Crying in the Rain (Hiding Behind The Couch Character and Festive Episodes)

22 Murder

Kris

K ris set down the tray of tea, coffee and toast and clicked his fingers at Casper. “Come on, move it.” The dog didn’t take a blind bit of notice.

“I don’t mind if you don’t,” Ade said, laughing at the dog, who was wearing a groove into the duvet with his nose. Ade glanced up and met Kris’s gaze. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Kris leaned in to deliver a kiss of his own. “How do you look and smell so good when you’ve just woken up?”

“Oh, I really don’t.” Ade ducked his head bashfully and tickled Casper’s ears. “Nobody looks or smells good first thing in the morning, do they, Caspy?” He glanced up at Kris again. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you. You were in such a deep sleep.” Ade had been tossing and turning most of the night and had checked his phone several times. Kris had kept his eyes shut so Ade wouldn’t feel bad about disturbing him, but he decided to come clean. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my decision to make, but I know you had a rough night.”

“It’s fine,” Ade assured him with a smile. “I hope I didn’t keep you awake.”

“Not at all. I pretty much went straight back to sleep. How are you feeling this morning?”

“OK-ish, I think. I called my boss to let him know I wouldn’t be in, but Pip beat me to it. He told me to take some time off.”

“That’s probably a wise move. ”

“I guess,” Ade agreed vaguely. “To be honest, I don’t really care about work right now, which isn’t me at all.”

“It’s not surprising, though.”

“No, I know. I can hardly remember the recording on Monday—I don’t want to think about what state I left it in. I’ve been so focused on getting rid of Fergus and…” Ade trailed off.

“Us?” Kris asked, hoping it wasn’t, not the way Ade was talking about it.

“Yes, mostly for good reasons. Work’s always been my go-to, you know? Keeps my head busy when everything gets too much. This…”

“Is too much?”

“No, but I’ve been in survival mode for so long that it’s a bit of a shock to the system, sending Ferg packing, being with you—it hasn’t really sunk in yet. So I was thinking…I might go and stay at my sister’s for a while.”

“OK,” Kris said. He hadn’t meant to sound ambivalent. “You can stay here as long as you like, but if it’ll be better for you at your sister’s…”

“I think so. I can’t really…” Ade closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I can’t face going back to the apartment yet, and I love being with you. I really do. I just…”

“Need some time?” Kris finished for him.

Ade nodded. “You don’t mind, do you? I’m not saying we cool it or anything like that.”

“Whatever you want is OK by me.” It wasn’t Kris’s decision, nor would it be fair to admit how much he wanted Ade to stay. The prospect of saying goodbye already had him in knots, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility that the speed and intensity of his feelings were down to witnessing Ade stand up to Fergus. Trauma was not a good basis for a relationship, as he knew far too well. The right thing for them both was that Ade took the time he needed to process and heal, even if in the end he decided he didn’t want this .

Kris hadn’t realised he’d been staring at Ade for so long that his uneasiness at sharing his decision had morphed into cheeky curiosity.

“See? Told you I don’t look good first thing,” he joked.

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Perching on the side of the bed, Kris traced the contour of the freckle patch on Ade’s nose. “These rock my world,” he said.

Ade captured the roaming fingertip and kissed it. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments, by the way.”

Kris smiled. “You’re the most handsome man in this room.”

“Second-most, surely,” Ade said.

“After Casper?”

Ade laughed. “However did you guess?”

“Just a hunch. The toast’s going cold.” Kris got up again and opened the curtains a few inches, throwing a shaft of surprisingly strong sunlight across the duvet. “I brought up the jam and marmalade, as I wasn’t sure which you’d want or if you’d want anything at all.”

Ade shrugged and picked up a piece of toast. “I’m easy.” Frowning, he considered both the jam and marmalade jars before taking the lid off the marmalade and dipping the knife into it. “Do you always work so hard to get it right?” he asked.

“What d’you mean?”

Ade indicated the tray. “Breakfast with options, checking that I’m doing what’s right for me…making love.”

Kris’s insides squirmed. “Was it awful?”

Ade smiled and shook his head. “No, babe. It wasn’t. It was beautiful and satisfying, and I felt cherished and safe, which is exactly what I needed last night.”

Kris still didn’t get the point Ade was making. “I’m trying to avoid putting you in a situation where you end up doing something you don’t want to.”

“I know, and I would tell you if that was the case, because I can, safely, with you. It’s not the same as with Fergus.”

