Smoking Hot Ch. 14

I hope you've been enjoying these characters who've been keeping me company the last few months. I could have gone on much longer but decided this chapter, including some brief epilogues, would be the end of this story.

If there's demand for more, I could be persuaded to post various stand-alone stories.

I wake up on that Sunday morning, after having both Laura and Dan in my bed, possibly happier than I've ever been in my life. My man and my best friend not only survived the outcome of our pissed-up bet three months ago, but I'm closer to both of them, with a whole album of memories even without Dan's nearly-full sketchbook, about to enjoy a lazy day with Dan.

"Morning, love."

"Eh? Oh, mornin', Ade."

"What you doing?"

His mouth crinkles in a wee grin, and he shows me what he's drawing. It's a copy of one of the photos Laura took last night, him shoving it up my arse with a fierce possessive growl, me with my legs apart like the biggest tart in the world, my face like I've won the lottery.

Which I think I have.

There's no way this picture could ever go up on the wall.

Never.

I say as much to him. He smirks, retorting, "No? I thought it would make a nice quartet, along with this one, and this one, and this one... Two of you doing, two with you getting done; nice symmetry, innit?"

He's right - the set would be the hottest pornographic pics outside Mapplethorpe's latest exhibition. Hotter, if proof of bisexuality in a man is something that floats your boat.

"I could stick them in a nice frame above the bed. If anyone looks too close, it's their own fault for being nosey."

I'm sorely tempted, but given how often my friends get changed or whatever in here when they come round, no fucking way. Even Sam and Naz have visited, so absolutely not! It's one thing my colleagues knowing in the abstract I do men - even meeting Dan - but there's some things they never need to know. How wide my hole stretches is definitely one of them!

"I don't want anyone getting the chance to nose quite that far! Besides, I think our friends would be able to tell that's Laura, even without her head, and I can't see her agreeing to that in a million years!

"Fair point." He laughs. "Could be a good way to come out to your mom!"

"Don't you even be joking about that! Not enough brain bleach in the world... Reminds me, I'd best call my sister in a bit. Before she drops her wean."

"You're not particularly close, you and your sister, are you? When was the last time you saw her? What's her name again?"

"Michelle? Nah, not really. She's... Well, she's the dutiful Catholic girl, looks after Ma nice, I mean, she's sweet and everything. She came over for a work thing couple years ago, she stayed over one night... But I'm the embarrassing big brother, evil queer - ah, that's harsh, she's more 'hate the sin, not the sinner', which is cringe-making... Mostly, she's just boring. Never occurred to her to live anywhere outside Ireland, or to hang out with anyone not local and Catholic... I'm like, what did I look after her all those years for?"

"She's younger?"

"Five years, aye. If Da was going to be raging at anyone, better me than the wee doll playing with her teddies, y'know? Ah, she's got herself a sound man, even if he's a quare dryshite, she's happy with her wean and the new one on the way, it's all good."

I dial her number - I do talk to her every month or so on general principle. 'Family, innit', as they say on EastEnders.

"Bout ye, 'Chelle? How's it cuttin? Ah, meself? Magic, aye, grand, grand." I enjoy not having to be comprehensible for the English, and grin at Dan trying to run what he can hear through his mental translator. Chelle moved to near the border with Donegal and gets more culchie dialect every time I hear her, which from me is saying something, I tell you.

"Courting? Aye, could say I'm courting. Got me a bidey-in, and all."

I have to move the phone from my ear, she's that excited about my live-in partner.

So I venture telling her. "His name's Dan. A right sound man, an' all."

There's a pause, so I put my ear back to the receiver. That was a mistake.

In summary: I'll be the death of our ma. I knew that.

"Only if ye tell her. I'm not gonna. She can keep praying for a new wife for me for the rest of her days, far as I'm concerned. Are you going to tell her I'm living in sin, fornicating with a man?

She snorts, and even Dan can hear, "I will in me hole!"

I confirm to Dan that means she won't. Will when she's dead; same thing. "Cheers, Chelle. If you do come over the water, you're always welcome to stay again. Not that you'd be able to fit the family, best use the Travelodge down the road, I'll treat ya. When's the boy due?"

Another rant, boiling down to 'what do you care?' She's clearly at the right fed-up stage of pregnancy, just wanting to give birth already. Of course, I've never met my wee niece, so she does have a point that I'm a waste of good air as an uncle. Time to escape. "You look after yourself, Chelle."

