 
### Out in the Snow

Copyright 2015 Kit Edwards

Published by Kit Edwards at Smashwords

**Smashwords Edition, License Notes**

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they may discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support and respect for the property of this author.

### TABLE OF CONTENTS

A note on the text

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

About the Author

Social media

Reviews
A note on the text

In the following text, I use a racist word that is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as 'very offensive'. It is only ever used in dialogue and as part of the crime that sets the event in this story in motion. The use is problematised in the text and it is my intention, ambition and hope that no reader experiences that this story is racist, even if it contains characters who are.

I also repeatedly use the word 'chav', listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as 'derogatory'. It is used in the narrative as well as the dialogue, and, importantly, it is not problematised in the text. However, I hope that the text does not seem to condone the use of the term, but rather serves to show one character's snobbism and the other character's self-deprecation and, occasionally, ribbing of the other character.

### CHAPTER ONE

Liam was filling his car up with petrol when his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was a text message from Hardik, telling Liam not to pick him up at work. I'll come by yours later, the text promised. Liam frowned and put the phone back in his pocket. There were a million possible reasons why Hardik wouldn't want him to come to his office. The most benign possibility was that he was out. As the owner and manager of an entire neighbourhood of cheap housing – a sort of privately owned council estate – Hardik was often out. Inspecting his property, inspecting prospective tenants, picking rubbish from the streets of his own little empire and then finding someone else who ought to have been picking up the rubbish and giving them a right bollocking. The thought made Liam smile. Hardik, all 5 ft 8 of him, was slight compared to most of the guys he hired to do maintenance for him, but he wasn't shy about letting them know who was boss.

The real reason Hardik hadn't wanted him to come around to his office became clear when Liam ignored the text and turned off onto the small car park outside the end of terrace that Hardik had converted to an office. Falguni's showy Mercedes was parked next to Hardik's older and comparatively un-showy BMW. Liam swore under his breath and pulled his own little Audi into the available spot next to the Mercedes.

He got out and took a moment to compose himself. No need to get worked up. Falguni was supposed to leave for India later today and it was possible that she just wanted to say good bye. Liam unlocked his car again and pulled out a battered packet of cigarettes from the glove box. He wasn't a regular smoker – not anymore – but it was still a pretty effective stress release and he was pretty bloody stressed right now.

As he was smoking his cigarette, noting idly that the tobacco was far too dry to make it pleasant, he walked up to Falguni's car and had a look inside. If you're going to India for nearly a month, you'd pack some pretty big bags, right? And Hardik had said that they always brought things over. Little presents for nieces and nephews, things for cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles who were still in the old country. Falguni's car was empty, but then of course, there was no saying that she had stopped by on her way to the airport. Maybe she was going back home to pick up the bags and then off to the airport.

Liam took one last look at the child car seats in the back of Falguni's car and ground his cigarette to pieces, feeling inexplicably provoked by the sight.

When he opened the door to the office, the sound of the electric bell was familiar and almost comforting to him. Shepherd came scurrying out from a near-by kitchen and smiled when she saw him. Shepherd was one of several members of Hardik's staff who regularly came over from Zimbabwe, worked for a while and then returned. 'Reception' – Hardik's rather grand word for a worn desk in the middle of a carpeted hallway – was manned either by Shepherd or Harmony, depending on which one of them was currently in the UK.

"Mr Palmer," Shepherd said, grinning widely at him. Her seemingly honest pleasure at seeing him always made him feel mildly embarrassed.

"Hullo Shepherd," he said, trying for a wide grin of his own. "How are you?"

"Great! It's so lovely being back here again."

"Not too cold?"

"Ah, but the lights make it worth it."

"The lights?"

"Christmas lights in town. So pretty."

"I wish I could be as excited about them as you," Liam said, meaning it. He nodded at the closed door to Hardik's office. "Is he in?"

"Yes, and the missus too, just so you know." Shepherd pulled a face that showed clearly how she felt about the 'missus'. Liam sympathised.

"Can I go in?"

"He's not said anything else, so I think so."

Liam came and went at Hardik's office pretty often and was usually shown straight in, unless Hardik was in a meeting.

"Thanks. Oh, and Merry Christmas, eh?"

"Merry Christmas, Mr Palmer."

He had tried to stop her from calling him that, but after a couple of years he had given up. He flashed her another smile as he walked past the desk to Hardik's office. He paused briefly outside, listening carefully. He was half expecting to hear Hardik and Falguni arguing, but he couldn't hear a thing. He knocked a gentle tap-tap-tap on the door before he pulled it open.

Hardik and Falguni were both standing by the window; their little girls sat in a cheap IKEA sofa at the other end of the room, peering up at Liam from behind their iPads.

"Ah, Mr Palmer," Hardik said, big fake smile on his face and his arms open wide. "Did we have a meeting?"

Liam met Hardik's gaze, saw the panic there. Play along, play along, play along, he seemed to say.

"Yes, we did," Liam answered, trying to pull himself back into the local branch bank manager persona he had hoped to leave behind when he left his own office for the Christmas holidays. Authority and professionalism. "There were a few questions about your new mortgage that I'd rather clear up before the holidays, if you don't mind."

"Of course, of course," Hardik said, disengaging himself from his wife with a gentle pat to her arm. "Falguni, why don't you all wait here whilst I talk to Mr Palmer in the inner office?"

The 'inner office' was a weird sort of extra office behind the first one, where Hardik kept his cash and his important papers. It was where he occasionally pulled out a sofa bed for a nap if he'd had a stressful day, and where he conducted meetings that he didn't want his staff to be able to eavesdrop on. It was also a room where Liam had fucked Hardik against practically every available surface. Even standing up against the big windows overlooking a derelict garden one memorable afternoon, when Hardik had come in his trousers because neither of them had bothered to pull them down properly. It was one of Liam's favourite memories, and even now, with Hardik's wife and daughters watching them, he felt a flicker of arousal when he thought about it.

"That's nice of you to come all the way out here yourself, Mr Palmer," Falguni said, clearly identifying that most branch managers did not call personally on their customers to check mortgage details a couple of days before Christmas.

"Oh, not at all," Liam said magnanimously.

"I hope it won't take too long though. We're flying out to India in a couple of hours."

"That's nice." Liam's smile was genuine as he thought of Falguni and the girls being out of the country and him getting Hardik all to himself. Another flicker of arousal hit him as he thought about how there would be time for a quick fuck before they'd have to get into Liam's car and drive off to the cottage in a remote part of the Scottish highlands where they'd be spending the holidays. Fuck it if Hardik didn't celebrate Christmas. The magic of good sex, good food and the Scottish highlands wasn't just for Christians. He planned on getting Hardik out of his clothes as soon as they'd got the fire going and not letting him get dressed until it was time to leave again. Which would be nearly a week into the new year.

"Yeah, we're going for a wedding. Two weddings, actually," Falguni said, smiling at him. No matter how much he loathed her, he had to admit that she was a seriously beautiful woman.

"Sounds great. And nice to get away from the sleet and snow, eh?" Liam glanced at Hardik, who was half way into the inner office.

"Exactly! Can you believe I had to nag this one," she nodded at Hardik, "for weeks before he agreed to come along? Said he had to work, but I said, you've worked hard enough. We're due some family time."

Liam tried to process what she was saying, quietly wondering how Hardik was going to get out of that one. Because Hardik wasn't going to India. He was going to the Scottish highlands with Liam. Wasn't he?

Another look at Hardik, his hand holding on to the inner office door handle so hard his knuckles were white, told Liam that no, Hardik was not coming to Scotland. He was going to fucking India.

Liam forced another smile at Hardik's beautiful wife, before going into the inner office. He heard Hardik close the door behind them.

"I meant to tell you," Hardik said quietly.

"Oh yeah? When?" Liam hissed. He wanted to scream at Hardik, but remembering the thin walls between this office and the one where Falguni and Hardik's daughters were waiting stopped him.

"As soon as possible. I've tried to tell her I didn't have the time to go, but she was getting suspicious. She thought I was having an affair, for Pete's sake."

"You are having an affair, you fucking idiot."

"Liam... Love..."

Liam had always found it faintly amusing when Hardik called him that. Not only because Liam was twice as wide as Hardik and significantly taller, which made the endearment seem a bit preposterous, but also because it sounded so strangely affected in Hardik's half Hindi half Midlands accent.

"Don't," Liam told him. "At any point, did you stop to think that it might've been useful to let me know far enough in advance that I could have cancelled the fucking cottage?"

