Redemption's A Bitch - 10. Mixed Midnight Emotions

Kieran stood in front of Callé’s cooker, watching the cast iron waffle mould heat up over the gas flame. He much preferred making waffles on the Aga, but since he’d bought and restored the old waffle maker a year or so ago, they had become a much requested treat. Kieran flipped the iron, held his fingers over the blackened surface to check the temperature, then opened up the mould and turned the golden waffles out onto a plate. He was decorating them with a selection of fruits of the salad drawer when he felt a warm presence at his side.

“Hi Katy.”

“Tristan?” Katy rocked on the balls of her feet, the soft yellow patterned fabric of her summer dress swaying around her knees. “Is Robin your boyfriend?”

“Now where did you get an idea like that, little lady?” Kieran frowned, “you know you guys are the most important people in my life.”

Katy stole a sliced strawberry off the edge of the plate, grinning in that all-knowing manner small children often had.

“But you like him.”

“Katy!”

Kieran frowned at her. The subject of his sexuality had never come up, not in front of the kids. Callé had asked him, somewhere around six months after he’d first started looking after her children, if he had a girlfriend to which he had replied that he played for the opposing team. It had never been mentioned, because it wasn’t relevant, and Kieran had never brought dates or guys around the kids before. Robin was special, that much was clear. Looking at the little girl, Kieran tried to work out what he should say to her. How much information was enough, and how much was going to skew Katy’s world view in ways she might not be ready for.

“Yes, Katy, I do like him. He’s a…” Kieran paused, “a good friend.”

“He likes you.” Katy switched to swishing her skirts around her bare legs, grinning smugly.

“And what makes you say that?” Katy reached for the plate of fruit and waffles, which Kieran instantly scooped up and held out of her reach, “ah-nuh! You can have waffles when you explain.”

“But Tristan!” Katy whined.

Kieran grinned and wove the plate in the air above her.

“C’mon Katy…”

“Mean! Uncle Tris!” Katy huffed, “Robin likes you. He was watching you whenever you weren’t looking.”

“Really?” Kieran frowned, lowering the plate automatically. Katy took it from him before his fingers lost their grip. As Katy turned away with her prize, Kieran stared after her, not seeing the kitchen, only the inside of his head, “really?”

“Yup,” Katy sauntered into the living room, “Tristan made waffles!”

Kieran walked with Shadow, with his hands in the pockets of his new chinos, tapping on his thighs with his thumbs. He’d stayed until Rob had gotten home, handed over to a father who was always completely overwhelmed and delighted to see his children, and decided to walk in the direction of the sea front – the opposite direction from home.

Seeing Robin and the kids had done enough that he’d forgotten his anger at Shastan, but it didn’t mean he’d forgotten what his cousin had said. Shastan was his only family, and when the list of one’s only living relatives was reduced to one individual, everything that individual said was important. Kieran had grown up with him, at least from his teenage years onwards, and the sorts of large, melodramatic and testosterone fuelled tantrums and fights which were daily fare for most teenagers had been tempered by the depressing and inescapable knowledge that, regardless of how much they hated each other in the moment, each other was all either of them had.

It hadn’t always been like that. There had been a time before Shastan, when his cousin was just a name that he heard. Shastan had come to his christening when he had himself only been small, and Kieran knew there once were photos of the two of them together. Once it had been inconceivable that all the wealth and blood of the Toyne family would boil down to just the two of them. Kieran had known his parents, loved them too, but in the distracted manner of people who were wonderful but seldom seen. Parents were what had happened in the gaps between boarding school, between every advanced placement and extra-curricular class known to man. They had been well off, had an au pair, a cook, a young man who’d done the garden. The staff had been fairly permanent figures of Kieran’s early childhood until he’d left for prep school at the age of ten. After that it had been holidays and a few weeks in the summer.

