The Kiss: An Anthology About Love and Other Close Encounters(51)

Over the years I’ve made a thousand excuses—to myself, to others—for his behaviour. I’ve tried to explain it in a hundred different ways; told myself he was scared to admit his feelings, scared to come out. Except he wasn’t. The bastard came out even before I did. And had a boyfriend first—a real, live, actual boyfriend. His name was Will and I hated his guts. It didn’t last long but he took Liam’s virginity, stole it from me.

I gave Liam my virginity in return, during a dry spell when it seemed any warm body would do. He only wanted a quick leg-over, but to me, it felt like making love.

And so the years passed. College, A Levels, university. We both stayed in Manchester, although we moved out of our parents’ houses to rent a flat together. He went to Manchester University because he’s smart as well as beautiful, and eventually got a job in some trendy little advertising company writing copy for million pound campaigns. I took my more average exam results to Salford and studied journalism, then got lucky enough to land a job with the BBC when they moved their operation up north.

We have our own places now, although we live pretty close. I bought a boxy little new build in Hulme, whereas he lives in The Edge, the swanky plate-glass building located right in the city centre, whose sail-like structure used to dominate the landscape before some developer built the Beetham Tower. I think Liam’s parking space cost more than my entire house.

So we worked hard through the week and played hard through the weekend. When Liam had a boyfriend we went to the Village, but the women he dated thought gay bars passé, and with them we went to the trendy hotspots at Deansgate Locks instead. I’m not sure if he ever told them about himself, or if they thought he just humoured his gay best friend. It turned my stomach to think he was earning brownie points for being okay about me when he was screwing me behind their snotty, stuck-up backs.

I wasn’t single through all that time, of course. I got a boyfriend of my own after college, a couple through uni and one or two afterwards, but they never lasted long. Just until they worked out that they’d never replace my best friend in my heart, and as Liam never seemed to get along with them anyway, it was for the best. The simmering hostility gave me a headache, and it was easier to break up and remove the complications they brought into my life.

Which is how I ended up here: lying naked on my sweaty sheets, listening to Liam let himself out of my house. It must have been four or five in the morning—we hadn’t left the club until two—but he’d refused my offer to sleep over as he always did, and was probably right now getting into the taxi he’d called while I was still wiping the evidence of our tryst off my chest.

I’m not upset, I told myself, curling around a pillow which smelled faintly of him, of his cologne and sweat and musk. I’d done this a hundred thousand times over the years we’d been fooling around, and I could handle it. I just had to remind myself that I could handle it.

If I didn’t get to sleep until the sun was up and the birds outside were singing, well, that was just my own stupidity, wasn’t it?





*


“I can’t do this anymore.”

I froze with my pint half-raised to my lips. “What?”

“This. Whatever it is we’re doing. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I lifted the pint the last couple of inches and sipped, willing my hand not to shake. If either of us was to call time on our little arrangement, I’d always imagined it would be me; I’d be the one to break. What had Liam got to lose?

“Viv suspects something, I’m almost sure of it.”

“So?” I returned the pint carefully to the raised table against which we were leaning.

“So I care about her, Toby. I want this one to work.”

My guts twisted. “When did you decide this?” I asked, trying to keep the bitter edge out of my tone.

“You know I like her,” he protested, not really answering my question.

“You like them all, Liam. That hasn’t stopped you before.” I was hissing the words, the venomous, sibilant accusation slicing through the thumping bass of the Village bar.

“Well maybe Viv’s different,” he snapped, blue eyes flashing with angry light. “We can’t keep doing this, Toby. We’re too old.”

Screw him, ‘too old’. We were twenty-bloody-eight. We’d been doing whatever it was we did for almost half our lives. We couldn’t just…stop.

“We should be…friends. Real friends.”

“We are friends,” I snapped. “Friends with benefits.”

His laugh was utterly humourless. “Is it a benefit, though? Or was it all a big mistake?”

I recoiled like he’d slapped me. If he’d slapped me, it would have been easier to deal with.

“Do you regret it?” I asked, unable to bite my tongue and make myself stop.

“No… I don’t think so.” His smooth brow furrowed in a frown and suddenly it seemed he found the scratched tabletop the most interesting thing in the world.

“Then why?” I asked, plaintive and a little whiny.

“When did you last date someone?” he asked instead.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. A year ago, maybe.”

“Exactly. Don’t you think that’s a problem?”