Redemption's A Bitch - 19. Tear It Up

The paper was lying on the kitchen counter. That in itself was unusual, because neither Kieran nor Shastan bought an actual newspaper, they just subscribed to the weekly amalgamated news magazine. But there it was, one of the big broad sheets, lying open at the sports section. Football and cricket could be damned, because splashed across the front page was Kieran and the green and white Kawasaki, leaning around a bend on the Thruxton circuit under the headline: TRISTAN TOYNE RETURNS. Kieran didn’t bother reading the article, but poured juice into two glasses, put waffles from the freezer into the toaster, sliced some fruit, assembled breakfast onto a tray, and carried the lot one-handed through the house with the paper in his other hand.

“Morning babe.”

“Waffles?” Robin sat up straighter in the wicker chaise-lounge as Kieran put the tray onto the low table between them. Vuka instantly trotted up to see if he might have waffles too, but Kieran simply fluffed the dog’s ears and sent him away across the garden in search of a tennis ball. “There’s a good shot of you in the Guardian,” Robin flicked another, newer, newspaper in his lap, the photograph open on the page showing Kieran pulling a big-air wheelie in front of the stands at Outlon Park, “Brian had them sent round late yesterday.”

“Where was I late yesterday?” Kieran frowned and bit into his waffle like a slice of toast.

“Dead, mostly: you remember coming back from the gym?”

“Not especially,” Kieran frowned, “sorry, I’ve been really useless since Cadwell Park haven’t I?”

“Hush.”

Kieran collapsed into the other chair and Robin slid across from where he sat and snuggled himself into his lap. Robin took his hand, kissing his knuckles and sipped his orange juice. Kieran exhaled, and then filled his senses with the fresh, soft scent of Robin’s hair, the textures of his t-shirt, the taught skin of his abdomen underneath, the pale pink flavour of the nape of his neck. Robin almost purred.

“You’re not useless, you’re tired. Donington isn’t until the fifth of next month, you have time to rest,” Robin snuggled against him happily, “I’m sure you’ll make it up to me later.”

“Whatever you want babe,” Kieran drank his orange juice and cuddled his boyfriend in the late summer morning.

It wasn’t really sunny, hadn’t been sunny since before the second race at Outlon Park, but it hadn’t rained. The late season was turning into perfect racing weather, and Kieran had used it to his advantage. Each race he had pushed himself and the bike up towards breaking point and the strategy that made his team’s principal tear his hair and out and kept the mechanics up late, also kept him high in the rankings. He had not yet finished a race without standing somewhere on the podium, and during a post-race press conference a reporter had asked him if he thought it possible to be ranked in the medals overall considering he had been a non-competitor for the first five races. Kieran only smiled and replied that he hoped to do well. Brian had been quick to remark afterwards that it wasn’t actually logistically possible, because even if he won every race left, there were not enough points available. Kieran didn’t care, the overall standings didn’t matter to him, but he had always thrown heart, soul, and body into every race, and somehow having Robin there to be his anchor at the start and end of each heart-pounding run made Kieran ride all the better.

Kieran reached down for the paper and his questing fingers disturbed the thicker pages of a sketch book. Frowning, he filched it up and opened it in Robin’s lap, looking over the boy’s shoulder.

“Babe?” Kieran turned the pages which showed what could only be described as an organic building. Despite the lack of straight lines, it was easy to tell they were architects sketches. Little cut through sections showed the insulation in walls and floor, a beautifully detailed spiral staircase with measurements climbing up the stairs, a ground plan with the rooms labelled in neat capitals. Kieran smiled as he looked down at the drawings and kissed Robin’s hair. “Is that our house?”

“Kieran…” Robin turned around on the wicker lounge chair until he was sitting cross-legged, facing the other way. Kieran sat up to, so they were knee to knee with nothing between them but the sketchbook. The little Sparrow looked unhappy.

“Sparrow, what wrong? Don’t you like the land? Is it too far out of town? I’ll sell it, buy someth-” Robin stilled his lips with a finger.

“No. There’s nothing wrong with it. Kieran…” he sighed, “normal guys do not just buy one another acres of land.”

“Oh…”

Here it was, the moment Kieran had been secretly dreading for the last month: the moment when he would do something stupid and unthinking and cast himself back into Robin’s hatred. He gulped audibly and wished for the ability to reverse time and wipe away the last few minutes, anything to get rid of the deep sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Especially since you haven’t asked me to move in with you.”

“What?” Kieran’s chin jerked up to look at the hazel-eyed boy. Robin grinned like an imp.

“You’re still too easy!”

“Why you little shit!” Kieran pounced on him, sketches and unhappiness forgotten, and pinned Robin to the chair before they both slid off onto the grass.