He’d never had a totally clear idea of what it was his parents had done exactly, but Kieran knew from what Shastan had told him, in the days when he still used to ask questions about their family, that much of their time had been tied up in managing investments and property. There was a reason Shastan was so good with chocolate, it ran in the family, and somewhere way back when, ancestors of theirs had been amongst the first to not only import cocoa beans into Europe, but buy up a great deal of the land which grew the plants. Someone had invested the money wisely, and the Toyne’s had managed to be on the correct side of every lucky and unexpected banking and financial transaction ever since. Kieran’s side of the family had been no less lucky, and the combination of wealth, at various points in the overly complex family tree, had done nothing to harm the wealth or reputation of the dynasty.

And then the luck had run out. A generation of seven sons and one daughter had yielded only four children, and only two who lived through puberty. Both got married, though not to each other. One to the last female heir of the Tristan clan, the other to a nice girl from a good family; two boys were born eight years apart, and that was the end of it. Tragedy had befallen the family: a double-death skiing accident, a plane crash, two counts of cancer, one death by natural causes. Shastan’s father had died in a car crash. His mother had killed herself three months later. Shastan had been eighteen. Kieran’s parents had been visiting a plantation and been killed by a native Southern American who had hated them for their success and fatally stabbed three other people before slitting his own throat. After that, there had just been two.

Kieran remembered getting the news, remembered being called to the headmaster’s study, assuming he was in trouble, again, for pulling stunts on the front lawn of the school on the dirt bike he wasn’t supposed to have. Whenever he thought about it his head was filled with the scent of leather and cold stone, his headmaster’s voice telling him what had happened. He’d had the option of staying until the end of term, but he hadn’t wanted to, and social services had driven him and all his possessions to the mock-Tudor house where Shastan lived. It was only then that he realised how alone they really were. As members of the family had died, various assets had been sold off, property that required day-to-day management and other businesses that were not suitable to be run by a pair of parentless young men. It was all in the wills, and the money was held in various trusts. The first time Kieran had been told, in a private, secure and sealed room, by his accountant, how much he was ‘worth’, he had felt all the blood drain into his feet. It gave a whole new meaning to his teachers telling him he was worth more than cutting class and playing around with bikes. Not that it changed his behaviour.

When he reached the seafront, Shadow instantly ran down to the water and jumped in, swimming around with his black fur plastered against his skin, acting like a giant otter, perfectly content. Kieran sat on the beach and watched the promenade: women with children, buggies and prams; boyfriends, girlfriends; former school and college friends chatting animatedly; a man with a large wolf-dog, walking along with his fingers in the animal’s thick ruff; kids on push-bikes, trying to steer, chat and show off all at once; guys and girls with long hair on skateboards, flipping tricks as they wove in and out of the thinning crowd.

Ordinarily, Kieran would have been scanning the crowd with a purpose, would have done his very best, which was very good, to look relaxed and desirable as he lounged on the grass. In other times he would be cruising for a pick-up, the nice looking guy with the wolf-dog perhaps, someone to fill at least part of his evening, something he could distract himself with. He would’ve worried that all Robin meant was another distraction if it hadn’t been for a unfamiliar way his heart thudded every time he thought about the young man.

And Katy said Robin liked him. It was surely possible, because Robin had smiled and come along with them to the park, played with the kids, thanked him for the ice cream and waved to them enthusiastically as he’d left. Kieran felt his heart turn over in his chest when he thought about Robin’s smile, lighting up the sky brighter than the sun, telling him ‘it’s not a date’. Wednesday was a whole five days away, and with a weekend in between, Kieran wasn’t sure if he’d be able to hold off on seeing Robin for that long.

“Tristan Toyne?”

Kieran turned in time with Shadow’s bark. The dog was out of the water straight away, scrambling over the beach towards the speaker. Kieran called him back as Ash-lay began to look scared.

“Heel boy, down now,” the dog came trotting back over to him, “hey Ash-lay.”

“Hey. What the hell is that?” Ash-lay looked at Shadow as though he might shift into some enormous demon and tear him into pieces. Kieran simply crouched and stroked the dog between his ears. When Ash-lay was close enough, Shadow responded by shaking himself down, sea spray flying everywhere.

