AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Usually happy to lie chain-smoking on his bed, this thought drove him to his feet, and he leant in the window alcove, studying the lack of view. It was dark outside, and all he could see was his own reflection. This was something he habitually avoided unless forced into a few minutes in front of a mirror to shave. Nikolas stared back at him. He always did.
Not for the first time, Aleksey wished Nika had been given the chance to grow up into a normal, happy adult, and that this version of his twin existed somewhere in the world now. Being the only one left of a matching pair habitually emphasised the sense of profound isolation he felt.
If Ben was thinking about him, then he was thinking about the man in the reflection—Nikolas Mikkelsen.
This thought rather soured Aleksey’s anticipation of the coming fun he’d intended to have with the younger man that weekend. He longed to be unrestrained, to fly entirely free, to be himself and see what Rider would make of that man. But he could not.
In many ways, Aleksey reflected bitterly, it would probably be best if Ben did tell him to fuck off.
His life was considerably better than it had ever been, despite being folded into his tiny, constricting box. Flying free hadn’t done him much good over the years.
* * *
Chapter 10
Six Months Before April
“Fuck! Christ on a cross! Fucking hell! What does she want now?”
Ben twitched his nose as Squeezy ploughed once more from the bedroom to the front door, head down, heavy bag on one shoulder and a phone clamped to his ear. He did not appear to have recovered from his gloomy mood of the morning as the moving task continued.
He felt Nikolas’s foot come to rest lightly on his under the table and smirked. He was tempted to relate to Nikolas some of the suggestions he and Squeezy had come up with earlier to relieve the situation, but they were both ostensibly reading—newspaper and laptop respectively—and pretending not to notice Squeezy’s increasing ire.
“I do not fucking believe it. That is fucking psychotic!”
The front door was wrenched open and blessed quiet descended on the kitchen. Nikolas was biting his lip and Ben, trying not to laugh himself, chided, “It’s not funny. He’s under a lot of stress. Tim has him choosing fabric samples.”
Nikolas turned a page slowly and the pressure on his foot increased. “I do not believe that conversation is about interior decoration.”
“No!” The front door crashed open once more as Squeezy stormed through. “Now! I’m doing it now! For fuck’s sake!”
Nikolas winced as the bedroom door was kicked open, and the sound muted as the irate man disappeared from view.
Nikolas folded his newspaper and leant back, his arms crossed. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
“Well I’ll miss them.”
“They’ll be within walking distance, Benjamin. I do not think we’ll be Skyping them quite yet.”
“I know, but they’ve been living off and on with us for years.”
Squeezy came back out of the bedroom with another bag and a pile of books. He dropped everything on the floor and sank down into the chair next to Ben, stabbing pointedly at the buttons on his phone. Ben glanced at the screen, puzzled. “What are you doing?”
Squeezy gave one more jab and tossed the phone into the bag. “There. I tried to return her fucking call. You witnessed it. She didn’t reply.”
Nikolas craned to one side and peered at the bag, apparently fascinated by this blatant fiction. Then, as it began to ring again, he murmured, “Ah. DS Mailer. I thought so. All is explained.”
Squeezy, ignoring the ringing, sank his head into his hands. “She’s phoned me five times in the last fucking hour. I’m busy! I’ve got one old woman nagging me to death about paint choices and the other one about fucking rosters.” He put his forehead theatrically to the table.
It must have been hard for Squeezy, Ben had to concede, being forced to comply with thewword. Work wasn’t something his friend had been overly concerned with over the last few years. But DS Mailer—Phoebe—had proved to be a bit of a…hard taskmaster. Ostensibly only one of Squeezy’s new bodyguarding team, she had very quickly become its de facto boss. Squeezy, like Ben, preferred doing rather than planning, and he’d been only too keen for her to do all the boring work while he took all the credit, gave himself amusing titles, and got to play with the guns, which she pretended not to know they had. Phoebe had taken their new unit and shaken it until it formed a tight-knit, effective force. She ran the whole operation and she made the weekly reports—to Nikolas personally, Ben was always quick to note.
Enforced labour and unwanted domestication.
Squeezy was suffering.
Tim had now ceased being called The Prof, and had become The Old Woman, a nickname, Ben observed with great amusement, Squeezy only risked when Babushka and Enid weren’t around—and Tim Watson himself, come to that.
Ben thought about cheering his friend up with some anecdotes about the carpenter he’d once employed to help him renovate a cottage—and the fun that could be had with woodworking tools—but Nikolas didn’t like his Nate stories for some reason, so he just gave Squeezy’s lowered head a small punch of solidarity.
