The Devil's Trill Sonata (12 page)

“Okay?” Jayden queried softly, kissing Darren’s ear before informing his mother that his father was coming down for cheesecake in a minute.

“Yeah,” Darren croaked, and Jayden slid his chair closer and pressed up against his side. “Thanks.”

“Love you,” Jayden whispered, and it was like everything had clicked back into place. Darren felt sixteen again, fresh out of hospital, stiff-shouldered and rubbing his socks across the linoleum just because it felt different to hospital flooring. The way Jayden had kept close every time he’d managed to wheedle Scott into bringing Darren over, the way everything else had taken second place to Jayden’s encouragement and Mrs. Phillips’ mothering…

Slowly, the unsettled mood lifted and the pang of something being missing eased as Mr. Phillips slouched back into the kitchen and had a brief, good-natured argument with his wife about the proper utensil to use to eat cheesecake. His wife won, of course, and Mr. Phillips was sat down with a spoon as plates heavy with home-cooked, delicious-in-taste-and-disgusting-in-appearance Phillips-style casserole landed in front of Darren and Jayden.

Conversation mostly revolved around Cambridge (Jayden), work (Darren), the new baby (Jayden was still ridiculously scandalised about that, whereas Darren was just surprised Jayden didn’t
already
have a bunch of little brothers and sisters, by the way his parents had always behaved) and Mr. Phillips’ promotion at work. Darren let it wash over him somewhat. He had never quite gotten used to the rough and easy way the Phillips family related to each other, so different from the stilted, tense small talk at home if Father insisted they ate together for once, and after so long away from it, he found it easier to tune them out a little bit and absorb the warm and tight feeling of the small kitchen. Hemmed in, but safe. Blanketed, maybe.

He’d set Jayden off, though: his hand was never far from Darren’s wrist, and he kept shooting little glances at him all the way through dinner. When Mrs. Phillips offered dessert, he refused for the both of them, and dragged Darren back upstairs by the same wrist, supposedly to unpack.

“I made up the camp bed for Darren!” Mrs. Phillips shouted up the stairs after them, and then Jayden hustled them into his room and closed the door.

“Like hell you’re sleeping in the camp bed,” he huffed and pushed Darren beyond it and onto the bed proper. “Sit.
Sit
.”

Darren sat, and Jayden was promptly straddling his lap and massaging lightly behind his ears.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he murmured lowly, and Darren sighed, rolling his head back into the undeniably pleasant tingles beginning in the hinge of his jaw.

“Nothing,” he said honestly. “I’m just adjusting.”

“Adjusting?” Jayden prompted gently.

Darren chewed on his lower lip. “You know it’s…your family’s not like mine,” he said finally. “And you remember I had to get used to that?”

Jayden nodded slowly, still looking anxious.

“I guess I’ve just…forgotten a bit,” Darren said. “It just hit me in the hall that…that’s not how I would have been greeted by
my
mother.”

Jayden’s face twisted, and he slid his arms around Darren’s shoulders, hugging him tightly for a long minute and kissing the side of his head when he eventually drew back a little. “As long as you’re okay,” he said after a moment.

Darren shrugged, toying with the hem of Jayden’s T-shirt absently. “You’re here,” he said.

He wanted to say he was back. He wanted to say they were both back, and that this was how things ought to be, but the words stuck in his throat, and then Jayden was smiling and pressing kisses along his jaw to his mouth, and the urge to clarify died away.

Later, curled naked under the sheets of the single bed and twisted around Jayden to let them both fit, Darren tucked his head into the crook of Jayden’s neck, breathed in deeply, then exhaled all the anxiety and loneliness of their separation into the room.

They were home now.

“Jayden, what did I
say
?!”

Darren was rudely jerked into consciousness by Mrs. Phillips’ loud voice and the light from the hall, and he buried his face in Jayden’s pillow to block her out. “Urgh,” he offered, and Jayden grumbled.

“Honestly, the pair of you. Breakfast’s in half an hour. And you!” The bed shifted; Jayden yelped, and Darren surmised he’d been whacked. Maybe he should do something. Win boyfriend points or whatever. Eh. Later. He shifted farther into the pillow to hide in case she turned her whacking hand on him too. “You are in so much trouble, young man!”

