Redemption's A Bitch - 14. Two Thousand Light Years From Home

Kieran woke up, and stared at the ceiling, not seeing it.

For years he had woken up bored. It was a side effect of having more money than it was possible to spend, and being too smart for his own good. Kieran was easily bored. That’s what the dogs were for, the dancing, and the boys: all things to fill his time and provide excitement so he wouldn’t be bored. The time Kieran spent with his dogs was good for all of them, and he couldn’t lie to himself, he did genuinely enjoy their company, but there was a reason he’d bought three more large puppies in the nine years since Shadow had been given to him. A puppy needed training, and lots of training to be as good as Kieran’s dogs. It ate up all his time. Racing had been the only thing Kieran ever truly loved, and he’d given it up.

But now…

Now there was more than racing filling up his head and his heart. As soon as Kieran opened his eyes his mind replayed the moment where Robin kissed him, and the bike had fallen out from under him as the world disappeared. It had been a hard kiss to break, and Kieran had quivered with the physical demand of not pinning Robin flat to the track and trying to tear his clothes off then and there. And the Sparrow had known. Somehow, watching Kieran race around the track, shaving seconds and milliseconds off each lap time, he had known how important the racing was to him. No one else had ever worked it out by watching. Kieran had always had to tell them, to make them realise. But Robin had known.

Take it back.

Kieran lay in the bed, both feet planted, bike width apart, on the mattress, visualising the track in his head. After two laps everything he’d remembered about Brands Hatch had come snapping into his mind in sharp relief, and the corners had come easier, the long sections faster, the S-bends tighter and more streamlined. Now he changed gears on the mattress, gripped the throttle in the air, and leant his body around corners he could only see in his head, faster and faster, until someone threw water on his face.

“AWW! Inu! Get off!” Kieran pushed at the big, fluffy husky with his huge wet tongue, and the dog obediently jumped off the bed and Kieran rolled. The space was instantly filled by Suk standing over him, nuzzling the small of his back with his cold nose. Kieran laughed, grabbing the dog around the neck, and the two of them played like puppies until it became clear that everyone wanted to join in. When the rough and tumble was over, Kieran lay under a blanket of dog, grinning happily.

“Morning boys,” his reply was a selection of woofs and dog-purrs, “who wants to go for a walk?” In the scramble to get off the bed, Vuka caught Kieran in the ribs with a hind foot, and as Kieran walked into the shower he examined the reddish claw marks across his skin. But they were not nearly as interesting as the bruised feel of his lips under his fingers, soft after so much kissing.

They’d sat in the car, alone inside the protective bubble of the Mitsubishi, and Kieran had moved his seat all the way back, Robin straddling his thighs, asking to be called Sparrow, his fingers in Kieran’s hair, punctuating every breath with kisses. To Kieran it had felt something like winning; he could easily stop racing and never stand on the podium again as long as he could receive that treatment. Only when both of them had been right on the raggedy edge of desire had Robin climbed back into his own seat so that Kieran could drive him home, a feat he had managed with an iron bar inside his trousers. Kieran had been able to tell Robin was hard too, he had felt it, and a little rational part at the back of his mind recognised that he was being made to wait. Kieran had never been happier about being made to do anything in his whole life.

Out of the shower, the dogs were waiting for him in a neat little row, and Kieran pulled on fresh boxers and jeans before walking downstairs, running a brush through his damp hair. He opened the big French doors into the garden and stood on the edge of the brick patio munching through two slices of hot buttered toast. The dogs ran around and played with each other, Inu and Suk bowling each other over in the fresh grass, Shadow with his nose glued to the ground, following the night time scent trails of rabbits, cats and foxes, Vuka found a heavy-duty textured rubber ball and made a game for himself.

Kieran wondered how it might be to have Robin standing with him, to turn to the beautiful young man and smile. In this particular fantasy Sparrow appeared fresh from a shower, barefoot in washed out blue jeans, the fly open, his skin gently tanned and glistening. Kieran would take his hand; twine their fingers together, chuckle at the antics of the dogs. When they kissed, Robin would taste of butter and salt, and the kiss would be warm and soft. Kieran took a deep breath of the clear, cool air: he wanted to dive into the vision, but he knew it would be better to stay in the here and now. Robin was making him wait, but within that was an unspoken promise of what might come after the waiting was over. Kieran didn’t want to sully the maybe with his imagination.

His was brought back to the present by the scent of chocolate and the sensation of Shastan standing close to him.