A fucking highland cottage. The idea that had seemed romantic only a moment ago seemed cheap, clichéd and ridiculous now. Romantic get-away. Making love in front of the fire place? Liam should have seen this for what it was. Hardik wasn't about making love in front of the fire place, he was about quick illicit fucks in offices or cheap hotel rooms whenever he could convince his wife that he had to work late.

"I'm sorry, Liam. I can pay the—"

"Shut the fuck up." Liam sat down on the desk, trying not to remember that the last time he was in here, he had had Hardik right on this surface. On his back, holding onto the edges as hard as he could so that he wouldn't be pushed off by the force of Liam's thrusts. "I was an idiot, I see that now. You go to India with your wife, Hardik. Have a nice time."

He made a move towards the door, but Hardik intercepted him, slender, long-fingered hand around Liam's broad wrist.

"I'll be back in January," Hardik whispered, sounding desperate in a way that might have made Liam feel good had he not been so bloody gutted. "As soon as I'm back, we can get a hotel room, spend the weekend, just you and me?"

"No," Liam said. "Hardik, it's been nice, but this is it. You go to India, that's the last you'll see of me. I'll assign someone else to handle your accounts and if you want to get fucked, I'm sure you'll be able to find someone. You're a hot little lay, you know?"

He was twisting the knife with that last one, but he couldn't care. Hardik was in the wrong here. And Liam had to be cruel or he'd have to somehow give into that uncomfortable ball of nerves that had suddenly appeared in his guts – and who knew what hid there? God forbid he'd actually cry over this mess of an affair.

"Liam, please..."

"Bye Hardik. Have fun in India."

Liam pulled the door open. Falguni looked at him in an anxiously hopeful sort of way, like she had really believed that there were some problems with their mortgage and Liam had now potentially fixed it.

"Bye," Liam said, not pausing in the 'outer office'. "Happy Holidays."

"And to you," Falguni said, her accent much more India than Hardik's was. "Hope you've—"

Liam didn't catch the last of that. He managed not to slam the office door shut behind him, but he closed it pretty firmly.

"Are you leaving already, Mr Palmer?" Shepherd asked.

"Seems like it."

"It was nice to see you again."

"And you. Take care, Shepherd."

Liam pulled the front door open, finding the sound of the little electric bell annoying now, and took a deep breath as soon as he was out. During his short time in Hardik's office, dusk had turned into proper night. The night that he was supposed to drive all the way up to Scotland. What would he do now? Go home and get drunk and hope he woke up towards the new year?

A sound from the small car park drew his attention. He looked over and saw two boys squatting on the ground. Then he heard the hiss from their spray cans as they sprayed something on the sides of his car.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Liam asked sharply and marched up to his car. The boys stood up. Huh. Not boys after all, then. Young men, more like. Early 20's. For a second, Liam wondered whether he'd manage to get himself stabbed to death by some chav before he'd even have to worry about what to do with that fucking cottage in Scotland. When he walked closer to them, he noticed they were nearly as tall as he was, though significantly skinnier.

"It's about time that fucking paki found out what we think about him," one of them said, snarling.

"Yeah," the other added helpfully.

"What fucking paki?" Liam asked, ignoring how uneasy he felt about using that word.

"The fucking paki in there, mate," the first kid said, pointing at Hardik's office with his spray can.

"That's my fucking car you're wrecking," Liam said, moving slowly closer. On the other side of the cars was a flat stone wall, so if the guys wanted to run away, they would have to run past him. Suddenly he was hoping that at least one of these chav bastards would fight him. If nothing else, it'd be a nice bit of stress relief. Then he noticed the slashed tires of his car and realised that at least one of them was carrying a knife. "You slashed my fucking tires?"

"Thought that car belonged to the terrorist in there," the first kid said. Liam took a good look at him. Short brown hair, almost completely covered by a cap, features so generically English working class that Liam would never be able to pick him out from a crowd.

"So that makes it okay?" Liam asked. He glanced at the other kid. The kid had that same typical look about him, but his hair was darker, nearly black, and his eyes were deep and dark and framed by lashes so long they made the guy look like an innocent angel. Yeah, Liam thought, as if.

"Look, mate," the first kid said, "it was an honest mistake, alright?"

"No, it's not fucking alright. Jesus, you fucking genius, you've just buggered a thirty thousand quid car."

Liam was fairly sure either his or Hardik's insurance would cover most of it, but it was still a kick in the bollocks after what had just happened in Hardik's office. Suddenly he felt so bloody fed up with it. Taking a couple of quick steps forward, he managed to grab the first kid by the jacket. He grabbed the kid's spray can and threw it away. For a second, it seemed like the kid wouldn't even fight back, but then he suddenly burst into action. The first kick hit Liam's shin, making him swear and try to get around the kid so he could hold him from the back.

"Danny, fucking help me," the kid called to his friend.

Danny – the not so innocent kid with the innocent-looking eyes – snapped out of his trance and came up behind Liam, putting an arm around his neck. Liam felt his air supply cutting off and his vision blackened from the edges in. He held on to kid number one with one arm while reaching up with the other and dug his short finger nails into Danny's arm. Thankfully, Danny was only wearing a thin jacket and to his amazement, Liam managed to make Danny ease off his death grip.

Suddenly, the door to Hardik's office opened and Falguni peered out.

"Mr Palmer!" she shouted, and Liam could see in his peripheral vision how she seemed torn between running back in and running out to help him.

"Get back in," he shouted at her, worrying that she'd actually get involved. "Get back in and phone the police."

He knew there was a police station just around the corner, so the chances were good that there might be a response unit there pretty quickly. He hoped so anyway, because he wouldn't be able to hold on to Danny and his mate for very much longer. He'd just finished that thought when one of them hit him straight in his stomach, causing him to double over. Thankfully, he managed to maintain his hold on them. At least until there was a sound of approaching police sirens and Danny spun around, getting out of his flimsy jacket, leaving Liam holding onto the other kid and the empty jacket, watching as Danny quickly ran off.

"Danny, you fucker!" the kid shouted after him, then redoubled his efforts to get free.

Now that he only had to focus on one of his assailants and when he could hear the police car approaching, he felt stronger. He managed to pull the manoeuvre that he had tried initially, of getting behind the kid, holding his arms behind his back. When the flickering blue lights approached, Liam felt something like relief. And when two constables came up to take care of the kid, Liam had to lean against his ruined car to avoid sagging to the ground.

### CHAPTER TWO

It was nearly nine o'clock when Liam stumbled out of the police station. He felt numb, both physically and emotionally. His injuries had been checked by a doctor and they didn't amount to much. A few bruises, but nothing more than that. No knowing how Danny had fared, but the lad that Liam had held on to – a Gavin Henry, 24 years old – had even fewer bruises than Liam. A good thing, according to everyone involved. The case was infected enough as it was, considering there was an apparent racial motive behind the attack. Hardik and Falguni both had to leave statements, and were then allowed to make their way to the airport. No awkward questions were asked about what Liam had been doing at Hardik's office. The excuse that he was checking up on a few details concerning Hardik's mortgage wouldn't stand any close scrutiny, but the nature of Liam's relationship to Hardik hardly seemed relevant, as far as Liam could tell.

His car had already been towed from Hardik's car park, but Liam managed to catch a taxi not five minutes after stepping out from the police station. Soon, he told himself, he'd be at home and left to decide what to do with the cottage.

The keys had already been delivered to him, and they were waiting on his hallway table on top of a few brochures of local points of interest when Liam finally got home. His bags were packed, standing ready by the door. When he looked at them now, he felt embarrassed. Like he'd asked someone to dance and they'd turned him down. The worst of it was that it wasn't like he hadn't known who Hardik would choose if he was ever forced to make the choice. Hardik and Falguni's marriage had been arranged, and although they were apparently fond of each other (so Hardik had told him), love was not a requirement as such. With that premise, the fact that Hardik might prefer Liam to Falguni wasn't sufficient cause for divorce. Liam never stood a chance. Liam had accepted that, because when he first met Hardik, he had not been looking for anything other than a convenient shag.

He walked into his bedroom and changed out of his suit. He put on a pair of soft-worn jeans and a long-sleeved black t-shirt and went to the kitchen. He found some frozen ready-meals and decided on a pizza. The beer in the fridge was tempting; the scotch in the cupboard even more so, but he decided to hold on the booze until he had made up his mind whether to try to rent a car and drive up to the highlands or just drink himself to oblivion in the comfort of his own flat.