“You deserve to be happy. ”

“As do you. When—” Ade’s eyes widened, giving away that he’d almost said something he hadn’t meant to, but he covered up quickly. “I also want to get it right, which is why I’m going to my sister’s, but only if you’re OK with it. I worry that we’re both rushing headlong into this before we’re ready, or before I am, at least. I want to make sure we give it our best shot, and right now, I don’t know that I can do that.”

“Makes sense,” Kris said, still curious about what Ade hadn’t said.

“And I think we should both spend some time practising being a little less concerned about everyone else and being more attentive to our own needs.”

Kris couldn’t help grinning at that. “To borrow a phrase from my daughter, bossy much?”

Ade laughed. “You know it!”

“Will you be checking in with Shaunna to make sure I’m sticking to the programme?”

“Do I need to?” Ade affected a stern expression, then ruined it by taking a huge bite of toast and chewing in an exaggerated fashion, which was when Kris registered what Ade had said earlier.

“You called me babe.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“I like it.”

“Then we should keep it.” Ade leaned forward and kissed Kris on the cheek, then swiped the spot with his thumb. “Marmalade looks good on you.”

Kris laughed. “How’s the toast?”

“Cold.”

“You don’t have to eat it.”

“You didn’t have to make it.”

“True, but just because I did, doesn’t mean—”

Ade took another huge bite, once again chewing laboriously, while Kris fought the urge to offer to make some fresh toast, if only to prove to Ade he didn’t always pander to everyone else, although he’d do it in a heartbeat if Ade asked him to .

“And rubbery.” Ade kept chewing. And smirking. He swallowed. “Not a good word for me, that.”

“What?”

“Rubbery.”

“Oh.” Kris nodded sympathetically, which set Ade off snorting with laughter. Unfortunately—or not for the dog—he wasn’t attending to his toast, and Casper whipped it out of his hand.

“Hey, I was eating that!” Ade protested through his giggles. “Sort of.” He winked at Kris. “Should we let him eat the rest?”

“No!” Kris grabbed a piece of toast from the plate and tore a bite from it. “Mmm,” he nodded, “very rubbery,” and had to swallow it in a hurry so he didn’t spit it out when he caught Ade’s giggles. Casper saw his opportunity and dived for the tray, but Ade was quicker and lifted it out of the dog’s reach. Kris took it from him and set it on top of the chest of drawers. When he turned back, Ade was serious again.

“I definitely want to give us a go,” he said.

Kris nodded. “Me too.”

“It’s going to take time for us both to lose the habit of our previous relationships.”

“Yeah.”

“Promise me you’ll try to be patient with me. If I tell you I miss Ferg, don’t take it to heart. It’s just so hard to leave it behind when there’s a big part of me thinks that’s all I’m worth. I still love him…well, no, I don’t. I love who he was, or who I thought he was. But I want him out of my life.”

“OK,” Kris said. Ade looked as if he was waiting for the ‘but’. “OK,” Kris repeated.

“You believe me?”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“Because…” Ade shrugged. “Because I’m struggling to believe me. I’ve gone back so many times, deluding myself that we could fix it if we tried hard enough—did I tell you we talked about starting a family?”

“I don’t think so.” Kris would’ve remembered if he had .

“It was when we first got together, then it came up again after…” Ade fell silent and absently reached for Casper, who wasn’t anywhere near as dozy as Kris made out and settled beside Ade, his muzzle resting on Ade’s knee, a perfect emotional support dog.

Ade had retreated deep into his thoughts and didn’t respond when Kris said, “Popping to the bathroom,” which he’d needed to do since he’d come upstairs with the tea and toast. He returned a couple of minutes later to find Ade and the dog exactly as he’d left them and got no more than a grumble from Casper when he squeezed onto the narrow strip of bed beside them.

“Are you OK there?” he asked.

Ade hummed ambiguously.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Children, and how glad I am we didn’t have any.”

“Do you still want them?”

“Yes,” Ade answered without hesitation. “I’d love to be a dad. I’m not sure I’d be very good at it.”

“I’m not sure any of us are any good at it. You just kind of muddle through.”

“Do you want more children?”

Kris could also have answered ‘yes’ without thinking or qualifying, but he was mindful of what Ade had said about him trying too hard. “If the circumstances were right, yes, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it didn’t happen.”

“Same,” Ade said. “I’m cool with just being an uncle.” He turned his head to meet Kris’s gaze. “Does Krissi know about us?”