"And you." There's a deep breath. "That man had better treat you right, or I'll set Diane's ghost on him."

"He will. He has. Cheers, Chelle."

I hang up, but that went better than expected.

I'm oddly touched.

She's the only other family member I speak to, given the various fights I got in with my cousins and uncles. Getting accused of airs and graces after I'd been at Cambridge was a pain, but when they suggested I'd become English, and of course all the English are gay - well, now, that's fighting talk. They say no Irish wedding is complete without a brawl, but I'm reliably informed the family have coped even since I stopped going home.

Dan looks at me, says nothing, just puts his arm on mine. Eventually he speaks.

"I should call my sister soon, too. Find out what she wants for her birthday."

"How old's she going to be? Jenny, right?"

"The big three-O. She's only eighteen months older than me. Normally I just stick a tenner in a card and go out clubbing with her, but now she's got herself a chap and it's a big one, so who knows?"

He tracks down his mobile from the other room. "A'right, our Jen? Grand, yeah."

I bet he didn't call anything 'grand' three months ago. I'm clearly a good influence.

"Your birthday coming up. You going out, or what? Yeah, could come up for the weekend, I suppose. Yeah... about that... Why, what's Max's mom been saying? 'Kind of me to let her move in?' Ha!"

I can't help laughing at that.

"Background? No comment! Seriously, I had to move out or I'd have killed that bloody Gemma... I don't know where Max's brain's gone... his trousers, you're right. No, not a houseshare..."

The clipped voice on the phone sounds like a military investigation. That's sisters for you.

Dan looks at me and I give the wee nod. He's clearly going to have to 'fess up.

"OK, wench! I'd been kinda seeing this guy what lives downstairs from me, so he suggested moving into his spare room... No, you're right, I've never slept in it..." Dan swaps ears and gives me a wry grin, as well as squeezing my hand. "Some months. His name's Adrian... He's Irish, from near Omagh... Yes, he's good-looking! He's right next to me! Oh, god..."

He rolls his eyes at me. "Jen wants 'a word'."

I take the phone he hands me. "Hello Jenny? You're our Dan's older sister? I've been hearing about you." My voice as deep and charming as I can manage of a morning.

"Well hello! Adrian, right? How did you meet our little brother, then?"

At least I've thought through this question enough times in my head. "My friend was persuading me to stop smoking and decided it was time for me to get back into online dating. Next thing I know, this guy who lives upstairs comes over, has a chat, he tells me his sister - you, right - is a stop-smoking advisor and how I need to change all my routines to stop myself being tempted by the fags, suggests going out for brunch the next day - turns out he wanted to escape that Gemma, but we got to hanging out more and more... So I guess I've got you to thank for getting us together!"

Compliments never go amiss.

She giggles, in a nice genuine way. "Aww... Glad to be of service, even if I can't add you to my professional success statistics. Er... did you manage to give up?"

"I did," I tell her, as proud as I've ever been of anything in my life. "Couldn't have done it without him."

"You know, this is a bit weird. I've never spoken to any bloke of Dan's before. Only Louise, and seen him going out on the pull when he was younger. Copping off in the distance, more recently. You his type, then?"

Now there's a question out of left field! "I have no idea! What is his type?"

Dan is hiding behind his hand and groaning.

"Well... broad-shouldered blonds with spiky hair, mostly. The odd shaven-headed tattooed guy... Or a young cutie - imagine Ant'n'Dec when they started... Which one are you?"

I repeat the options to Dan, who is blushing more than I've ever seen, and laugh myself. "Me? Ah well... I've got hair down to my chin, kinda swept back. No tattoos. Never been to a gym in me life. Bit of an old pisshead, really. Yeah, I'm older than him..."

Dan grabs his phone back. "Shut up! No, he's not even ten years older than me! And he's got a good job - Chartered Engineer, thank you very much. Yeah, he is. You should see his smile... Especially when we're in bed and..." He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. "Don't worry, just winding her up." Back to her, "Sorry, did the line go all crackly? You'll have to live in suspense, then. The 29th? Suppose I could. We could? If you insist. You do insist. Bloody hell..."

"What?"

"She wants us to come clubbing with her and her friends and her bloke Matt. Saturday 29th. Stay over."

I shrug. It's not like I've got plans. "What sort of club?"

"Retro. Eighties, Nineties," he relays. "I used to go there a bit before I moved down."

