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  “It’s not just his stuff, love. Take a look at the bottom of my wardrobe. There’s a box of things from your Gran and Granddad’s house I thought you might be interested in.”

  I led Steve up the narrow staircase and into the fusty smelling bedroom. Mum’s wardrobe was a cheap flat pack job, the melamine chipped and yellowed with age. The whole thing shook as I opened the doors, and I didn’t see how there could be anything I was interested in here, but then I saw the wooden chest at the bottom.

  It used to sit by the gas fire in my grandparent’s house, full of ancient toys they’d kept for me to play with. I pulled it out and sat on the floor before opening the lid. Yes, there they all were: the lead soldiers; the spinning top; the wooden acrobat who tumbled and flipped when you squeezed the handles together. His strings had rotted away, but he wouldn’t be hard to repair.

  Much easier to repair than the damage my family had suffered over the last decade.

  “I didn’t go to their funerals.” I finally admitted. “I loved them both, but I was too much of a coward to face Dad again.”

  Steve sat behind me, wrapping his arms and legs around me so I was cradled in his warmth.

  “I don’t know if I can forgive myself for that.”

  “They wouldn’t blame you. They knew what he was like.”

  “I should have been there.”

  Steve didn’t argue with me, didn’t try to fill the silence with pointless platitudes, he just rocked me gently as the tears started to flow; more than were needed to mourn my dad. Enough tears to wash away a decade of guilt and send me out the other side raw and exposed, but somehow refreshed. I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve, before reaching for a wooden bear Granddad had carved for me. He’d made it over a number of cozy winter afternoons, sitting in his armchair by the fire with me on the footstool beside him. I remembered Gran telling me how I could always depend on their love. Their forgiveness.

  “Thank you.” I said. To Steve. To my grandparents. Even to my dad, who in his own, ham-fisted way had raised me to be the man I was today.

  The man Steve loved.

  ***

  The funeral was a quiet affair: just Mum, Steve and me, with one of Dad’s sisters turning up once the service had started. When Mum introduced Steve as my “boyfriend” I thought Aunt Flo would pass out, but she recovered and took me aside before she left.

  “Your dad always was a difficult man, Jeremy. Even as a small child, he had ideas above his station and tried to manipulate everyone into doing things his way. You mustn’t blame yourself for the way things worked out, or ever feel ashamed of being who you are.”

  I turned Aunt Flo’s words over and over in my head on the train journey home, as Steve sat beside me, finishing off the toe of his second sock. Had I been ashamed of who I was? It was true I’d never been demonstrative with other men in public, or affected any mannerisms that might betray my sexuality to strangers, but I’d always thought of that as being a sensible way of avoiding getting my head kicked in. But was it something else? Had I been trying to appear straight to live up to my dad’s image of masculinity? If so, it was a stupid way to live my life.

  “Yes! One matching pair of socks, hand knitted by yours truly.”

  I turned to smile at Steve, marveling at how he was secure enough in himself to knit in front of all those strangers. I recalled all the times he’d reached out to me in public and I’d shrugged off his touch, until he’d finally got the message and stopped trying.

  He didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

  I took his hand, lacing my thick fingers through his slender ones. Steve raised a quizzical eyebrow before darting his gaze around the crowded train carriage.

  “Fuck ‘em,” I whispered, before kissing him right on the lips.

  I pulled away before the contact woke my dick up, as there’s no way I’d be able to hide it in that ill-fitting suit, but I rested my forehead against Steve’s, my dreads falling down to create a curtain between us and the rest of the world.

  “I reckon I should knit more socks, if that’s what I have to look forward to when I finish.”

  “You’ve got a lot more than that to look forward to,” I murmured.

  Steve licked his lips. “So have you, Poppet. You just wait until we get home and I model these babies for you.”

  He held up the sock, resplendent with its brick red, olive and ochre stripes, and I shook my head, chuckling.

  “What? Not sexy enough for you?” Steve pouted but his eyes still sparkled. “Fine, well I won’t be modeling that pair of leather sock suspenders I bought then, will I?”

  My head filled with an image of him dressed like those men in the Victorian photographs I’d found online, naked except for their socks and the suspenders that wrapped around their upper calves, emphasizing the swell of muscle beneath them. My dick perked up at the thought, and Steve must have noticed because he gave a dirty snigger.

  “Oh yeah, I remember that vintage filth you showed me. And besides,” he added with a sheepish grin, “I got the tension wrong and they’re too baggy to stay up without some support. Your mum suggested it as a solution.”

  I couldn’t stop smiling all the way back, even with my suit as a reminder of our somber morning. And later, when Steve finally walked out of our bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of brightly colored socks and some cherry red suspenders, I fell down to my knees and worshipped every inch of him, before letting him push me up against the wall and pound my arse into oblivion.

  We fell asleep tangled up in each other’s arms and I felt strong, worthy, complete.

  Because he’s my man.

  And I’m his.

  End.

  If you liked this book you might like: First Impressions by Josephine Myles

  Last Chance

  Copyright © 2011 by Josephine Myles

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Torquere Press, Inc.: Sips electronic edition / September 2011

  Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680