“Oh, yuck!”

“Ash-lay, this is Shadow,” Kieran smiled, “he’s a husky.”

“He’s yours?” Ash-lay sounded shocked, “I had no idea you liked dogs.”

“I have four,” Kieran replied, “sorry about the shaking, he likes to share.” He looked Ash-lay up and down, taking in his crisp outfit: the fitted jeans hanging low and fine mesh shirt so thin Kieran could make out the designs of the peacock tattoo that spread over his chest and shoulder. “Are you heading out?”

“It’s getting on for ten. I’m surprised you’re out this early… with a dog.” Ash-lay frowned. “I was heading to meet William and Ralph for pre-club drinks. Date night.”

“And where’s your…?” Kieran searched for a name.

“Phil?” Ash-lay sighed, “we broke up.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not like it was serious,” Ash-lay shrugged fluidly, “I’ll find someone else, I always manage.” Ash-lay crossed his arms over his chest. Despite being called off, Shadow was pacing the space between them, head down between his shoulders. A three foot high husky with shiny teeth made most people nervous. “You’re not coming out tonight?”

“No. I have to get home, the other dogs are waiting.”

“Not like you to stay home Tristan Toyne, especially after you tossed your little Sparrow out of the nest so quickly. Matty was lamenting at the bar the other night how quickly you’d dropped him too.” Ash-lay stepped close enough to prod Kieran’s chest with one skinny finger. “If you keep burning through pretty boys this quickly, you’re going to have to move to another city.”

Kieran growled, but the noise was covered up by Shadow’s snap-roar. He had always been particularly defensive of his master. He pushed away from Ash-lay, stepping away from him towards the cast iron barrier that divided the promenade from the stony beach. Ash-lay’s words stung him, somewhere under his ribs. It had never hurt like that before.

“Hey, Tristan!” Ash-lay’s voice was full of the camp overtones of mock-concern. “C’mon girl, it was a joke.” There was a scrape of an expensive shoe against the tarmac. “Look, I’m sorry. Will you call him off?”

Kieran blinked, and his brain matched the low continuous growl to the throat of his dog. He clicked softly, and Shadow ceased immediately and returned to his side.

“Good boy.”

“What got into you? Tristan?” When it became clear that Kieran wasn’t answering, Ash-lay sighed. “I’ll tell the guys not to expect you. There’ll be plenty of disappointed faces, people are missing you.”

Kieran listened to him go until the noise was drowned out by the pounding of his heart in his ears. Kieran wasn’t sure any of his club-scene friends even actually missed him. They missed his money and his charisma, they missed the voyeuristic thrill of watching him pull any and every guy he wanted, but they didn’t miss him. Kieran could hardly blame them for that, after all, they didn’t actually know him. With the exception of Ralph, and William to an extent, they only knew Tristan Toyne, and the carefully applied and maintained persona he wore when he went out. Kieran had made very sure his friends didn’t know his full name, where he lived, or exactly who he was related to. Kieran could keep his secrets even when he was drunk, a fact he had proved many times over, and while he didn’t exactly lie to his friends, he omitted the truth all too often. He was the man who slept around and enjoyed it, he paid for drinks for everyone in the bar when he was in a good mood, he stole all the attention in the room and he liked getting what he wanted. And suddenly that wasn’t enough.

It’s who you are. You might be lying to your friends, but you’re not a different person when you go out at night. Kieran growled internally at the voice in his head.

But what if I don’t wanna be that person anymore?

Too late, it’s who everyone thinks you are.

Not everyone.

Sure, his conscience replied begrudgingly, but you can’t be Uncle Tristan twenty-four hours a day.

But-! Kieran stopped himself, because talking to himself for this long was worse than being caught talking to a pub table in public. He found his phone in his hand, and dialled automatically.

It rang twice, and then there was a click at the other end of the line.

“Hello?” A pause, “Kieran?”

