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You didn’t always forge your own.
Maybe he owed a newly benevolent universe more than one dog’s life;maybehe owed it living his own better.
Living it in fact with Benjamin Rider.
And had not Ben in the roil and heat of this night’s events confessed to loving him? An avowal in hasty words?I want to tell you that I love you, but I can’t bloody well say it. I’ve never said it to anyone.Aleksey had not thought that Ben Rider would be the one to make that declaration first. For although Aleksey knew his English wasn’t perfect, even he could translate that as the simple confession I love you.
Iloveyou.
No, I loveyou.
Lucky.
Somehow, a bent pole had righted itself. A wilting flag had cracked back to life, taut and eager and responsive to life’s currents.
A desperate man had been thrown a lifeline he surely didn’t deserve.
But he would reach out nevertheless, seize it, and cling to it.
He would now build his life upon gracious forgiveness, take the redemption he was apparently being offered…
And yet…and yet…
Houses built upon sand.
Lives built upon lies.
I loveyou.No, Ben, you love Nikolas Mikkelsen. And I am surely not that man,as all these events will attest.
Aleksey shivered, and knew it was not from the cold of the night.
* * *
Chapter 59
Four Months Before April
Mentioning the funeral had changed the dynamic between them. Aleksey had thought it might.
But Ben was still following him, albeit silent now, which was something of a relief. It was actually very difficult to argue with Ben, despite how ludicrous this might appear to their friends, who clearly thought their relationship could do with far less conflict and more actual, well, relationship. But he and Ben knew this was not the case. Although he felt himself unravelling, had no idea who he really was anymore, the part that Ben knew best was still present. You don’t live intimately with another man for over nine years without knowledge of the other that was hard to ignore—even when you were trying very hard to do just that.
Sleeping alongside the same man, making love, showering, brushing teeth, shaving, eating together, sharing clothes occasionally, sharing spit and semen frequently, laughing, crying, getting drunk, playing games, watching movies, having friends, all this made for a fundamental understanding which was at the core of Ben’s thinking when he looked at him. He knew this.
So the silence was better than the talking.
Something brushed Aleksey’s cheek, and he lifted his face to discover it was snowing lightly.
The irony of this bookending of his life with Ben by snow did not escape him. But he had not factored banal weather events into his departure from one life into another. He didn’t like snow. He didn’t like being cold, for many varied, but extremely valid, reasons.
He could see no signs of habitation. They’d crossed the small road by the car park hours ago and were now somewhere towards the northern side of the moors. He’d ridden most of Dartmoor in the years he’d lived there with Ben, and vaguely recognised most of the tors, but he wasn’t sure. Doubt seemed to be a feature of his life at the moment. With uncharacteristic uncertainty, which he heard in his own voice, he spoke to Ben for the first time in hours. “Radulf cannot be out in snow at night. He is far too old. You must take him home, Ben. Did you bring your phone?”
Ben lifted his gaze from the light dusting of white on the ground. His expression was troubled, and he appeared to bring his thoughts back from miles away. Aleksey knew very well what he’d been pondering.
“No. Did you?”
Sarcasm wasn’t like Ben, and Aleksey didn’t bother to acknowledge the obvious. “Well, you’ll have to go back to the road we passed and walk along it until someone picks you all up.”
“Wecan take him back.”