Because there would be some sort of melt-down on his part, he was pretty sure of it. Hardik might have started out as a convenient shag, but he had soon turned into someone Liam cared about. Foolishly, he had thought that Hardik cared about him. The stolen moments in Hardik's inner office amounted to something more than just mutual sexual gratification. Didn't it? When Hardik had announced that Falguni would take the kids to India over Christmas and New Year, it had been with great excitement. He had come around Liam's place – something he didn't do all that often – and virtually bounced as he told Liam that Falguni and the kids were going away. Liam had felt excited as well, grabbing Hardik's thighs as Hardik wrapped his legs around Liam's waist and kissed him silly against the front door. They'd not even made it through the hallway before they were ripping each others' clothes off and striving for their climax with graceless urgency.

They had met because Hardik had ended up in some sort of dispute with one of the mortgage handlers at the bank where Liam was manager. The handler insisted Hardik was refusing to understand that the bank couldn't break the rules just to accommodate his plans to run his own little empire of cheap flats for the disadvantaged. Liam promised to deal with it and invited Hardik into his office, intent on pulling the apologetic I-would-if-I-could stint that usually worked with a certain type of business owner. It had absolutely not worked like that with Hardik though. Hardik had walked into the room, looking so lost and insecure that Liam wondered how the initial bank man had managed to get so offended by him.

"Mr Chopra, how may I help you?" Liam asked him, taking in the man standing in front of him. The suit was clearly expensive but fairly ill-fitting, something top range but off the rack. His hair thick and black. The oblong face was handsome, but his countenance insecure. Like he had been put in a place where he didn't want to be and didn't feel he belonged. Still, there was a quiet sort of defiance about him that drew Liam in.

Liam had listened patiently as Hardik had outlined his complaints. At the core of the complaint was that Hardik wanted a bigger mortgage than the bank was prepared to allow him. This then spread out into an array of minor complaints. As they talked, Liam thought he noticed Hardik looking at him in that way that straight men never do. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly the difference was, but Hardik's gaze sometimes lingered on Liam's mouth. On his chest. On his hands, even. When Hardik looked into Liam's eyes, there was something indefinable there that was different to a straight man's blank, uninterested gaze. Liam knew he was probably looking at Hardik the same way. He let his guard down when he realised he and Hardik were the same. Let him notice, Liam thought, and did a slow once-over of Hardik as Hardik was still droning on.

It didn't lead to anything at that meeting of course. Looks were fine, but fucking a client in your office was far below the professional standards Liam operated by. When Hardik was about to leave, there was a handshake that lasted longer than it should have, but that was it. It was a nice little fantasy, this pretty man who had lit up a grey afternoon.

It was a month or so later, when they met again. This time they met on neutral ground. A Christmas party at a hotel, arranged by an association for local business owners. Liam was there as the representative for the go-to bank for small business ventures. Hardik was there to give a speech on how he had come to own and manage a couple of streets of Victorian terraces on the edge of the city's worst council estate. His affordable rent had given the whole venture a nice veneer of social responsibility and he had quickly grown into what the papers liked to call a 'local profile'. Hardik wasn't above playing up the image of himself as the poor immigrant who had arrived in the country with little else but the clothes he was wearing. He was the American dream, right there in the English Midlands.

"Doing well then?" Liam asked Hardik as they met by the drinks table. He was in Hardik's personal space, talking a little too close to Hardik's ear to be strictly friendly.

"Yes, very well, thank you, Mr Palmer," Hardik replied, gravitating towards Liam rather than putting distance between them.

Liam took a glass of white wine from the table and put that distance between them himself. He sipped his wine and looked out over the crowd, pretending like he wasn't interested in Hardik at all.

"Well, good luck with your business," Liam said to Hardik, shaking his hand and giving him his best I-know-you-wish-you-could-fuck-me smile.

"Leaving already?" Hardik asked. Liam could've kissed him.

"Just going for a smoke. Don't suppose you want to join me?"

Hardik looked around, as if he was worried there was someone there who might have overheard them.

"Yeah, okay," Hardik said, finding Liam's eyes again.

They walked out of the grand (or garish, depending on your tastes) hall, supposedly searching for somewhere to have a smoke. They ended up in the hotel car park, next to an emergency exit conveniently nearly blocked by a couple of skips. Liam had expected Hardik to be shy, but in the dark privacy of the night, it was Hardik who made the first move. As Liam lit Hardik's cigarette, Hardik raised his hands and held them around Liam's. There was no wind to shield the flame from, and when the cigarette was lit, Hardik slid his hands down Liam's arms, then put them on his hips.

"May I?" Hardik asked, as he tugged gently at Liam's belt.

It was such an old-fashioned question, 'may I,' as opposed to 'can I,' or 'let me' or whatever. Liam nodded, grabbing a handful of that thick hair as Hardik lowered to his knees, the newly-lit cigarette dropped and forgotten next to him.

It was obviously not Hardik's first time sucking cock, Liam could tell that much at least, but he wasn't in the market for a virgin. Liam didn't reciprocate there and then. Instead he invited Hardik back to his flat, where they spent the better part of the night fucking with an imagination that would've put the Kama Sutra to shame. When Hardik made to leave, Liam awkwardly suggested they might do it again.

"I'm, uh, married," Hardik told him in a way that wasn't a yes or a no at all. Just information.

"I know," Liam said.

"Oh." Hardik looked pleased and confused in a way that made him look boyish, despite being 35 at the time and two years Liam's senior. "And you still want to do it again?"

"Yeah."

"Can I phone you? When there's time?"

"Yeah."

Liam took Hardik's phone and added his number. Then he put it back in Hardik's pocket before pulling the man close and kissing him.

At the time, it had seemed like a perfect scenario. Someone who was definitely not going to make any demands on Liam that he wasn't prepared to meet. Regular sex without any strings. Exactly what Liam thought he wanted. It had taken him a few months before he started getting jealous of Falguni. The worst part was that Hardik and Falguni were so well suited to each other. A perfect, beautiful couple with perfect, beautiful daughters. Liam saw them in town every now and then. Hardik in his strangely ill-fitting suits, Falguni in perfect Asian dress. It always made Liam feel mildly sick.

It might not have been so bad had it not been for the fact that Hardik seemed to feel the same way. They never talked about it, but the way Hardik's face lit up when he saw Liam was real, Liam knew it. And at any rate, why would he fake it? If he wanted out of the affair, he could just end it. They were never going to live together, have any sort of proper future together, but that didn't mean that what they did have was worthless. It wasn't. It was beautiful, in its way. They'd had hours here and there together, when Hardik pretended to be on various business trips or when Falguni took the girls to visit family in other cities. It was always perfect. It had never been for two weeks straight though, like it was supposed to be in Scotland. Liam had been looking forward to it all autumn.

And now he felt like a complete idiot.

Swallowing his pride, he rang the owner of the bloody cottage to see if it was too late to cancel it, which of course it was. So there he was, stuck with a cottage in the Scottish Highlands. Might as well make good use of it and break down there, he figured.

He went for the bottle of scotch in the cupboard and decided to drink himself stupid. Tomorrow, he'd go to the first off-license he could find, stock up on booze and fags and drive up to Scotland on his own. If he couldn't spend two weeks there with Hardik, he could spend two weeks there exorcising Hardik from his system with the aid of smoke, drink and porn.

### CHAPTER THREE

Danny needed time to think. The problem was that there was no time. Gavin had been nicked and if his nice little adieu – Danny, you fucker – was any indication, the police would be knocking on Danny's door pretty bloody soon. Well. Not that Danny had a door, exactly. He'd been sleeping on Gavin's sofa for the past couple of months since he'd been let out of Her Majesty's Prison with nothing but his clothes, an outdated mobile phone, the fucking necklace from Ashley that had sort of landed him in prison in the first place and a bus ticket to get him to Gavin's.

Gavin was renting a one-bedroom flat in a converted Victorian terrace and although his place was damp and freezing, Danny was grateful that Gavin had taken him in. The first month had been great. They'd spent most of their time getting stoned and drunk, playing computer games, meeting up with old friends (though Danny stayed well clear of Ashley) and generally having a great time.

Then Gavin's bastard of a landlord had come calling one morning before they were even up. Danny was only in his bloody boxers, half tangled in a foul-smelling sheet when this skinny Asian bloke was suddenly standing in the room.

"Who the fuck are you?" Danny asked, peering at the bloke through eyes that he was nearly too tired to open.

"Who the fuck are you?" the Asian bloke said, giving Danny a look that reminded Danny of a displeased teacher. "This is my bloody flat, and if you're staying here—"

"Look, mate, he's not staying here," Gavin cut in, stepping closer to the bloke. "He spent last night here, that's all."