Kieran swallowed, trying desperately to push down the huge ball that was lodged in his throat. He could barely remember the last time he’d been nervous, and he was never nervous when he was talking to a guy. But his calm confidence wouldn’t come, and apparently was not transmissible by phone.

“Kieran? Are you OK?”

“H-hey…” Kieran managed a breath, the evening air cold like ice-chips inside his lungs. “It’s me.”

“I could tell,” Robin’s voice was low, full of trepidation, “Kieran? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Kieran barely got the lie past his lips before interrupting himself. “No.”

“Kieran?” Robin’s tone rang with harmonics of panic, and Kieran felt the space under his ribs ache in a strange and unfamiliar manner. Robin cared about him enough to be worried. Even a week previously, Kieran could’ve never supposed it could happen.

“I miss you.” Kieran never admitted to missing anyone. The list of people he could miss was so enormous; sometimes it was better not to remember absent friends. “I’m standing on the seafront and I miss you.”

“Go home Kieran.”

The words were like a slap in the face, and Kieran physically recoiled from the phone. He wanted to cling to the line and at the same time throw it from himself before it could cause more pain.

“But-!”

“Go home Kieran,” Robin’s voice was soft and full of undertones which made Kieran’s belly and loins warm, “I’m at your house.”

*

Kieran had never wanted to get home so quickly. Bernie had been dropping a pair of giggly nineteen year olds at a club on the corner when Kieran rang, so the young man had legged it to the cab and Bernie had been more than happy to take him and Shadow home. The whole way, Kieran hadn’t been able to sit still, and his jitters were so extreme that even Shadow didn’t want to cuddle on his lap in his customary manner. Robin was at his house, and he didn’t know why. Robin hadn’t needed to tell him where he was, he could have left Kieran standing staring at the sea with his heart full of… something, and a belly full of butterflies having a rave. But he hadn’t. By the time Bernie pulled up on the large circular driveway, Kieran couldn’t have named a single emotion that was coursing through his body; only that he wanted all of them to end as soon as possible and go on indefinitely. Bernie smiled at him as Kieran departed the cab, but the young man was too distracted to notice properly.

The dogs were waiting for him in the rec room, and Kieran was stopped to cuddle each of them by Inu’s sharp teeth holding firmly to the hem of his new chinos. On the floor, Kieran played with the dogs, hugging each in turn, ruffling their ears and letting them know they were loved. He’d not run out and left them alone during the day for so long since Inu and Suk were adolescents. The texture of thick fur and soft heartbeats under his hands soothed him, and by the time Kieran hauled himself upright again, his pulse was racing a little slower, and his stomach was full of trepidation. With the four canines milling around him, Kieran entered the house, and followed the murmur of talking towards the little sitting room.

Shastan was sitting on the long sofa, one leg up against the back rest, with Rebecca snuggled in his lap. The two of them were sorting small items into little mesh drawstring bags and those were being placed in tiny, intricately carved wooden boxes barely three inches square. Robin was seated on the floor, leaning on the coffee table, painstakingly applying tiny letter stickers onto what were apparently place cards. They all stopped to look up at him, and before anyone could speak, Suk had wandered across the bare patch of floor to stick his head in the container of wedding favour items. Slobbering and crunching sounds abounded.

“NO!”

“Kieran!”

“GODDAMMIT!”

“Suk!”

The dog looked up uncomfortably when his master called his name. His face was mostly covered in chocolate, though Kieran didn’t figure he’d eaten too much in the space of a few seconds, and he looked equal parts proud of himself and guilty as hell.

“You really have to ruin everything don’t you Kieran?” Rebecca jumped up to drag Suk away from the box.

Kieran was half a second too late to warn her. Grabbing a dog from behind was a risky thing to do even if you knew the dog and were confident and experienced in handling animals. For Rebecca to attempt to haul Suk away unexpectedly was close to suicidal. She reached for his collar, except the dogs didn’t wear their collars unless they were out, grabbed his fur instead, and Suk rounded on her, snapping his thick jaws closed on thin air, more by chance than anything else, swinging his body around to knock over the coffee table along with the completed place cards.