Thank fuck. "Ah, while music was still good? Sure, bring it on."

"You do realise this will involve meeting my parents, not just Jen?"

I freeze. Jenny's talking to him, again.

"No, you don't tell them. It's my job. Just say, I'm living with a neighbour who wanted a flatmate just as I was looking. Serious, Jen, if you say anything, I'll kill you. Mm. True. OK. No, just I don't know if we've got to meeting family stage, yet. We didn't really plan to move in so soon... No, it's worked out really well, you know, the odd blip to start with, but it's real good, now.

Calling 999 on my three-day piss-up is a 'blip'? I do not deserve this man! Only, if I dumped him for that reason, because he deserves better than me, he'd get upset. So I can't.

Which means I'm tied to him, for better or for worse.

Shit.

I may as well go the whole hog and meet his folks.

"I'll come see your parents, if you want."

His slightly terrified beaming smile is all a man could ask.

Three weeks later, work is toddling on nicely, with Lissa taking on real work under Naz's diligent supervision. Dan's agreed not to drag me to the gym more than once a week if I keep up my cycling. I've got my head round grocery orders suddenly filling the place and just buying fruit and veg down the market as we need it. It's fun, regularly cooking for two. There was a bit of a disagreement over him working at home in the afternoon; he was getting stressed with me watching Countdown behind him, even with earphones on so there was no sound, but we worked through it. Got a gadget to send telly to a laptop in the bedroom, instead. Handy for putting on a bit of porn in the background.

Dan's work is falling off a bit. He's considering a part-time diploma course, starting in the autumn; architectural computation. A bit like what I do, starting from the opposite end. He's got to that point in his career where lots of jobs are closed to him just because he doesn't have a degree. If he can blag his way through a few essays, the world's his oyster. He might even be able to go straight to a Master's, with a diploma and his experience; once you have one, no-one asks about your first degree. I'm not mentioning that as an option for him, yet - he can't see himself and a 'degree' in the same place, yet.

I've packed my overnight bag. Time to take it and Dan to the hire car to go up to Birmingham. At least Shirley is this side of the city, not far from the motorways. I've got all the 'Shirley not!' jokes out of my system. His parents are expecting us for lunch. His mum does a cracking roast dinner, I hear.

"Come on!"

He's hesitating. Then he picks up his holdall and takes my hand. "Lead on, MacDuff."

"'And damned be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"'? I'm not going to chicken out nor get wasted, you know. Apart from anything else, the car's only in my name. I've never driven a drop over the limit in my life." I'm not sure that's totally true of my teens, back before drink-driving made people social pariahs back home, but certainly was a thread of morality I clung to, later.

I glance to the side. He's still nervous. "Really, it's fine. I've done meeting parents before! I'll be your charming neighbour and flatmate, get on their good sides, then it's all up to you if you want to out us to them or not. I'll be respectable as anything. Honest."

"Yeah. I mean, it's fine, my parents are nice, really they are. Mom always loves having people to look after, make sure they're fed and that. She'll be clucking after you like a mother hen, soon as she knows you don't have any family over here."

"Sympathy vote, eh? I can mention the dead father and wife, if it helps."

He eyes me, bit unnerved by my blunt talk. "Only if you want to. Seriously, just come eat a good meal, chat to Dad about rugby and F1, if you don't want to talk cricket. Or cars. Cars is always good."

"Aye? Can do that." I change gear and lane for yet another traffic light round Vauxhall, the MI6 building looming over me. No spies out smoking on the balcony, so presumably no international crisis happening this minute. I rev across Vauxhall Bridge and turn left; easy route now, mostly straight along the river, north through Fulham, onto the A4, then up the M40 for a couple hours.

Jenny's got about a dozen girlie friends and a few of their blokes coming along, meeting in a bar from seven. We should get to their parents' by half twelve, dinner round one, head on out sometime after six.

Bit over five hours: just me, him, and his parents. What could possibly go wrong?

We reach a modern Seventies housing estate in good time. "That one. Park on the left, in case Dad needs to get in the garage." He's clearly on edge. I give his hand a squeeze but no kiss - this isn't just metaphorical net-curtain-twitching country. Time to be that pleasant housemate...

I'm greeted by a cheerful dark woman in an apron, who gives me a hug and a cheeky peck on the cheek, and a firm handshake from what looks like an older version of Dan, hair clipped to a no.2 to hide the heightened hairline. The dad's clearly one of those English chaps only happy when he's pottering around doing something, and goes to fetch us tea.