Yeah, yeah, but could he be in trouble
later
? Darren wanted to
sleep
, not be in trouble by association.

Jayden muttered something that sounded unflattering, and then he was pulling at Darren’s arm and slipping under it to cuddle in against his side. Darren let him; he wasn’t going to say no to being hugged back to sleep. (And he
would
be sleeping again, thank you, because it couldn’t be morning, whether or not Mrs. Phillips left the bedroom door open. Which she did. Because Jayden’s mum was a sadist.)

“M’nin’,” Jayden mumbled and kissed Darren’s ear. “We need to get up.”

Darren stayed buried. Jayden could get up if he bloody well wanted.

“Daaaaarren,” Jayden coaxed, shifting out from under his arm again and draping himself across Darren’s shoulder to toy with his hair. “Breakfast’ll be ready soon. Dad always does a fry-up on Christmas Eve. You don’t want some?”

“I want to sleep,” Darren grumbled.

“But you have to come with me,” Jayden wheedled, pulling aside a handful of curls and kissing the spot under Darren’s ear. “Mum’s mad at me and she won’t be if you come down too, and then we can go and meet Paul and Ethan like you said on the train yesterday and…”

Darren groaned and levered himself over onto his back. Jayden let him and resettled on his chest. When Darren squinted up at him, Jayden’s hair was impressively spiky for being so wispy most of the time, and he was staring intently at Darren’s ear as he toyed with the lobe. “Why do I have to suffer?” Darren demanded.

“She can’t get mad at you.”

“Why’s she mad at you?”

“One of us was meant to sleep in the camp bed.”

Darren screwed up his face and put the pillow over his head. Seriously? He was being woken up because Jayden’s mother
still
lived in la-la-land? They’d been sleeping in the same bed every time he’d stayed over since…well, since they started sleeping together in the first place. “I’ve
never
slept in that camp bed,” he pointed out.

“I know.” Jayden pushed the pillow away and kissed his cheek. “Come down to breakfast with me? What if I promise a
bucket
of coffee when we get into town?”

Darren wanted desperately to go back to sleep, but figured he wasn’t going to get an offer like that twice, and finally pushed Jayden off his chest and sat up. His shoulder spasmed and he grimaced, and then Jayden’s fingers were rubbing deep circles into the muscle and soothing the twinge.

“Okay?”

“Mm.” Darren stretched and didn’t miss the way Jayden’s gaze flickered down his chest and back up. “I remember you freaking out if I so much as took my shirt off in front of you, you know.”

Jayden reddened. “Oh, shut up and get out of bed,” he said and encouraged Darren by shoving him out of the bed entirely and onto the camp bed.

Darren ended up going downstairs earlier than Jayden. He was happy in his pyjama bottoms and socks; Jayden had to look presentable, even though it was
his
house, and lingered to style his hair. So Darren ended up padding into the kitchen in time for Mr. Phillips to plonk a plate on the plastic table and grunt, “Get that down you.” Or it might have been ‘give a Danube’—Darren was out of practice translating the various grunts Mr. Phillips used instead of English.

Darren got halfway through breakfast before Jayden appeared, seizing his head in both hands to kiss the top before rummaging in the fridge for juice, and had just finished when Mrs. Phillips materialised and started scolding Jayden for not using the camp bed.

“Mum, I’m nineteen!” he protested hotly.

“You’re
teenagers
!”

“We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for three
years
, Mum!”

Mrs. Phillips puffed up like a bullfrog, and Darren wisely stayed out of it. He knew better. He had adjusted a little from the previous evening and let the minor argument wash over him without really listening. It was nice to be able to switch off a little, and when the argument settled, Jayden took his mostly-empty plate away and hauled him out of the kitchen again by the wrist, muttering darkly to himself about his age and his mother and
it’s like she thinks I’m a kid, oh my God…

“You promised coffee,” Darren reminded him, once Jayden was in the middle of brushing his teeth and couldn’t argue. “You promised serious caffeine. Of overdose proportions. And,” he waved his phone in front of Jayden’s narrowed eyes, “we’ve already been summoned. Paul says he has presents.”

Jayden spat into the sink. “That’s probably alcohol.”

“Fine by me.”

“Alcohol
and
caffeine, Darren? Really?”

“Any cheap cocktail ever has both,” Darren countered.