“Becca don’t!” Robin shouted as Shastan jumped up to pull his bride to be away from the husky. Kieran growled to the dog, and Suk instantly returned to his twin, head down and tail tucked between his legs.

“Are you alright babe?”

“I want them gone!” Rebecca was visibly shaking. “I want those awful beasts out of here. Now!”

The dogs departed to the hallway at Kieran’s near silent command.

“Sorry Becca. He doesn’t mean it, you just surprised him.”

“No.” Becca stood up to him, all five feet three of her. Kieran looked down at her, he couldn’t help it. “I want them gone. Permanently.”

“What?” Kieran’s tone was so acidic it could’ve been used to strip paint.

“How am I to be expected to live like this? Those huge beasts sprawl everywhere, dropping hair, and threatening guests,” she turned to Shastan, “they have to go.”

“Babe, please… they’re Kier’s dogs.”

“Then he can go too.”

Kieran snarled. It was the sort of noise made by angry wolves and loud motorbikes, and he balled his fingers into a fist, tension springing through every muscle. It only took a split second, but Kieran had never wanted to hurt anyone so much in his entire life. He’d never hit anyone, not really, not deliberately, because money and charisma dispelled any fights he might have ever found himself in before they happened. Even so, Kieran wanted to hurt her for what she’d said.

Robin’s skin was cool against his own, deliciously so as the boy ran his hand down Kieran’s arm from his shoulder, teasing his fist apart to take his hand and pull him softly away.

“C’mon, let’s go in the garden.”

Part of Kieran wanted to stay and fight, but the larger part was so overwhelmed by the skin on skin contact with the beautiful hazel-eyed boy, that he simply followed him, the dogs trailing behind them, out of the house and into the garden. The canines instantly began to wander around, sniffing and chasing imaginary squirrels. The night air was cooler, though Kieran still felt hyper-warm in contrast with Robin’s hold on his fingers, and he turned his face up to the sky and breathed deep. Often, Kieran wished he could supplant his life to somewhere a little further from the city, so he could look up to a sky black like ebony, scattered with stars as thick as paint. Now was one of those moments.

“Thank you.” Kieran rubbed Robin’s fingers gently. He didn’t want to let go of the boy, but he liked him too much to hold onto him should he want to get away. Robin squeezed his hand back in response.

“Shastan will sort her out. Don’t worry.” Robin spoke in a sort of distant manner, as though it wasn’t his sister who had just made it clear she didn’t care at all for Kieran’s home and happiness. “It’s the stress of the wedding making her nuts.”

“It’s my house,” Kieran said stupidly.

“I know. Becca does too.” Kieran was distracted from his slightly smog-obscured view of the sky by Robin’s other hand on his sternum. When he looked down, Robin’s chest was only inches from his own, the boy’s face looking up at him, his eyes shining in the lights reflected from the house. “Why did you call me?”

“I missed you, Sparrow.” Kieran smiled, echoing Robin’s gesture as he said the boy’s nick-name. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Robin’s fingers tickled down his chest, “it’s nice to be missed.”

Kieran opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find any words to say. A warm and pleasant sensation snaked from his heart to his crotch, and he itched to move closer to Robin, to remove the distance between them. But he didn’t dare. He had presumed too much before, and now he didn’t dare to act on what he felt. The last time Kieran had been nervous of anything, he’d been astride his first superbike, starting the engine in order to peal out around the track. Those were nerves that sang through his blood, exhilarated him in both heart and mind. Now his nervousness made him scared, not bold, and he didn’t want to even breathe too deep least he ruin the moment where Robin stood close to him, smiling like the sun.

So it was Robin who shifted his weight to move closer, who put his hand back on Kieran’s chest so that he could support himself on tiptoes. Robin brought their faces within millimetres of each other, and with the softest of breaths they kissed. Kieran forgot to breathe for more than twenty heartbeats until the kiss broke.

“I guess I missed you too.”