Danny stood up next to Gavin, and although a sleepy guy in dirty boxers hardly looks like much of a threat, he could see that the Asian bloke was worried.

"I hope that's all it was," the Asian bloke said, sounding all bossy to compensate for the fact that he was quickly retreating. He slammed the door shut behind him.

"Landlord, eh?" Danny said. He sat down in the sofa again, pulling the blanket over himself to ward off the cold. He reached for the tobacco and papers on the coffee table to roll himself a cigarette.

"Paki bastard," Gavin muttered, sitting down next to Danny. "He's been in all the papers going on about he's made all these nice flats for cheap, but I'll tell you what, mate. The flats are cold and mouldy and the fucker does nowt about it. I had him round here a while back because there was a draft in the bedroom. He sent some guy around to have a look at it, and that guy told me the windows weren't fitted properly and there are actually gaps around them. Lets cold air straight in. No wonder I'm fucking freezing in there. So I rang him up again and told him to get it sorted. Did he get it sorted though? Did he fuck."

"Sorry mate." Danny handed Gavin his half-smoked roll-up.

"I've phoned him plenty since then though. I mean, why the fuck have someone come around to look at the windows if you're not going to do anything about it anyway?"

"So it looks like he's doing something?"

"Yeah... You know, he's probably going to come back checking on us to find out whether you're staying long enough that he ought to be charging you rent."

"Jesus..."

"Yeah, I know."

The landlord came back a week later, and finding that Danny was still around (despite the fact that the sheets he used were safely tucked away out of sight), he evicted them both on the spot.

"You can't do that, you paki cunt," Gavin told him, looking like he was about to punch the poor guy out.

"I can and I have. This is a violation of your tenant's agreement. And please stop it with the racial slurs," the guy said. "You have a month to get out."

He was out before they could say anything else. So they decided to get drunk and forget about it. When the eviction date drew near, they decided to send a message. A couple of cans of spray paint and some slashed tires would do the job nicely. They weren't the only ones who were fed up with the landlord and maybe the incident would draw some attention to the fact that Hardik Chopra wasn't the saint that the local press wanted people to believe he was.

They waited until darkness, then went over to the landlord's office. The usual beamer was parked there, as well as a newer Mercedes that they didn't see there so often. A flashy little Audi that they'd also seen around was also there. Jackpot, really. Danny took his knife and slashed the Audi's tires. He was going to move on to the other cars when Gavin tossed him a can and told him to write something on the side of the car.

The ugly black writing against the well-polished silver surface of the car was jarring enough to send a message. Writing on a car wasn't terrorism, exactly. It was nothing that was going to kill anyone or cause anyone any harm. It was just enough to get the reputation of a neighbourhood just a little tarnished.

Danny was just about to add the final 'i' to the admittedly unimaginative 'fuck off paki' when the door was opened and a white guy in his mid-30's stepped out. It was a big guy, tall, broad, fit, blonde and clean-shaven and strangely authoritative in a way that had Danny – in his darkest fantasies – wanting to drop to his knees and call the guy daddy. The guy was dressed in a dark suit without an overcoat, and Danny noticed the thick silver watch around his wrist. Danny saw the exact moment when the guy noticed them, and then he wondered how he could've been so stupid to just sit there all gooey-eyed over a guy that looked like he was about to kill them.

He didn't kill them, of course. But he managed to hold on to Gavin until the police came and Danny had had to give up his jacket to get free from him. He hadn't forgotten about the knife tucked into the back of his trackie bottoms, but he couldn't really bring himself to stab the guy. Stabbings were messy for one thing. And if he got nicked, a stabbing was going to do a hell of a lot more damage to his record than simply slashing a few tires. So Danny had opted for suffocation. The problem was that Gavin knew that Danny had a knife and he obviously knew that Danny had rather let Gavin get nicked than to use it. So although Danny had escaped the police, Gavin was almost certainly going to kill him when he was released. Danny hadn't just ditched Gavin, but that was how Gavin was going to see it. Fuck.

Danny ran from the landlord's office to Gavin's flat. He grabbed the hold-all that he'd packed his things in when he left prison and stuffed as much of his things as he could into it. When he looked out the window, he noticed it had started snowing. Snowing! When did it ever snow in fucking Leicester? Realising that even without the snow, it would be far too cold without a jacket, he went into Gavin's bedroom and had a quick look around his wardrobe. To his relief, he found a down jacket. He pulled it on. It was only a little bit short in the sleeves, but he couldn't be picky. He had to get out of the flat, get out of town, quickly before either the police or Gavin got hold of him.

With one last look at Gavin's flat, he closed the door and stuffed his spare key into the letter box. He withdrew the last of his money, finding himself with 60 quid in addition to the 7.49 he had in small change in his pocket. Then he went towards the motorway, intent on hitch-hiking to London. He knew people in London. Well, some people. He'd be able to find work there, he supposed. Easier there than up here anyway. The wind picked up as he stood by the entry, whipping the wet snow against his face. He didn't even have any gloves. He hoped someone would pick him up soon. Did people even pick up hitch-hikers anymore?

### CHAPTER FOUR

The roads were a fucking mess. At least he had set out early, when it was still light. Not that it really made much of a difference, considering visibility was pretty low. It was snowing, or half-snowing, half-raining. Nothing unusual there, but the white drops where thick and heavy and the wind whipped them against the car so hard that Liam could barely hear the radio over the noise. Much to his surprise he had managed to rent a car from a local garage; a Volvo V70 wagon, which, although old, seemed fairly sturdy. Volvo was a Swedish car, wasn't it, so surely a bit of snow wouldn't be too much of a problem for it.

Liam had been on the roads for about three hours, making dismally little progress, when he made his first stop. He went inside a service station the size of a small shopping centre, had some bad fast food and sugary American coffee, before he went back out again. In the short amount of time that he had been off the road, the weather had turned even worse. The radio warned against getting out on the roads, but Liam was a man with a mission. He was going to the highlands to drown his sorrows in as much Scotch whisky as he could drink without actually killing himself.

He didn't see the person at first. In a down jacket with the hood pulled up, it could have been a man or a woman of any age. The person had a hold-all clutched in what Liam saw – as he drove closer – was a bare hand. That should've been a warning sign, because no sane person would get out in this weather without gloves. Unless of course they went out because they somehow had to. The person was standing right by the re-entry point, too close to the motorway for anyone to stop, had it not been for the awful weather and lack of traffic. Liam made his mind up in a second to pick the person up, tell them not to try to hitch-hike, at least not in this weather, and maybe leave them with enough money to get a coach to wherever they were going.

Checking the rear-view mirror to make sure there was no one behind him, Liam pulled over.

"Drop the bag and the jacket in the back seat and get in," Liam shouted, his voice competing with the howling wind.

The person nodded and opened the back door, throwing the hold-all on the seat before shrugging out of the jacket and dropping that on the seat as well. So a man then, Liam realised when the guy had removed his jacket and hurried to get into the passenger seat, wearing nothing but a t-shirt. He had on a cap as well, but as Liam drove out onto the motorway, he noticed in the corner of his eye how the guy removed it, shook the snow off onto the floor and tossed the hat to the back seat as well.

Liam glanced over at his passenger and then did a quick re-take. Because there was no way. No fucking way. The guy who got away. The guy who should by rights be in a holding cell next to his mate for ruining Liam's car and shouting abuse at Hardik.

"Recognise me?" Liam asked the guy, noting with some satisfaction that the guy did a double-take himself, before looking like he might throw up.

"Look, mate, don't do anything stupid," the guy started, holding his hands up. "Just drop me off as soon as you can and I'll get out of your hair."

"I could take you back to the police station," Liam suggested, though he was not in the mood for backtracking three hours. He could probably dump the guy at any police station though, he figured. The police could arrange transportation for him, surely?

"Please don't," the guy said, sounding like he knew that any protest would be futile.

"Why not?"

The guy sighed, looking out the front window. "I'm on probation, alright? I go back in, I'll have to serve the last months from my previous sentence on top of whatever I'll get for your car."

"You didn't think about that before you decided to spice up your Friday with a bit of hate crime?"

"There wasn't supposed to be a fight."

Now it was Liam's turn to sigh. The logic of guys like this was just completely alien to him.

"You realise your mate has probably given your name to the police already?"

In the corner of his eye, Liam saw the guy making a face. Wincing.

"I know. He probably has," the guy said, dejectedly. "I'm hoping he won't."

They were quiet for nearly a mile, strangely alone in their little metal bubble in the snowy chaos on the M5.