“Not yet, unless Shaunna’s told her.”

“Will she be OK with you dating?”

“Will she be OK? She’ll be unbearably overjoyed. The first thing she said when we told her we’d separated was, ‘Have you got a boyfriend yet?’”

“Was she asking you or Shaunna?”

“Oh! Well…she was looking at me, but now you say it, I don’t know.” At least he hadn’t jumped down her throat when she’d asked .

“I’m guessing she’s always known you’re bi?”

“Yeah. It’s totally ordinary to her.”

“How it should be,” Ade mused. “Ferg has three kids with his ex-wife, and he’s not a bad dad for the most part. They used to come and stay with us when they were little. Then they started asking questions, and the visits became less and less frequent and eventually stopped altogether. I asked him if it was because he was ashamed of me.” Ade laughed without humour. “He said no. He just didn’t need the hassle of explaining why Daddy’s clothes were in Uncle Adrian’s bedroom.”

“He’s in the closet,” Kris said.

Ade nodded. “Before his mum died, he’d only ever had relationships with women. He said if she’d known he was gay, it would’ve killed her. All he cared about was that she’d got to be a grandma. I think that was why he was fine with the idea of us having kids, but my sperm count’s too low, and he had a vasectomy years ago. Just as well, really.”

“What about adoption or fostering?”

“He wouldn’t even consider it. After all, he already had kids.”

“You could always do it on your own,” Kris reasoned.

Ade took a breath as if to say something but released it in a sigh and gave Kris a watery smile instead. “I don’t plan on doing anything on my own, but thank you for saying it.” He reached over the dog and took Kris’s hand, interlocking their fingers. “Do you know, you’re the only person who hasn’t lectured me?”

“Other than giving you a hard time yesterday morning…”

“You encouraged me to question my actions. You didn’t tell me what to do.”

Kris shrugged. “Only you can make those decisions. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. But I will say this. You are the most incredible, strong man I’ve ever met. I’m excited for the day you can see that for yourself, even if you also decide you’re too good for me, which you are.”

Ade drew breath again, but Kris shook his head and turned, sitting cross-legged, so he was fully facing Ade, albeit with Casper between them. He reached across and brushed his fingers down Ade’s arm. “I’ll promise to be patient if you will. There’s a lot of stuff in my head that I need to tell you about, but let’s deal with one thing at a time. Is that OK?”

“Yes,” Ade agreed. Casper groaned like an old man and rolled onto his back, legs sticking straight up in the air, like a flipped furry occasional table. It instantly lightened the mood.

After that, they finished their lukewarm tea and took turns to visit the shower, Kris first, a kiss passing between them like a relay baton as Ade went to take his turn. Typically, Ade’s phone started ringing the second he closed the bathroom door. Kris checked the screen: it was a local number, which meant it was the garage calling about his car. It stopped and then rang a second time. Kris answered it.

“Ade Simmons’ phone. He can’t speak right now, but I can take a message for him.”

“Good morning. It’s McCoy’s garage. The recovery service brought Mr. Simmons’ car in to us last night. We need to have a chat with him about how he wants to proceed, as it’s not an easy fix, I’m afraid. Can you ask him to give us a call?”

“Will do.”

Kris ended the call. “Damn.” The dog flipped the right way up and belly-crawled down the bed, nudging Kris’s hand for fuss. Kris sighed. “He’ll be devastated, Caspy.”

***

Ade

“B een racing along the beach?” the mechanic asked from under the bonnet of the car he was working on— not the MG.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Ade said. There was no way he’d take it anywhere off-road.

“In that case, someone’s tampered with your oil. There’s sand in it, and it’s worked its way through your engine. It’s probably a write-off, mate. Sorry.” The mechanic put down his wrench and rubbed his hands on an oily rag. “The boss said he could give the MG specialist a call, see if he can get hold of a re-con. There’s not many about, but it’s worth a try…”

Ade was no longer listening. He was furious. As if Fergus hadn’t done enough damage already, now he’d destroyed his most treasured possession. Not flash— an out-of-date heap of scrap , as he’d told Ade often enough—but a trusty friend and an irreplaceable memento. Fergus was nothing short of a murderer. However, Ade was still here. He would live to fight another day, and he wouldn’t be wasting any more time or energy on defending or justifying his shit of an ex-boyfriend.

Fergus’s latest attack might not have been a physical strike, but it was no less brutal, and it made Ade more determined than ever that it ended here, curtain down, no encore. Fergus Campbell was history.