“You love the teaching, don’t you?” he said softly, stroking the hair out of my face.
“I love it,” I admitted. I loved the students, the college and the thrill of sharing what I loved. I felt almost like an adult there, and it was still a thrill to have students greet me in the street, calling me Mr Porter and introducing me to their friends. I thought I might even be good at it too. At least, that was what the headteacher told me in my last evaluation. And the students? They were fun. Challenging sometimes, but fun.
“You’re thinking too hard again. Stop it.”
“Can’t stop it,” I muttered into his chest.
“I was talking to Mrs Pasankar today, and she said her daughter had come up with a business model where we could just throw the whole bakery industry on its head and have a reception desk in store.”
“That’s hardly ground-breaking.” I smiled because he was looking so excited about whatever he was going to tell me, his hands all animated as he pulled out some papers from his bag.
“Say we have someone man the counter but have Graham in a comfy reception desk by the door. We could remodel it on the cheap, just a lick of paint, and invest in the furniture. We could call it a bake-ception.”
“Bake-ception…” I sniggered, then I smiled. It wasn’t a bad idea. “It needs to be cosy, darker colours, candles, and you know, greens and browns. Perhaps we could get a licence to serve coffee? Not that this town needs more coffee shops, but if we could have a good machine and a full-time barista, then Graham could keep an eye on things. I have a student who might need a part-time job. Good kid, always broke, but is really passionate about what he does. I think he could fit in well, then we could offer apprenticeships to cover the hours, and between us all?”
“Don’t think too hard,” Daniel whispered, placing a kiss on my lips. “You don’t have to do everything on your own anymore.”
I kept forgetting, even though I shouldn’t. I had him, and he had me as I smiled into his kisses.
“You’ve got me now,” he said.
“I know,” I would reply every day when he said it because we did have each other, and we had each other’s backs too, even when eggs got broken and things went wrong.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Daniel laughed and left me in the kitchen as he disappeared out into the hallway, returning with a huge thing wrapped in brown paper.
“What is that?” I laughed as he excitedly placed it on the worktop.
“It’s a Christmas tree. Well, it’s a tiny one but look. It’s a sapling in a pot, so we will keep it for this year, and it’s got its own little tinsel and baubles and stuff already, but the lady at the florist said if we plant it outside in January, then it will take root and grow into a proper tree. So, we can use it every year, and like, put lights outside.”
He looked a little sheepish as I just stood there.
“I mean, we’ll get a proper Christmas tree too. I just thought, you know. We would put down roots. Our first tree, and it will go in the garden so we can keep it forever.”
“You know fir trees can grow up to sixty metres tall or even taller in the right conditions?”
“Yeah? So? We can cut the top down and burn it in our fireplace. Recycling and all that. We’ll just have to keep trimming it back.”
“Roots. We can’t plant them and then just burn them.”
“We’re not cutting it down. It can be like our baby. We’ll just top it a little and use the cut off as a Christmas tree. It’ll be fine, Charlie.”
“You’re nuts, Daniel.”
“I know. I’m your boyfriend. What was I thinking? Must have been one hell of a midlife crisis last year.”
“It makes a good story at dinner parties though. Remember last Christmas when you were so out of control that you got divorced and bagged yourself a boyfriend?”
“Nuts.” He laughed. “I was definitely out of control. Bought a wreck of a house and a bike and thought I could live happily ever after with those rats of ours.”
“Wonder where they all moved to. I miss them. Humpty, Dumpty, Lumpty and… what was the fourth one?”
“We only ever caught three, then we released them, and they probably all came straight back or maybe it was only one rat that we caught three times…”
“It was more than three, all those droppings! Must have been a whole squadron of rats under the floorboards here.”
“It was winter, and the poor rats were cold. And we had no food in the house anyway, so god knows what they ate. It was insane.”
“Last December was insane. I don’t think I slept much. When I wasn’t working, I was studying, and the rest of the time I was thinking about you. All the bloody time. It was exhausting.”
“It’s a whole year. We’ve managed a whole year living here.”
“I know. Madness.”
“Happy anniversary, my Charlie.”
“Happy one year of insanity, my Daniel. I love the tree. Thank you. I love the idea of planting it outside, baubles and all. Then it will grow sixty metres tall, and we will end up feuding with all the neighbours over our ridiculous blinking Christmas tree.”
“It will be our Christmas tree.”
“Our thing.”
“Our thing?”
“Another thing. That will be ours.”
“I’m your thing?”
“Always.”
He was as well. My Daniel. He’s my thing. My man. My partner and my best friend in the world. He was the man who held my heart and who loved me and held my feet on the ground. He gave me roots. Roots that were wrapped deeply in the foundations of this house and that grew tightly all around his heart. He told me he loved me. I still never said it back. He said it didn’t matter as long as we did our thing.
“I think I could say it back, but it would sound stupid, you know, after all this time.”
“I know you love me, baby. I know it. It’s okay. It’s just another one of our things.”
“I, you know, forever and all that.”
“Charlie, use words.” He laughed, stroking my fringe out of my face.
“Fuck you, Daniel.”
“Fuck you too, Charles.”
“I love you, you wanker,” I hissed into his neck as he giggled and stroked my back.
“I know you do.”
I knew it too. And that was the thing with Daniel. He was mine as I was his, and with him holding my hand we would get through whatever the future threw at us.
“Show me those plans for the bakery,” I said, sitting myself down at the table, a loud sigh spilling out of my chest. “Let’s see if we can make this thing easier for all of us, and then let’s just do it.”
He showed me. And then we did. We made things happen. But that’s a completely different story.
Thank you to everyone who has read my books, and thank you for being brave enough to read this one. I hope it made you smile, and perhaps even laugh out loud as Daniel and Charlie figured their thing out.
You will find Andreas’s story in Ship of Fools, available on Amazon and in KU, and meet Rufus and Joshua in Custard and Kisses, available as a free download on Prolific Works.