"I know there's no reason for you to let me off, but can you please just drop me somewhere? I didn't mean to do anything to your car. We thought it was the other guy's car. Hardik's."

The name nearly made Liam flinch. He knew that Hardik had something of a reputation in the city, but for him, Hardik was just that. Hardik. Hardik of the soft, desperate kisses and repressed passion.

"Why did you want to sabotage Hardik's car anyway?" Liam asked. He was a curious person by nature, and they had just passed a sign saying that it was eight miles to the next exit. Unless he decided to drop the guy – Danny, that's what Gavin had called him – by the side of the motorway, and unless Danny decided to stab him or something, there was a long way to go. Might as well try to keep the guy talking until Liam would be able to hand him over to local police.

"Because he kicked Gavin out of his flat."

There was finally a bit of heat in Danny's voice, making Liam realise how dispassionate the guy had been before. Even outside Hardik's office, Danny had hardly said a thing.

"And why did Hardik do that?"

"Because Gavin let me kip on his sofa whilst I was finding my own place. It was only a month before Hardik came around and started kicking up a fuss about it. Said it was violating the tenant's agreement. I wasn't there permanent, though. Just stopping until I could find something of my own. But there were problems with the flat as well. Windows weren't fitted properly and it was cold as a witch's teat. And damp. Mouldy. Gavin told him about it repeatedly, but he did fuck all about it."

Liam had thought he could smell mildew on Danny's clothes as he'd flung his stuff in the back.

"Maybe he just needed time to get something sorted," Liam said. "I know he's had problems finding people to work for him."

"No fucking wonder, mate. Guy who came to check the windows said he couldn't fix it straight away because Hardik wouldn't let him. We've talked to other people as well and they're all saying that Hardik's is a complete tool."

"He's not that bad," Liam said, feeling an instinctive need to defend Hardik.

"Yeah? You live in one of his flats, mate?"

"No." Liam bit back the 'obviously not' that had threatened to spill out.

"You don't know what he's like then, do you?"

Liam thought that he probably knew better than this kid what Hardik was like. But then again, maybe he didn't. Maybe he'd been blinded by what Hardik had been to him.

"Regardless," Liam said, "Writing 'fuck off paki' on someone's car isn't exactly a constructive way of dealing with the problem."

"He is a fucking paki though," Danny said. "And he should fuck off."

"Using words like that make you sound like an idiot," Liam muttered.

"What words? Fuck off?"

Liam glanced over at Danny, trying to gauge whether he was making some sort lame attempt at a joke or what.

"Look, mate, most of the Asians, I don't mind, yeah?" Danny continued. "I'm not a racist. But when someone's shafting you, and they're a fucking paki, you call them a fucking paki, alright? Same as if someone's Jewish or black or whatever. Or gay."

"So if Hardik were gay, you'd have scribbled 'fuck off bender' on his car?"

"Fuck off shitstabber, probably," Danny said. "Although I might have needed both sides of your little car for that. Long word, shitstabber."

Liam was startled into a kind of laugh. Yeah, Danny's logic was different from his own alright.

"Let's pretend you were the landlord," Liam said, feeling tired again, "And someone wanted you to fuck off. What would they write on your car?"

Danny was quiet.

Liam looked at him before he continued. "Exactly. And that's the difference between being a minority and not."

"Alright, alright. Thanks for the lecture, sir. I'll be sure not to write anything on a car that might be seen as picking on minorities in the future."

"The police are treating it as a hate crime, you know."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't."

"Crime of passion, was it?"

"Just a friendly suggestion."

They were three miles away from the next exit. Liam realised that the past five miles had felt quicker than any previous five miles, despite the snow and wind making it take much longer than it should. Company was nice, even when it was in the shape of a jailbird who had just ruined your car.

"Where were you trying to get to anyway?" Liam asked.

Danny, who had slumped down in the seat, squirmed his way back up to sitting.

"London, I thought."

"London?" Liam turned to look at him full on for a second, before turning his attention back to the snow in front of him. "You realise you were on the northbound exit?"

"Yeah, well, these idiotic German tourists picked me up and dropped me off there, so I figured I'd just continue."

"You really have no plan at all, have you?"

"Right now, my plan is not to get caught by the police. Which was working fine until you picked me up. The odds for that must be minimal, by the way. Should I buy a lottery ticket?"

"Probably not. You've used up all your unlikeliness for one day, I think."

"Yeah, I have, haven't I?" Danny said, giving a little joyless laugh.

They fell quiet as they hit the end of a queue of cars that seemed to be stretching out for an eternity.

"Fucking holiday traffic," Liam muttered. The next three miles would take three hours by this rate. And he was stuck in the car with a juvenile delinquent. Or maybe not so juvenile, Liam thought when he glanced over at Danny again and realised his jaw was covered in the rough prickly stubble of someone who had been shaving regularly for years.

"In a hurry to get home to your family?" Danny asked, kicking off a shoe and pulling his leg up on the seat.

"Not exactly," Liam admitted. "But that doesn't mean I want to spend my time stuck in traffic." Time that could be put to better use getting drunk and wanking to the memory of fucking Hardik in his stupid inner office.

"Where are you headed anyway?"

Liam sighed. With anyone else, he would probably have invited the conversation. With this guy though?

"What were you in prison for?" he asked instead.

"ABH."

"What happened?"

"Where are you headed?"

Okay, Liam thought, he could play this game. Question for question.

"Scotland. Place outside Glenfinnan. What happened?"

"I punched someone. Why are you going to Glenfinnan?"

They hadn't moved an inch for nearly ten minutes. Liam toyed with the idea of answering 'to get drunk', but it seemed a bit immature.

"I was supposed to meet someone there. Who did you punch?"

"A girl."

"A girl?"

"Yes, a fucking girl. Look, she wasn't innocent, if that's what you're thinking. Not like I just walked up to her and decided to punch her fucking lights out. She provoked me. And she pushed me against a wall before I punched her. Only that didn't leave any marks, of course."

"Of course. Do you regret it?"

"Oh, no, mate, my turn. Who were you supposed to meet in Glenfinnan?"

"Someone I'm having an affair with. Had." It didn't feel quite as bad saying it out loud as Liam had expected.

"Shit, mate. And she stood you up? That's tough."

"Yeah, well. So you regret punching that girl?"

"No, I fucking don't. She was well out of order."

"Still."

"Yeah, mate. Still."

Liam drove a yard forward, the snow falling even thicker now. It was dark as well. By the time they'd reach the next exit, he'd probably have to stop there himself. Spend the night and move on tomorrow. Fuck.

"What did she do?"

"Mouthing off. And I know that sounds bad, but there's more to it. Not that I'm going to share it with you though. No offense."

"None taken."

### CHAPTER FIVE

By the time Liam got them off the motorway, it was late and you could barely see the tail lights of the car in front of you for the snow. Liam had decided that he was going to find somewhere to spend the night, and Danny tried to keep quiet so that Liam would forget about dropping him off at the nearest police station.

When Liam spotted a hotel in a village not far off the motorway, Danny tagged along with him to enquire about rooms. He couldn't be sure, but it didn't seem like Liam was going to phone the police on him. It felt more like they were in this mess together, or so Danny thought. Unfortunately, they weren't the only people who had decided to stop for the night in some god-forsaken little Lancashire village, and so the tiny hotel was full. They were directed to a B&B down the road, which was also full. The landlord of that B&B directed them to a B&B in the next village.

"You want me to leave you at the station?" Liam asked, as they got in the car again.

"Hell no, mate. There's not even a station building here. If I can't get a lift, I'm stuck outside for the night. Take me to that B&B, I have just about enough to spare that I can get a room for the night."

"Right."

Quarter of an hour later, they were standing in the reception area of a B&B that looked like something right out of the 70's. A woman with hair dyed an aggressive shade of red informed them that they were lucky and could have their last room.

"We need two rooms," Liam said.

"But you arrived together, I just presumed... We're open-minded here, sir. No need to pretend with us."

Danny started laughing, earning himself a stern glance from Liam.

"We're not together like that," Liam said to the woman.

She shrugged, like she didn't particularly care one way or the other.

"Okay," Liam said, rubbing his temples. "What about this: I'll take your last room and you can put in a spare bed for him?" He nodded over at Danny, who smiled politely at the woman. She smiled gently back before turning to Liam.

"I'm afraid we've not got any spare beds, sir. We've had a few families come in off the motorway, see, and we've had to use up all the spare beds we had. Even cots and inflatable mattresses."

"Is there any way you could find space for us both, bearing in mind that we're not a couple?"