The boy giggled in his ear and squealed as Kieran tickled his ribs viciously. By the time Kieran had got Robin’s shirt up, nipping and licking at the pale-tan skin of his chest, they were both breathless and panting. Robin had his fingers on Kieran’s belt with intention when Shastan walked past.

“Morning.”

“Oops. Hi Shas,” Robin began to extract himself from the cage of Kieran’s arms, but not quickly enough.

“Rob!” Rebecca practically shouted his name. “Get up!”

Robin rolled his eyes as Kieran jumped up, brushing his shirt back into position. Robin folded his arms behind his head and was instantly attacked by Vuka’s happy cold wet nose.

“Oh, gross!” Becca wrinkled her nose in disgust and reached across to push the dog off her brother. Kieran growled. “That’s just puerile.”

“Becca,” Robin spoke from under what was quickly becoming a pile of fluffy canines, “please go back to your room and remove the stick that’s up your arse. This is getting really boring.”

Rebecca gaped at him, and in the moment of silence before she opened her mouth, Kieran was sure he heard the snapping of her temper. It sounded very much like the noise made by Shastan’s tempered chocolate breaking.

“I will not live like this!” she stamped one perfectly pedicured foot on the grass, “this is my home now, you’re not even supposed to be here!” She rounded on Kieran, “and you have corrupted my little brother! You heartless bastard, do you have no shame at all?”

“Becca, calm down,” Kieran exhaled through clenched teeth. The desire to just ask Shadow to bite her was almost overwhelming.

“I will not calm down! You cannot tell me what to do in my own home!”

“Well it’s a good job that we won’t be living with you much longer then,” Robin was on his feet, his voice tight and full of banked fire: a furnace ready to explode with pressure.

“Oh, go home Robin!”

“I feel sorry for you Becca. You’ll have to stay here all alone when we invite Shastan around to ours for dinner.” Robin folded his arms, radiating smugness. When Robin arched an eyebrow at him, Kieran practically melted from the heated cockiness of him: it was such a turn on.

“You are not moving in with him!” Rebecca snapped at her brother. “It is ridiculous. I won’t allow it.”

Robin rolled his eyes.

“Sis, I love you, but if you’re gonna try and tell me what I can and can’t do, you’re gonna be pushing the sibling-forgiveness-bond rather thin.”

Rebecca was angry, but she wasn’t stupid. She rounded on her husband, fists clenched tight.

“How can you allow this to go on in our house?”

Shastan sipped his hot chocolate and laid down his cup with a decisive clink.

“It’s not our house. It’s mine and Kieran’s. His name is on the deeds, not yours,” Shastan sighed heavily, “you live here because we let you, that’s what it comes down to.”

“Shastan… babe, what are you saying?” Becca’s sharp, angry resolve suddenly faltered. Kieran knew the feeling. No one in the universe could be so calm and disappointed as his cousin.

“I think maybe you’d best go cool off for a few days. Stay with your parents.”

“But-”

“Now would be a good time to start. I’ll call you.”

“But, we’re married,” Becca flustered. “What about Robin?”

“He’s here as Kieran’s guest,” Shastan picked up his mug again, “which doesn’t concern either of us. Goodbye sweetheart.”

Kieran didn’t watch her go, but the dogs did. Two minutes later Robin was sat opposite Shastan, discussing the articles about Kieran, the pictures and the races. When Kieran heard the front door open he mumbled an excuse, and dashed to the hallway with bare feet.

“Becca!” he grabbed her wrist on the door handle, “wait.”

“Come to gloat? You got me out, just what you wanted.”

“No, Becca, look,” Kieran took a deep breath; even half out of the door, her attitude was abrasive as sandpaper, “I love him. Really.”

“So you say.”

Kieran stood on the worn stone step and watched his cousin’s wife get in her car and leave. Kieran knew it wouldn’t be forever, it probably wouldn’t even be for a week; but he could well imagine his cousin’s pain. If he’d had to choose between his cousin and the man he loved, he had no idea quite how he would manage.

*

The dogs liked the beach. Kieran had driven the Mitsubishi out to the site, left the car and crossed the distant coast road before heading down the steep stepped paths in the cliffs. The dogs all scrambled down the concrete steps while Kieran dawdled, running his fingers over the chalk face of the cliff and the cold steel of the railings. It was near the end of August, and the wind rolling in off the sea tasted of salt. The chill breeze was ruffling the dog’s fur, making them look regal and photogenic. Kieran sat on the beach where the rounded pebbles petered out to coarse yellow-grey sand, and placed his thumb print into the soft ground next to Shadow’s hurried paw print. Robin dropped down next to him, his head resting on Kieran’s shoulder.