Mum's got meat out and tells us to stay out her way while she finishes the rest of the dishes, despite my offers to help. I've brought a couple bottles to present to his dad, me being a good-mannered guest. Dan assures me his dad knows no more about wine than I do, but he seems pleased. Dan passes me stuff to put on the table, and we get a good relay going.

"Oh, that's so kind," Mrs Johnstone tells me. "Call me Anne, do. Here's parsnips, Daniel's always loved his roast parsnips. And gravy. Take another slice of the lamb, love."

I don't have to pretend my enthusiasm for the food - it's all excellent. I tell her as much. "Did Dan learn to cook from you, then?"

"He's doing cooking, now, is he? That's good."

Dan talks about some meals he's made recently, mentions I can do the basics but prefer trotting down Borough Market, and next thing I know we've had a passionate discussion about cheese. The dad likes stocking up on wine and cheese in France once or twice a year, it seems. Whatever the cheapest drinkable wine is. He asks if I like wine.

Dan laughs. "Ade's more of a whisky fan. Obsessive, some would say."

"It's a fair cop. Once you get near a hundred single malts on the dresser..."

"No!"

"No, only around eighty, being fair. I haven't counted, recently. I quite like wine, but it doesn't mix with whiskies, so, given the choice..." I shrug, apologetically.

Obviously, we get into where I'm from and isn't it such a coincidence Dan worked over there when he was in the army, so proud of him they were, after school didn't work out for him, don't know why, he seemed to be a bright lad when he was little...

"Eh, they didn't do much for dyslexics back then. Now, I suppose, it might be better? Dan was thinking of..."

There's a kick on my ankle. Dan interrupts, talking about the models he's been working on for various industrial buildings, and I see his mum's eyes glaze over. I turn the conversation to the joy of cute wee model houses and putting the little toy trees and people round, and she laughs. Dan mimes moving the little plastic doggies around and his dad starts chortling too.

I start explaining what I do, in terms of modelling how fire blows things up and so why builders can't do what they want, throwing in various anecdotes of hacked-off suppliers, attempted bribes from clients, and the practicals in my Master's where we had to use all the different types of fire extinguisher to put out fires set in the car park, closer and closer to the Vice-Chancellor's classic car. A Bentley, I think, maybe an Aston Martin.

Turns out his dad used to work at the Aston plant, so then he's relating his own stories, including some scurrilous ones he's never told Dan before, and his mum chips in to improve the tales in the telling. It's good craic for a couple hours before we think to leave the table. We end up in the lounge having civilised afternoon tea; home-made tea and cake even, and again, I don't have to feign appreciation for Mrs J's baking.

She thinks I'm a lovely one, I can tell, even before I offer to help wash up (she declines of course, assuring me the dishwasher will take care of it, which I'd predicted), so I just have to fend off those questions about whether I'm seeing anyone, but she's not pushing it too hard - she's trying to make a good impression on her son's friend, the poor fatherless lad.

I like her. My ma might have been similar, if she hadn't been so weighed down all the time by her family, the Church, and my da. When she tells me to drop by any time I'm near Birmingham, I can tell she really means it.

Jenny turns up round five, to share a cab into town. "Ah, you're Adrian! The famous... housemate!" She is scarily similar to him - shorter, shoulder-length blonde curls probably helped with a bottle, same easy manner. We get chatting, just like when I first met him. Just as well she has this fiancé we'll meet later, or I'd be sorely tempted...

I get shown to the guest room, Dan following upstairs. Used to be Jenny's, ten years ago, but been redecorated recently, all neutral. Mrs J starts putting fresh duvet covers and pillowcases on, and naturally we assist. As I should have foreseen, the moment we're away from Dan's father, she wants to know if he's seeing 'anyone', complete with optimistic gender-neutral pronoun.

Dan takes as long as he can getting his pillow into its case, then looks across to me, as panicked as I've ever seen him. I'm half-behind his ma, so I mouth 'Breathe!' at him, and 'It's OK! Tell her what you want!'. He takes a deep breath.

"Actually, yeah," he says.

She's excited, waiting for him to carry on. So am I.

"Yeah... When I moved in with Adrian..." I wish I knew what he was going to say. His mum's clearly expecting 'then I met his colleague' or some such.