The woman looked between Liam and Danny. Danny could tell she was still trying to figure out whether they were a couple or not, despite what Liam was telling her. They didn't look like it, Danny thought when he took in their appearance in the mirror behind the woman. Liam was maybe 35, ten years Danny's senior, and although he wasn't wearing a suit today something about his appearance just screamed that he wore one in his professional life. Danny looked like the fresh-out-of-jail chav he was. Liam wasn't quite old enough to pull off the sugar daddy act, but if they looked like a couple, they probably looked like the kind of couple where one party called the other 'boy' a lot. Not that Danny would mind that from Liam. Not at all. Now that it seemed Liam had got over his immediate urge to kill and/or report Danny to the police, Danny's mind had returned to the gutter.

"Our beds are big," the woman said. "Unless you're very restless sleepers, you could easily share one without ever touching each other. We're out of blankets as you can imagine, but the one on the bed is huge and if you're so worried about touching, one of you could use the bedspread for a blanket."

That was a nice little dig at Liam's homophobia, Danny thought, liking the woman more and more by the second.

Liam sighed heavily.

"Fine," he said, "We'll take it."

"Oh, lovely. Yeah, you shouldn't be on the roads in this sort of weather. Here we are then." She handed Liam a key. "Breakfast is between seven and nine. Full English."

"Great. Thank you."

"Top floor. There are only two rooms up there, so you should find it alright. Bathroom in the hall, I'm afraid, but there's a nice tub if you fancy a soak."

Liam grabbed a suitcase and headed towards the stairs. Danny took his hold-all and nodded at the woman as he passed her.

"Hope you'll be alright, love," she said. Danny thought how nice it was to be called 'love' rather than 'sir'.

The room was big, but didn't have much in the way of furniture. A bed – huge, as the woman downstairs had promised – and a small sitting group. No cosy armchair that one or the other of them could sleep in though, so they were stuck together in that big bed. Not that Danny minded as such.

Danny threw his hold-all on one of the chairs, considered washing off in the sink, then decided against it.

"I'm going to have a bath," he told Liam. "Unless you want one first?"

Liam looked up from where he was sitting by the foot of the bed, looking like he was carrying the world on his shoulders.

"Er, no thanks," he said. "You go ahead. I'll probably wait until tomorrow morning."

"Right."

Danny grabbed his bag and a towel that had been put out on the bed and made for the bathroom. Whilst the tub was filling, steaming up the whole room, he took a piss, had a shave, even brushed his teeth for good measure. If he'd had nail clippers with him, he'd probably have cut his nails. The bath was lovely. Much better than the piss poor shower at Gavin's place. He stayed in until the water started getting cold and he was beginning to notice that the house was actually pretty drafty. He got up, wrapped a towel around his hips and made it back to the room.

Liam looked up at him as he walked in. Under his stare, Danny felt acutely aware of his state of undress. He honestly hadn't thought about it when he left the bathroom. After nearly a year and a half in prison he was pretty used to being half naked around other guys.

"What?" Danny asked, dropping his clothes and bag on a chair.

"No, nothing," Liam mumbled. "You're just not as skinny as I thought you were."

"Er... Thanks?" Not quite what Danny had expected Liam to say.

"When I saw you and... Gavin, was it?... by my car, I thought you were teenagers. Kids. You're not though, are you?"

"I'm 25, mate."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"And you're 35...?"

"Yeah. Did you guess that, or...?"

"Or what? Steal your wallet to find out? I guessed. You look it."

Liam laughed, but he didn't sound very amused.

"I didn't mean that in a rude way. Just that you look like you're in your mid-30's. I'm sure you're all fit and well-groomed and whatever. But no one would think you were a teenager."

"I'd bloody hope not."

Then Danny noticed that Liam was holding a plastic glass with a couple of fingers of amber liquid in it. There was a bottle of scotch on the floor. Was that a bad sign? All he needed was to spend the night with a raving drunk. And if Liam had been dumped by his girlfriend, this could turn into a hot mess pretty quick.

Liam's eyes went to the bottle, as if he had noticed Danny watching.

"Want a glass?"

"Really?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Because a couple of hours ago you were going to take me to the police station and now here we are, sharing a bed and a bottle of scotch."

"And yesterday you were slashing my tires and writing 'fuck off paki' on the side of my car. Things change."

"Yeah, but you didn't seem too happy about me tagging along, or having to share a room with me and stuff, so I just figured you'd spend the night hating on me."

"Can't I hate you and still offer you a glass of whisky?"

"I don't know."

"I don't hate you, okay? I don't know you well enough to hate you. But the fact that you ruined my car – which, for the record, I've not had for more than a few months – kind of biased me against you, as I'm sure you understand."

"What would you make of me if I hadn't ruined your car?"

Liam raised his eyebrows and seemed to think about it. Then he evidently gave up.

"You want a glass or not? There were a couple of plastic glasses on the sink," he said gruffly.

"Yeah, go on then," Danny said, fetching the other plastic glass. He held it out to Liam, who poured a generous amount into it. No point in pushing an issue that Liam clearly had no interest in. "Cheers."

Liam grunted something in reply. Danny considered pulling up a chair, but in the end, he sat down on the bed, leaning against the headboard. Still only wearing his towel, but he'd put his boxers on when he went to bed. He wondered what Liam wore to bed. If he'd packed for a holiday in the highlands he ought to have packed something warm to sleep in, right? Although if he was planning on spending time with his girlfriend, maybe not.

"So you bring Scotch whisky to Scotland, eh?" Danny said, toying idly with Ashley's necklace that he was still wearing. "Thought that was the sort of thing most people bought on site."

"I'm going off the map, so I thought I'd better go prepared," Liam said, looking at Danny over his shoulder. His gaze seemed to catch on Danny's necklace, so Danny self-consciously let it go.

"Because you couldn't survive in the wilderness without scotch?"

"Not on my own, I couldn't."

"So she's married then, your girlfriend? Or are you? Or both of you?"

Danny wasn't expecting Liam to answer that, so when Liam gave him another tired look over his shoulder and said, "I don't want to talk about it," Danny wasn't surprised.

"If she's married, I suppose she's got family she needs to spend Christmas with," Danny pushed. Liam half turned, pulling one leg up underneath himself as he sat on the bed, presumably so that he wouldn't have to look over his shoulder every time he wanted to glare at Danny. Danny held up his hands in a 'just saying' sort of gesture.

"Doesn't celebrate Christmas," Liam said.

"Oh, right. Yeah. Do you? Normally, I mean?" Danny had no idea why he asked, other than wanting to know more about Liam. Why he wanted to know more about Liam, however, was a mystery. Liam was a fine-looking man, but Danny didn't need to know anything about him to appreciate that. That said, here they were, thrust together by chance. It was strange enough in this day and age to share a B&B bed with someone you didn't know. Might as well try to get to know the man a bit.

"Yeah, I do. Do you?"

"I was in prison last Christmas," Danny said. "Normally I go round my mum's. Suppose I should text her to say I won't be round this Christmas. Then again, she wasn't too happy when I got nicked last time, so I don't know whether she'd want me around anyway."

"Sorry to hear that," Liam said, sounding like he really meant it.

"Thanks." Danny looked at his flimsy plastic glass as he swirled the whisky around. "Look, I was wondering... Unless you want to bring me to a police station tomorrow, do you think I could tag along for a bit? You could drop me in Glasgow or somewhere. I'll pull my weight, if you like. I mean, I can drive, so we could take turns."

Liam looked at him like he was an idiot. He probably was. What the fuck was he going to do in Glasgow? Then again, what the fuck was he going to do anywhere else?

"You are not driving," Liam said and actually looked like he found the idea amusing. "But if you want to come along to Glasgow that's fine. I might need another pair of hands if I end up in a ditch somewhere."

"Cheers, mate."

"No problem." Liam downed the last of his whisky. "Right. I'll probably turn in now. Can't believe I'm about to ask this, but do you have a side of the bed you prefer?"

Danny laughed. "Sorry, sorry," he said, running a hand over his face. "I don't. If you don't either, I can just take the side I'm sitting on already."

"Great. I'm just heading off to the bathroom. Goodnight, if you're asleep by the time I get back."

Liam left and Danny took the opportunity to get out of his damp towel and pull on a pair of boxers. He poured the rest of his whisky down the sink before brushing his teeth again and getting into bed. He turned the light off, feigning sleep as he waited for Liam to return.