“We should talk about this,” Robin was holding the papers for the site in his hands, the map and details, the geological survey and the cleaned up blueprints for the house, “Kieran?”

“I’m sorry,” Kieran turned and kissed his boyfriend’s hair gently, “I shouldn’t have- it was stupid.”

Robin pushed him away, his hand braced around the back of Kieran’s neck, under his hair, and he looked sternly at the other man.

“It’s not stupid. It’s big and irrational and silly and romantic: but not stupid.” Robin kissed him hard, “don’t you ever doubt yourself like that. Promise me.”

“I promise.” Kieran hugged the little Sparrow to his chest so that Robin ended up, once again in his lap. “Should I have asked you first?”

“You still haven’t,” Robin glanced back at him, “rude sod.”

Kieran glanced down again at the papers, not quite knowing what to say.

The day after Shastan and Becca had returned from their honeymoon rudely interrupting he and Robin mid-coitus, Kieran had called his financial advisor and told him to look for land. To Kieran, the decision was logical: it was clear they couldn’t stay in the house forever, because neither of them wanted to live with Becca, and Kieran didn’t fancy having his cousin walk in on them again. There was no way, Kieran knew, that he could go on without being with Robin. The idea of sleeping alone made him shiver.

When they had returned after the whirlwind circuit trip, Kieran had found an email of dossiers waiting for him, and he’d driven around on the Honda in his flame coloured leathers and picked out the one he liked the best. Land was better than a house, because Robin wanted to design houses, design organic spaces to live in, but he was a brand-new third year student. Kieran knew that even with all the money and influence in the world, there was no way his Sparrow would be given the contract for a genuine full-sized building to be made in his own style for many years. So Kieran bought the land, paid whatever was required to the right people to allow them to do pretty much as they pleased with it, and to him, it was logical. Robin would get to design the house they lived in, and Kieran would do what he did best, and pay for it.

“I love you,” he said finally.

“I know,” Robin hugged Kieran’s arms over his torso, “and I like to hear you say it.”

“You know I don’t want to live without you.”

“That’s not the same thing…”

Kieran frowned and got up.

“Babe?”

He knelt down in the sand in front of his boyfriend, moving an errant stone out from under his knee, and took Robin’s hands, pressing them over his heart, the papers discarded. Robin smiled at him like he knew what was about to happen, and it was better than the sunrise.

“I love you and I want you to build us a house. I want us to live together in whatever sort of place you want, wherever you want to be. I want to be with you forever, to love you always. I want to be yours, and I’ll do whatever it is that means to you. I’ll buy you a ring and we’ll get married,” Robin frowned, “or not. Whatever makes you happy. I love you.”

“So, I should move out of my parent’s house and just come live with you?” Robin was grinning, and Kieran knew he was having his heart toyed with.

“Yes please.”

“OK,” Robin grinned happily and whistled to the dogs, “now let’s go decide where we want our front door to be.”

They stood in their field, in a private and sheltered spot between two big oak trees, and Robin reached out to stroke the bark. He had already decided that as many of the mature trees as could be saved should be, and the dogs were very happy with their little woodland. Kieran wondered briefly if it would be a good idea to let them hunt for rabbits. Since the huskies were currently making much too much noise to worry about the idea they might indeed ever catch anything, Kieran didn’t worry. Instead he wrapped his arms around Robin as they looked out towards the sea.

“It’ll be just there.” Robin held out his thumb and then framed a space between four fingers. “Our house, made exactly the way we want it.”

“There needs to be a garage. A big one.”

“Sure, and a room for the dogs, a big kitchen so we can entertain people…”

“An enormous bed.”

“Done.”

Kieran slipped his fingers under the hem of Robin’s shirt, skimming upwards to his sensitive rose-pink nipples. Robin shivered under his touch and ground against his crotch in a slightly distracted manner. Robin reached over a shoulder and wound Kieran’s long hair up in his fingers, his delighted whimpers becoming moans as Kieran invaded his jeans and boxers, wrapping his fingers around Robin’s erection.

“How soon can you start?”

“Soon…” Robin pushed back against him, his own hands trying to work the fly on Kieran’s jeans. Even though the breeze was chill, it was suddenly sauna-like under the trees.

“Snuggle up in front of the fire,” Kieran nipped Robin’s ear as he kneaded the boy’s perfect arse, and Robin moaned again, his chest vibrating with desire, “eat expensive chocolate and drink fruity cider.”

“Uh-huh…” Robin’s words were failing him as Kieran loosened his clothes enough to have him naked from arm pits to knee. He slid two long tanned saliva slick fingers into his lover while Robin whimpered in desire.