“Morning Cus,” Kieran spoke without looking round, “it’s a beautiful day, huh?” When there was no reply, Kieran turned. He frowned at his cousin, dressed in slacks and chef’s whites. “I thought you’d finished all the orders and the favours already?”

“I did. It might come as a surprise to you Kier, but I find it therapeutic.”

“Soon-to-be-wife related therapy in chocolate?” Kieran smirked. “Not a great sign with two days until a wedding.”

“Becca is not the one making me tear my hair out,” came the gruff reply.

Kieran froze, his heart thudding really hard against his ribs, doing its best impression of a piston in a combustion engine. He gulped audibly.

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Shas…”

“I don’t want to have this fight with you. After the wedding.”

Kieran was thankful, just for a second, and then he clenched his teeth in premonition of his cousin’s anger as he turned away.

“Shas, it can’t wait.” Kieran inhaled, embolden by the weight of Shadow returning to his side. “You’ll be gone on your honeymoon for two weeks, and I need to tell them… well, now.”

“Now?” Shastan’s tone was acidic and dark with impending anger.

“I tried out for Moto GB Kawasaki,” Kieran held his brother’s gaze, not enough of a coward to look away, “I thought I could give this up, Shas, but I can’t.”

“You promised!”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Kieran bit his lip, “the next stage is in three weeks. I need to be in training soon as the wedding is over.”

“You’ve wanted this wedding to be over from the moment it began.” Shastan muttered.

“Not quite the point I was making.” Kieran frowned at his cousin. “I’ll be safe, Shas.”

“You’re replacing a rider who’s injured?” Kieran winced, and looked away. “Then it’s not safe!”

Kieran dragged his fingers through his hair.

“I can’t say what you want me to Shas, I want to do this!”

“Then don’t do it for me,” Shastan was sounding angrier with every syllable, “how could you even think of doing this to Robin? You think he’s going to want you hurtling yourself around a track at hundreds of miles an hour?”

“Actually…” Kieran bought himself time by running the tip of his tongue over his teeth, “he came with me.”

“What?”

“And he’s supportive. I want to race Shas, it makes me feel alive.”

“It brings you closer to death!”

Kieran exhaled deliberately.

“You can hit me if it’ll make you feel better.”

His cousin was not a violent person, and Kieran had never known him, or heard of him, ever fighting with anyone. He didn’t even like to raise his voice to the dogs and the most heated exchanged they’d ever had was the one where Kieran, half dead and broken, had promised to quit racing. So Kieran was not actually expecting the punch, despite his offer, and certainly not expecting to be sent staggering backwards onto the grass.

“Aww, fuck! The face? Really, Shas?” Kieran sucked his lower lip then spat blood into his hand. “You didn’t think you might wanna aim for something less obvious?” he gestured to his sternum, “on the basis that in two days I will be standing next to you in a whole fuck-load of wedding photos?”

Shastan looked sorry. Then he grinned.

“It’ll give you rugged charm. The bridesmaid’s will swoon.”

“Oh, that’s fucking useful.”

Shastan rubbed his bare shoulder.

“Your chin is fucking pointy as hell, you know that?” Shastan cracked his knuckles, “go get cleaned up. You have a phone call to make.”

*

“KIERAN!”

“Fuck, I’m coming!” Kieran finished up braiding his hair and twisted it into a bun at the nape of his neck. He glanced down at his outfit: fitted jeans and a classic white shirt open at the collar, and tried to avoid smiling too widely.

“The car is here!”

“Hold your bloody horses!”

Kieran skidded down the stairs while rolling his sleeves up to the elbow, whistled to the dogs, all lying in the hallway, and took them to the rec room. It didn’t matter that they were in a hurry, because he still put each of them to bed and made a fuss of them. Two minutes later Kieran was climbing into the back of a huge black stretch limousine, being handed a champagne flute.

“Explain to me how it is that I didn’t get to organise your stag-do?” he asked quickly, “I am your best man.”

“No offense, bud,” Shastan’s best friend, Dave-something, grinned at him, “but your sort of places aren’t our sort of places.”

Kieran drained the champagne: it was going to be a long night.

