, passionate, and very serious. It made a refreshing change from Julian, who effortlessly turned everything into a joke. To be entirely frank, it did occasionally (very occasionally, mind) grate on Rahul’s nerves that any attempt he made to joke or poke fun was met with a quick dismissal or a bemused look. But he reasoned that it was a fair price to pay for all of Henri’s numerous other fine qualities. If he wanted inane jocularity, he could go to Julian. They were still mates, after all.

It was good, actually, that Henri was so different from Julian because Rahul had made up his mind to get over Julian once and for all. What better way to do that than with someone who was his complete opposite? Granted, they were still physically quite similar (Rahul didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he seemed to have a type), but Henri reminded him at every turn how very unlike Julian he was. From sharing Rahul’s obscure interests to his entirely black wardrobe, there wasn’t an ounce in him of the boy Rahul had wasted his youth obsessing over. In fact, when he was with him, he didn’t think of Julian at all. Which was perfect.

Julian had made it clearer than crystal that Rahul didn’t have a chance in hell with him. As devastating as that was, Rahul knew he didn’t want to lose Julian as his friend, which he would if he kept this pitiful flame alight for him, so he was going to use Henri to snuff it.

The downside, however, of Henri being the polar opposite of Julian was that the two didn’t seem to be able to stand each other. That felt a little like just desserts to Rahul, considering how Julian had inflicted Michael on him -- and Aisling before that. Whenever Henri came by the shop, Julian’s face distorted into a surly sneer that was very un-Julian-like. And honestly, Julian’s overall mood had become more dismal since Rahul and Henri began seeing each other -- more dismal even than when Michael had first dumped him.

Rahul at first attributed this to Julian’s dislike of Henri, but even when the Frenchman wasn’t around, Julian was sulky and irritable. Rahul had thought that Julian would’ve been happy to see less of him, considering how cross he’d been with him, but could it be that he was missing spending time with Rahul? If it was, Rahul decided he ought to try and be around his friend more, even if that meant Henri having to tag along.

It was nearly Christmas, and great, fat snowflakes were falling outside The Barber & Pony where it was close and warm, if stale and musty. What was usually a foursome was now a quintet, sitting along the bar with Rahul at one end, his arm around Henri, Julian at the other, glumly clutching a pint, Mel and Kwambe sandwiched uncomfortably in between. Rahul and Henri were being particularly saccharine with each other tonight, as Henri was going to be returning to France to visit his family for the holidays and they would have to be parted for a full fortnight.

“I’ll miss you.”

“No, I will miss you.”

“Don’t forget about me.”

“How could I, mon coeur?”

Henri made to kiss him but Rahul turned to let him kiss his cheek instead. Public displays of affection still made him intensely uncomfortable, even here at their usual haunt. Maybe because it was their usual haunt. But Henri had become used to this and didn’t seem offended. He seemed more offended by the “martini,” if one could call it that, that Leroy had served him. He finished off its remainders and stood, excusing himself for the loo. Rahul looked after him with longing, as though he’d gone off to war instead of the toilets.

“Why don’t you just bloody marry him then?” Julian grumbled.

Rahul turned a bemused look on him, watching him gulp down his pint and slam the glass down hard on the counter. It clicked into place for Rahul then.

Julian was jealous. Jealous of their happy relationship. It reminded him of the relationship he’d just lost with Michael, of course. Every time he saw Rahul and Henri happy as two gay clams together, it just drove home the fact that Michael had left him. To be fair, it had been Rahul’s fault. Rahul, who was now deliriously happy with someone who finally wanted him back the way he wanted them. It probably didn’t seem fair to Julian, but really, Rahul could hardly be blamed, could he? He couldn’t go on apologising for the rest of his life, and it wasn’t as though he’d shacked up with Henri just to spite him. Julian was just going to have to get over it. The way Rahul was slowly learning to get over him.

“Don’t listen to him,” Mel drawled around her cigarette. “He always gets into a sulk around the holidays.”

“I do not,” Julian argued petulantly. “I love Christmas. It’s shiny. You know I love shiny things. I’m like a crow, me.”

“He always wanted a Christmas like the kids on the telly had,” Mel continued. “With a tree and a big, happy family and all that rubbish.”

Rahul remembered. He could vividly recall when they were children, Julian begging to come over to his house for Christmas dinner. The way he looked at their tree as if it were something sacred, how he scarfed down the goose and mincemeat pie as though he hadn’t eaten in days (which he might not have). Rahul also remembered with a start that this would be Julian’s first Christmas in years without Aisling.