By the time Liam did return, Danny was nearly asleep for real. He heard a thud and a whispered swear, which jolted him back to reality. He opened his eyes and found Liam's shape in the dark. He watched as Liam pulled off shirt, jeans and socks and put them on a chair. He watched as Liam walked towards the bed, taking in a body that he felt fairly sure would feature in his fantasies for the foreseeable future. Liam and he were of almost identical height, but Liam was much broader. Thighs of a rugby player, lovely thick upper body, covered in blonde hair. Danny was itching to run his hand through that hair, catching a nipple, down, finding his belly button, further down still... Liam had hair on his chest and a bit on his stomach, thickening in a line leading down into his black boxer briefs. It was impossible to even guess what hid behind that bit of fabric, but that didn't stop Danny from imagining. Why did the bed have to be so damn big? Why couldn't it be a tiny little single bed, forcing them to spoon to fit?

### CHAPTER SIX

Liam woke slowly. At first he didn't remember that he wasn't in his own bed, despite the mattress being much softer than his own and the sheets oddly stiff. Still, he was comfortable. There was a body pressed up against his back, a smaller body than his own. Someone was breathing into his ear – that was probably what had woken him – and someone's arm was draped over his waist, hand resting dangerously close to his cock. More significantly, someone's morning erection was pressed against Liam's buttocks. Then he remembered where he was and who he was with and froze. An honest mistake, obviously, but fucking awkward nonetheless.

He decided against trying to wake Danny. Instead he pulled the arm gently off and slid out of bed as inconspicuously as he could. Danny mumbled something and rolled to his back. Liam stood by the bed for a moment, watching him. He thought he had nearly given himself away yesterday when he'd stared at Danny when he returned from his bath. Trust the guy to return wearing nothing but a towel. Jesus. Why couldn't he have dressed in the bathroom? Danny was slim, sure, but he wasn't skinny. He had muscles, clearly defined, and even his shoulders looked broader when he was bare. He had a few tattoos; Liam would have been greatly surprised if he didn't. Something over his right shoulder and upper arm that looked vaguely Nordic or Celtic. A swallow on each side of his chest. A tribal bracelet around his left bicep. A rose on the left side of his ribcage. A motley mix of stuff that Danny only pulled off because he was the sort of person who'd get the tattoos without a trace of irony. There was a silver dog tag around his neck. Engraved on the front was a heart, in which were the initials D.M – Danny's initials, presumably – and A.B.

Liam was tempted to pull the duvet down the crucial few inches to get a visual of the morning glory that had pressed against him when he woke up, but he decided to be the gentleman and pulled the duvet up over Danny's naked chest instead. The added warmth made Danny smile in his sleep, and Liam realised with a start that the smile made him feel strangely good.

He decided he'd wash off and get dressed before he woke Danny for breakfast. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed a towel and his sponge bag and made for the bathroom. The building was Victorian and seemed to have the original plumbing in place. It was nothing like Liam's slick modern flat with the walk-in shower he had had made exactly to his own liking. This place had a bath that might just as well have been Victorian as well and bloody carpets on the floor. Carpeted bathroom floors were the most idiotic thing Liam knew. And a poor attempt to compensate for drafts and other things that needed proper fixing. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the English way: slab a bit of paint on something or a bit of carpet on the floor and you were sorted.

The carpet had a wet patch just by the bath, so clearly someone else had already used the bath that morning. The idea of not getting a proper wash in the morning was one that didn't sit too well with Liam, but somehow the thought of getting into that bath was worse. In the end, he decided to wash off by the sink, dreaming of his shower at home.

When he stepped out onto the landing, he nearly ran into the red-headed lady from reception.

"Oh, good morning!" she said happily.

"Good morning."

"Did you manage to get any sleep?" She smiled knowingly. Liam thought of her presumption that Danny and he were a couple.

"I slept very well, thank you." That wasn't a lie. He'd slept surprisingly well.

"Are you and your friend joining us for breakfast? It's my hubby cooking, see. Does a lovely fry-up, he does."

"Yeah, I'm just going to wake him up and we'll be right down."

"Great, great..." She looked at him, clutching a pile of towels to her chest. "Probably won't be able to leave today, I'm afraid. They said on the radio only to get out on the roads if you absolutely have to. I know it's Christmas Eve, but you can have the room for another night if you like. We're doing a proper Christmas lunch tomorrow, so you could eat before you head on."

"Oh," Liam said, suddenly feeling so tired. Maybe he should just give up on the highlands and return home. Tomorrow. After a proper Christmas lunch in a Victorian B&B. He sighed. "We might try to get going anyway, though if it looks too bad, we'll keep the room for another night, if that's okay." He wondered for a moment when 'he' had turned into 'we'.

"Sure thing. I'll make a note of it. Now I'm off to the laundry. Make sure you do have your breakfast. Big lad like you needs your food, eh?"

"Er, yeah. Thanks."

She smiled and scurried down the landing. Liam returned to the room where Danny was just waking up. He was sitting up in the middle of the bed, lower half of his body covered by the duvet, rubbing his eyes.

"Did she say we won't be able to leave?" Danny asked, looking at Liam.

"She said that they're saying on the radio that anyone who doesn't have to get out on the roads should stay put."

"Yeah, good luck getting people to stay in on Christmas Eve, eh? Everyone wants to get to their families or whatever, right?"

"Or their highland cottages."

"Yeah, but you don't actually have to go there today, do you? There's no one waiting for you there, so you might as well play it safe and leave it for tomorrow."

That one stung a bit. But Danny was right. No one was waiting for Liam. No one was going to phone him worried because he'd not turned up.

"What about you?" Liam asked, putting his things back in his bag. "What are you going to be doing?"

"Stay here for another night? Seriously, mate, no one's waiting for me anywhere either. Unless you count the police."

"They might not be," Liam said. "Gavin might have kept schtum."

"Yeah, well," Danny said, kicking the duvet aside and getting out of bed. Liam's mouth got a little dry at the sight of that long-limbed body with only blue plaid boxers to protect its modesty. And though they covered Danny's private parts, they didn't exactly hide the fact that Danny was still half hard. Christ almighty. "You heard what he said when I took off. Do you think he's likely to keep quiet about me?"

"Er," Liam said, feeling fuzzy-brained as if he was drunk, "Er, I don't know him well enough to guess."

"I do. And I think the chance that he didn't give my name to the police is small. But what can you do, eh? Want to go for breakfast?"

"Yeah. Should I meet you downstairs? If you want to get dressed?"

"That's alright, mate. I'm not shy."

No, Liam didn't suppose he was, or he'd have covered up that half-pitched tent in his boxers. Liam didn't even bother to look away when Danny got up to his bag, turned his back to Liam as he rummaged around inside it, then quickly pulled off his boxers, pulled on a new pair and got dressed. He was done within a minute.

"Ready?" Danny said, giving Liam a cheeky smile.

"That was quick."

"What's there to take time? Unless you're having a shower or a bath, getting dressed is a two-second job."

"I suppose."

The dining room felt small and intimate despite seating at least 30. Liam and Danny got a little table for two in a nook by the door, from where they could look out over the other guests. It was mostly families. Plenty of children. The breakfast was a full English with all the bells that would probably keep Liam full until tomorrow. Despite the fact that Liam didn't exactly want to be there, it was surprisingly pleasant. Danny got into a good-hearted argument with an elderly gentleman at the next table about immigration, and Liam was part amused, part confused that Danny took the liberal side. He sat back, sipped his hot sweet tea and watched Danny lean forward to tell the old guy that there was 'nothing wrong with the blacks just because they're black'.

It wasn't until they were done with breakfast and back in their room that Liam realised what it meant to be stuck in a little Lancashire village. He did a quick search on his mobile, but there was nothing to do or see in the area that they could feasibly get to. Although their redhead landlady knocked on their door to let them know that there would soon be 'games in the parlour', Liam would rather stare at the ceiling than play charades with a bunch of kids.

"What about getting drunk?" Danny suggested, eyeing Liam's bottle of scotch.

That was actually the best idea Liam could think of. "Yeah, go on then. Get our glasses, I'll get the bottle."

"Want to play cards?" Danny held up a pack of cards.

"What kind of cards?"

"Poker?"

"Okay. What do you want to play for? Money? Crisps?" He wasn't going to suggest strip poker, although that might have been an interesting way to pass a snowy afternoon.

"Information," Danny said, sounding as certain as if he had thought about how to gain information for a long time and then chanced on the idea of playing poker for it.

"Information? What kind of information?"

"Kind of like what we did in the car. You win, you get to ask me something. I win, I get to ask you something. And you have to answer. Even if I ask about your married lover."