Three hours later he was slightly drunk, and doing very well with his role of the slightly recalcitrant not-straight guy at a straight-guy’s stag party. It wasn’t that anywhere they went was necessarily bad, or that the music was awful, it was just that the conversation was so unbearable. The seven of them had gone for dinner at a very swanky gastro-pub, the menu hadn’t even had any prices and vegetables were a side dish; there was a waiter for the condiments. Kieran knew Shastan was footing the whole bill for the evening, and that for his friends this was going to be their cheapest stag-party ever.

Despite being so close, neither Kieran nor Shastan had really ever gotten to know each other’s friends, with the exception of Brian and Hayley, and Kieran found himself in the fairly unusual position of being on the outside, observing the antics of others, and not understanding their private jokes. After dinner they transferred to a bar which boasted an entirely separate menu of forty different kinds of gin, and Kieran wondered how it could be possible to be only two hundred yards from one of his favourite pubs and still feel like he was on a different planet. Some of the guys were muttering to each other about the late evening plans, the whole thing was a surprise to Shastan, and thus Kieran too by default, and when he heard the phrase ‘strip club’, Kieran nearly wretched. Instead he ordered the only whiskey stocked behind the bar, and got to work taking inches off the bottle.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Hey!” Shastan got up to greet the newcomer, “I didn’t know Dave had called you! Awesome!”

But Kieran had been galvanised from the moment he’d heard that voice, and as the stag-party welcomed their newest recruit, Kieran found himself smiling into his near-empty glass.

“Can I get you another one of those?” Kieran glanced up Robin’s body, bootleg blue jeans and a blood red button down shirt with white piping, to his ready smile, and grinned. “Oh my god! What happened to you?” Robin slipped onto the wooden bench next to him, cool fingers instantly taking his chin to get a better look at him. “Someone hit you?”

“He deserved it.” Shastan muttered into his gin. “So, what’s next boys?”

“Nuh-uh, we’re not spoiling the surprise for you…”

Robin turned away from the conversation, and met Kieran’s green eyes with a soft, concerned expression.

“Shastan hit you? Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Nah…” Kieran tried to shrug off his delight that Robin had noticed, and having noticed, cared, and his remaining resentment towards Shastan and the whole situation in general. “It’s fine. What d’ya think, do I look badass now?”

“Maybe if you shaved your head…” Robin ran his hand over Kieran’s scalp. “Don’t though. Seriously, I love your hair.”

“Well I kinda love you too.” Kieran smiled, running a finger along the edge of Robin’s collar.

“You’re drunk.” Robin looked very slightly panicked.

“I’m not that drunk.” Kieran put down his glass and gestured to the waitress at the same time, straightening himself up. At times it was perfectly possibly for him to decide to be not-drunk. “Soda water and lime please, and a Jack and coke for Robin.”

“You remember what I like to drink?” Robin arched a sceptical eyebrow. Kieran smiled knowingly, but managed to avoid admitting that every word Robin had ever said to him was burnt into his brain.

“I called Mark Smith. They’re stitching up my team leathers as we speak.”

Robin gaped at him.

“You got in?” He threw his arms around Kieran’s neck, hugging him tight. “You got in! I knew it!”

Kieran couldn’t resist, slid his hands around Robin’s waist and held him firm against his chest. People were looking, they always did, and Kieran didn’t care.

“Are they like… a thing?” Dave asked Shastan not quietly enough not to be overheard.

Kieran heard the smile in his cousin’s voice when he replied.

“It’s complicated.”

Kieran sobered up for a bit as Robin caught them up with three drinks inside half an hour, and the two of them giggled and chatted, observing Shastan and his straight friends and their antics. Both Robin and Kieran had heterosexual friends enough to fill a swimming pool, but it was funny to watch Dave try and flirt with girls who were way out of his league while stifling giggles of his own. When Kieran handed over a pair of large notes for the remainder of the Jack Daniel’s bottle, Robin arched an eyebrow and looked at him strangely. Kieran smiled, wincing as his lip split slightly. He was too happy.

“It’s medicinal.”

“Uh-huh.” Robin waggled his tumbler. “Top up, please.”

“So what did you do with your day?” Kieran turned slightly away from the rowdy crowd of stags, and he and Robin felt like a little island on the end of the wooden bench, heads close and lips wet with the same amber liquid.

“Handing out CV’s and writing applications.” Robin smiled softly. “I’m trying to get a summer internship to keep me busy, but the only reply I’ve had back so far was from a surveyor.”

“Not quite what you were after, huh?” Kieran touched the boy’s collar, anything to be near him. “You should contact Hudson. I know they’re doing a National Trust property not far from here.”