Jayden grimaced. “Honestly, Darren. The Carlsberg is bad enough.”

Darren raised his eyebrows, pausing in texting Paul back. “What’s Cambridge got you drinking, then?” he asked pointedly.

Jayden blinked. “It’s always wine at dinner,” he said blankly.

“Right,” Darren said slowly. Point proven, he thought, and then Jayden caught on and scowled.

“I’m not saying you
can’t
drink Carlsberg if you
want
, Darren, Jesus,” he sniped.

“All right,” Darren said evenly, picking up his texting again. He was learning, he reflected bitterly: don’t, for the love of Christ, argue. It just led to more arguing and awkwardness. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Jayden purse his lips in the mirror before slowly returning to applying his moisturiser.

“So…” Jayden started after a moment; Darren didn’t pause in the exchange of verbal abuse he’d started with Paul. “So, are we meeting them for lunch, or this evening?”

“Lunchtime,” Darren said, trying to pretend there wasn’t a
space
between them. “I’ve been summoned for the evening.”

Jayden frowned at him in the bathroom mirror. “Summoned where?”

“Home,” Darren said. “Scott’s spamming me demanding I go over for the evening.”

“You’re staying here for tomorrow though,” Jayden said instantly, the irritation washing out of his features and leaving him looking oddly anxious instead.

Darren shrugged. “I still should go tonight. See Misha. Scott’s coming down tonight as well, and I told him I’d be there.” He didn’t
want
to go, but he had to. You had to visit family on Christmas, even if you didn’t like them. Even if…

“Darren,” Jayden abandoned his routine and turned to stare at him beseechingly. “I don’t want you to go. Your parents…”

“I have to.”

“But you always come back…” Jayden began, then hesitated. “Ill,” he finished lamely.

“Yeah, well.” Darren shrugged, staring at his phone. “S’what tomorrow with you is for, right?”

Jayden stared a little longer, then sighed and muttered, “I suppose at least that means I win about Christmas
Day
…”

“Yes, it does,” Darren conceded and opened his hands invitingly. Jayden stepped forward into the hug and moulded himself up against Darren’s side with a sigh that was half-anxious, half-defeated. Maybe a third defeated, though, because there was a
trace
of contentment in there too. “What if I just go for dinner, see Potato, and then come right back here for the evening? What about that?”

“I suppose,” Jayden murmured and squeezed. “Just don’t come back
ill
? I…” he paused; Darren waited, stroking patterns into the back of Jayden’s T-shirt. “I worry,” Jayden finished eventually. “I worry about…about how much you can hide from me over the phone and everything.”

Darren raised his eyebrows, and Jayden pushed back to look him in the eye.

“You
have
been okay, right?” he asked imploringly.

Yes? Sort of? Maybe? Darren flicked through the honest answers and discarded them instantly. “Yes,” he half-lied. He
had
been okay, kind of. He hadn’t had…well, a
proper
bad day. He hadn’t been harming or suicidal or anything, so…yeah. He’d been
okay
.

Jayden hummed and dragged his hands down Darren’s arms to twist their fingers together. “Just dinner,” he said. “And then come back here.”

“For second dinner.”

It worked. Jayden laughed, pushed him away, and went back to his primping routine with an exasperated, amused shake of the head. And, for the moment, Darren won.

* * * *

“BEEF!”

It was Paul who hollered, the moment that Darren stepped foot inside the Wetherspoons pub on Queen Street, and half a second later, Jayden laughed and shoved him forward into a two-way hug.

He’d never admit it to anyone, ever, on pain of death, not even Jayden’s mum armed with a wooden spoon and a biscuit tin, but Darren…kind of liked Paul and Ethan’s dual-sided attack hugs. They were less awkward than actual hugging, and he got to stand in the middle while the two of them attempted to crush the life out of him.

And they
could
. Paul had hit six-foot-five in the last year of school, and had taken up rugby the minute he went to UCL. Ethan wasn’t any taller than Darren, but had maintained his love of ridiculous sports at LSE, building up a powerful grip from hours and hours prancing around on a horse trying to hit a ball with a stick, or waving a wobbly sword at someone. Which meant that a dual-sided attack hug
now
? Now it was lethal. He screwed up his face, patted arms that were within patting distance, and bore it out.