“Oh my little Sparrow,” Kieran couldn’t help himself, because it was easy to feel possessive when Robin gave in to him like this. They were all alone in the middle of nowhere, on land they owned with no one to disturb them, and even though Kieran couldn’t kid himself for a second that he was in charge of their relationship, it was a rush to know Robin wanted him in such an instinctual way. Kieran never imagined they’d ever do anything so uncivilised as have sex outdoors, but he was discovering new things about his partner all the time.

Kieran made the boy squirm against his fingers, used his other hand to become just naked enough, and in the space between heartbeats stroked Robin quivering flesh, pulled out, and then slid into him in one long smooth stroke. Robin screamed, his voice absorbed by the ground, the grass and the leaves above, and Kieran held him tight against his chest, kissing Robin over his shoulder as they fucked in the woods. Kieran could see the shape of his new house forming, and it was good.

*

“Uncle Tristan!”

“Hey Bailey,” Kieran grinned at the small boy and returned his hug as he came in through the side gate, “what’cha doing?”

“Dad’s making us a giant water bubble,” Katy stood on the lawn in a light summer sundress, taking full advantage of the last little heat wave, “but it’s not going very well.”

“Hi Tristan,” Rob was on the ground with his littlest son, taping the seams of what appeared to be an enormous plastic wallet, “I don’t suppose you have any idea how this is supposed to work?”

It took them half an hour, a few YouTube videos on Kieran’s phone, and an emergency fixing session with the clothes iron, but when they attached the hose and began to fill the ‘blob’ with extra-blue water, there were no more leaks. Benji was delighted with the water bubble, rolling over and over on the wobbly surface as it filled. By the time Callé came out to see what her family were up to, the three children sat and lazed on the jelly-like blob, Rob and Kieran lounging on the grass and checking the sealed plastic seams for leaks.

“Tristan, this is a nice surprise,” Callé touched his shoulder as she passed. “My god! Husband, what have you done?”

“Mummy! Mummy!” Benji was desperate to be picked up, but as soon as Callé scooped him up, he wriggled for contact with the blob again. “Daddy and Uncle Tristan made us a water bed.”

“Why would anyone want to sleep on it?” Bailey shuffled himself off the blob, “it’s fun but I wouldn’t wanna live with it.”

“I would…” Katy was spread out on the soft blob, smiling happily, “mum can I have a water bed?”

“No.”

“Daddy, can I have a water bed?”

“Ask your mother,” Rob said without looking up.

Katy’s brow furrowed.

“Uncle Tristan, can I have-?”

“That’s not my decision sweetie,” Kieran stroked her hair and smiled. “Callé? You got a minute?”

“Sure.” They left Rob and the children happily wobbling around on the giant water bubble, and Kieran followed Callé inside, instantly taking up a small paring knife and beginning to make a plate of sliced and prepared fruits. Even Benji would eat most anything if it was brightly coloured and didn’t need peeling. “What’s up Tristan? How are you and Robin?”

“Oh, Callé,” Kieran beamed, “it’s wonderful. He’s wonderful. You were right.”

“I usually am.”

“I bought us some land, he’s going to design us a house. He’s studying architecture.”

“That was quick,” Callé stroked his hair when Kieran frowned at her, “but then I never believed in waiting after I’d found ‘the one’ either. Good for you Tristan.”

“There’s something else,” Kieran took a deep breath and laid down the knife. He did not want to slice into his thumb while he said this. He had changed his lifestyle, fairly drastically, and the impact of what that meant had weighed on him ever since he’d come down from winning the race at Thruxton. “I started racing again.”

“You’re leaving us?”

“Callé, no, I don’t want to…”

“It’s OK Tristan.” Callé moved around the kitchen island and hugged him tightly, “one of the guys I work with loves his bikes and his cars. He had the paper, raving about some insane kid driver who’d come out of retirement and was beating all the competition hands down. I saw the picture; that was a shiny trophy.”

“It’s not forever. Season will be finished by November. I don’t want-”

“Tristan,” Callé interrupted him with another quick hug, “you’ll always be part of this family. Even if you don’t see them every day, you’ll be Uncle Tristan to them forever. We can work something out that fits around your schedule.”

“I want to be there for them.”

“And you will. Oh sweetie, don’t cry,” Callé handed him a tissue and Kieran sniffed, almost embarrassed to need the comfort she gave him, “it’s not like any of us are going anywhere.”

“Thank you Callé,” Kieran hugged her hard, strong and tall enough to lift her from the floor, “thank you for letting me be part of this family.”

“As long as you don’t let Bailey get a bike when he’s older. He idolises you enough already!”

“I promise.”

“Uncle Tristan!” he was being called by little voices outside, “tell Daddy he needs to share the blob with us!”

“You’re needed,” Callé handed him the plate of fruit, “go be magical.”

Kieran grinned. Everything was going to be alright after all.