“I know,” Robin sounded wistful, “I got a standard reply email that said they weren’t currently hiring. I just want experience.”

Kieran grinned.

“I’ll send you Niki’s number, you can call her.”

“Kier! You can’t just call people and say you want to intern there.”

“Why not? Niki’s lovely, her people did our cleverly concealed garage. She’ll talk to you.”

“Kieran, I can’t use your contacts to get a job,” Robin complained.

“It’s not a job,” Kieran reminded him. “I’m not allowed to want to help?”

Robin opened his mouth, about to say something, but paused, frowning, his mind working over what Kieran had said. The young man smirked, which made his lip sting, and said nothing. It was enough to know he was right without pointing it out.

You’re changing, the voice in his mind said softly, you used to love making a show out of the fact you’d won.

Kieran tutted to himself: his past behaviour obviously hadn’t worked out so well all the time.

They left the gin bar with the empty bottle of Jack, and followed Shastan and his stags down towards the seafront. Kieran wanted to turn left, walk the half a mile to The Waterfront, watch Robin dance under the flashing lights and kiss him on the dance floor. He wanted to have a drink over the bar with Ralph, share the news of his success on the track. But most of all, he wanted to be with Robin, and if that with had to be a million miles away, or on the moon, Kieran knew he would take it.

“I’ve never been in a strip club before,” Robin muttered.

“And you still haven’t,” Dave clapped him on the shoulder, “this is a dance club.”

Ten minutes later, Kieran fully understood what he meant. The club was divided into three sections: an area with the bar and a selection of cocktail tables, civilised and proper; a dance floor which more or less swam with bodies; and a large semi-circular stage where the performers danced. It seemed to be part strip-tease and part dance-show, and while Kieran could appreciate the sinuous way the three girls on stage moved, he was certain he did not feel the desire the other’s felt. The boys hadn’t been able to tear their eyes from the stage since they’d sat down and poured yet more champagne, but Kieran was finding it hard to look anywhere other than at Robin.

“Well, at least it’s not actually a strip-joint,” Robin muttered, “I’m not sure I could’ve coped with that.”

“I’ve seen them on television,” Kieran replied, “altogether too many thongs.”

“You’ve never been to a strip-club?” Robin was shocked, “I thought there wasn’t anything you’d not done.”

“I do have standards, thank you very much.” Kieran rolled his eyes. “My preferences include beautiful boys with curly hair called Sparrow,” Robin was watching closely, his smile growing brighter as Kieran ploughed on, “who smile like the sun and know how to put away whiskey like it’s going out of fashion.”

“Not half as much as you.”

“I’ve had more practice.” Kieran decided not the dwell on the double meaning that particular phrase could have. “You’re the most beautiful creature in this place, and I’ll bet the smartest too. I like that you’re willing to go along with me and the kids, and you’re not scared of the dogs or the bikes or your sister.”

“You’re scared of my sister?” Robin gaped at him.

“Petrified,” Kieran admitted, “don’t tell her. The thought of her living in the house and infecting it with… femininity, makes me shudder.”

“She’s not that bad.”

“But I spent most of my life either in an all-boys boarding school or living with my cousin. Girls freak me out, mostly. Hayley doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not a girl, she’s a rider. It’s a whole ‘nother category.”

“You’re weird Kieran.” Robin sounded particularly happy about this fact.

“I know, don’t tell anyone.”

Robin elbowed him softly, and Kieran looked down to watch the boy lean his cheek against Kieran’s shoulder. Kieran took a breath as his heart thudded irregularly in his chest, then snuck his arm around Robin’s waist. He smiled.

“You wanna get out of here?” Robin asked softly, “I doubt they’ll notice.”

“Sure.” Kieran moved in a daze as they said their cursory farewells and left the dance club. It was cool outside, and the air smelt of salt and the tang of the sea. Robin slid his arm around Kieran’s waist, and Kieran put his arm around the boy’s shoulders as they walked. “So where do you wanna go, little Sparrow?”

“You’ve started saying a lot of pretty things about me,” Robin regarded him quizzically, “I think I’m being too nice to you.”

“But-!”

“I’m kidding.”

“Oh…” Kieran deflated quickly, settling right back into the happy space he’d found that was exactly Robin-and-Kieran shaped. “Nightcap?”

“You gonna say more pretty things to me?” Sparrow bit his lip as he smiled, and Kieran felt his stomach start fluttering again.

“Anything for you.”