"'Lover'? That's a nice, old-fashioned word. Very Mills and Boon," Liam muttered. "Okay, fine. Let's play for information." He poured them two half-full glasses of scotch.

Liam won the first round and got to ask the first question.

"The A.B. on your necklace, what does that stand for?"

Danny gave him a funny look. "Ashley Baker. Next round."

Liam won the next round as well.

"Is Ashley your girlfriend?"

"No."

Danny won the round after that.

"How long have you been with that married lover of yours?"

"About two years."

"Oh... Serious. So that's got to sting a bit, huh?"

"Why don't you win another round and use your question to find out?" Liam quirked an eyebrow at Danny, who just grinned.

Danny did win the next round, and he did use his question to ask whether Liam was upset about being stood up. Liam was drunk enough by then to consider the question seriously.

"I mean, there's the practical side of it, right?" he started, shuffling the deck of cards. "I didn't find out in time to cancel the cottage, you know? So even if I don't go there, I still have to pay. Which sucks. You know? And yeah, of course I'm pissed off about it. On an emotional level as well. I mean, it was doomed from the start. When we met, I only wanted a fuckbuddy. And that's all it's ever been. It's just that after two years, even if it's just fucking, you get used to each other."

"Yeah, I can see how that works," Danny said, watching Liam's hands shuffling the cards. "Ashley and I were a bit like that as well, I suppose."

"But it was serious enough that she got you that necklace."

"Ah well..." Danny looked embarrassed. "That's a long story. You can hear it if you win the next hand."

Liam didn't. He had never been very good at cards, but for some reason, he had thought he'd be able to do better against Danny. Maybe the guy cheated. Liam was definitely drunk enough that he might not notice.

"Right," Liam said, refilling both their glasses. That was the last of that bottle. No bother though, he had another couple of bottles in his suitcase. "What do you want to know?"

Danny looked him straight in the eye. Those eyelashes around those dark eyes did make him look strangely innocent, but in the way that only guilty boys looked innocent. Despite having a criminal record and the police on his heels, Danny was the type of boy who'd get away with murder.

"You've mentioned the person you were supposed to spend Christmas with a few times, but you've avoided using any words that would give away if it's a woman or a man. Is that just you being politically correct, like the way some people call their wife their 'partner'?"

That was a simple enough question that Liam could answer with a simple 'no', but Danny continued:

"Or are you doing it because you were really going up there to meet a guy?"

Liam quenched the impulse to knock back the rest of his scotch. Spending the night in bed with a homophobic chav? Because guys like Danny were homophobes by nature, weren't they? In the end, Liam thought, fuck it. If Danny didn't like it, he could move out. And if he was going to get violent about it, Liam had twice his bulk.

"I was meeting a guy. A married guy. Who's married to a, er, woman."

"That blows," Danny said emphatically. "I'll tell you this for free, mate. If you want anything other than a quick fuck, you stay the hell away from married guys. They'll never ever leave their wives for you, no matter what they say. One in, like, a thousand might, but 999 in a thousand will go back to the missus if they have to choose."

That stunned Liam into laughing. That seemed like the pattern for the last couple of days. He only laughed when Danny seemed to sort of trick him into it.

"Have a lot of experience of married guys, do you?" Liam asked, eyebrows raised.

"Some." Danny was grinning, but his eyes were serious. "Look, mate, I might as well tell you since you're obviously too thick to figure it out. Ashley's a guy, alright? I got this necklace from a guy, who, as it turned out, got it from his fucking girlfriend. Who was being really nasty about it when she found out and who I ended up punching hard enough that she cut her head against one of those electrical enclosures and had to have stitches. Which landed me in prison, of course. So there you have it. I wouldn't normally hit a woman, or anyone, really, but she said things that made me see red."

Liam had to readjust his view of Danny. So he'd not been sharing a bed with a homophobic chav but a gay one? He tried very hard to disregard a better way of spending a boring Christmas Eve being snowed in than playing cards.

"Why would Ashley's girlfriend get him a necklace with your initials on it? Because I presume D.M. are your initials?"

"Because they're her initials as well."

Liam couldn't help it, he laughed out loud. He realised, of course, that it wasn't any funnier than what had happened between him and Hardik, but it was such a lovely coincidence that he couldn't help himself. It was like the jokey suggestion about what you'd do if you broke up with someone whose name you'd tattooed on your body; find someone else with that name.

"I'm really sorry," he said when he stopped laughing. "I know it's not funny. It's just the coincidence."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a regular fucking comedy show, my life."

"For what it's worth, my life isn't exactly going so smoothly either right now."

"I know. Dumped by your married guy."

"Dumped by his wife, more like. He didn't even tell me himself he wasn't coming, I found out from his wife."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. I'm not sure whether that's as bad as getting a recycled necklace, but it wasn't fun."

Danny grabbed the deck of cards and waved them at Liam. "Another round?"

"Go on then."

Liam won and had to think about what he wanted to ask. Knowing that Danny was gay somehow changed the rules of the game a little.

"Tell me about Ashley," he said eventually.

"Does that even qualify as a question?"

"Would you tell me about your relationship with Ashley, please?"

"Smarty-pants. Fine. What do you want to know? We move in the same circles, so I'd known him for a while before we started fucking. And that kind of happened by mistake. Like, we were both pissed out of our minds at this party when he literally stumbled into me in the kitchen and I don't know. We started kissing. I'm not sure how we got away with it, because if anyone had seen us they'd have... I don't know. But I guess no one saw us. So I brought him back to mine, because I had my own place at the time, and things just took off from there."

"What's he like?" Liam hoped Danny wouldn't insist he had to win again to get an answer to that question, but Danny seemed happy enough to continue talking.

"Young. I mean, younger than me. Turned twenty right before I was incarcerated. Skinny lad. Short. You'd probably think he looked thirteen, seeing as you think I look like a teenager."

"I don't. I did when I saw you by my car, but it was dark and I wasn't paying attention. Another round?"

Danny nodded.

"More scotch?" Liam shook the bottle, feeling mildly bad about the fact that it was early afternoon and they had cleared the better part of a bottle.

"Should we eat something? I mean, I'm still full, but I might need to soak up the booze. Do they do food here?"

"Don't think so. They do Christmas lunch tomorrow, but I got the feeling that was an exception." Liam swallowed, realising that he was actually pretty drunk. "I mean, obviously Christmas lunch is an exception, I didn't mean to suggest they do that every day. But I mean, they don't do dinners at B&B's, do they? Just breakfast."

Danny laughed. Liam chuckled.

"Tell you what," Danny said, "I need to go for a piss anyway. Should I pop down to Mrs Redhead and see what we can do about food?"

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Try to, you know, not act like you're completely pissed."

"I'll do my best."

### CHAPTER SEVEN

It turned out there was an Indian restaurant next door to the B&B, so Danny and Liam went there. Danny had started sobering up a bit by then, which was a shame really, when you thought about it. Getting drunk with Liam seemed to be the way to... Not the man's heart, exactly, but into his pants, maybe?

Confirming that Liam was gay was a relief. Danny had suspected it when he woke up plastered to Liam's back and Liam didn't knock him out. He just got out of bed. A straight bloke would've punched his lights out, probably. He had decided to test the theory by getting changed in front of Liam. That Liam had clearly watched him putting his clothes on didn't necessarily mean the guy was gay, but it didn't necessarily mean he wasn't. And then there was the way he'd never referred to his girlfriend or even said 'she'. That one Danny picked up on because he did that sometimes. Told the truth but omitted certain details. The poker game had been fun and informative and Danny had finally managed to confirm his suspicions. It was pretty funny that Liam didn't seem to have picked up on anything about Danny, but then gaydar was a myth, as far as Danny was concerned.

So there they were, eating pretty mediocre curry whilst the snow whipped the windows and Liam's car (well, that had to be a rental, didn't it?) was getting buried in the B&B car park. Danny didn't mind so much because he didn't have anywhere else to go.

"I've had better," Liam mumbled, looking at his motor paneer like it had insulted him. "Curry, I mean."

"Yeah, me too. It's not too bad though," Danny said, looking at Liam. The guy hadn't shaved that morning and his jaw was covered in blonde fuzz. It was a good look for him. Having a candle-lit dinner with him, even in a cheapo Indian place, and even knowing that Liam wouldn't look twice at him if it wasn't for the fact that they were stuck together, seemed like just the sort of thing to do.

"What do you normally do on Christmas Eve?" Danny asked.

"Work."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I work, then I usually go out for a drink with friends, or we'll meet at someone's house. That's it. What do you normally do?"

"Can't even remember what I've done for the last few years, so I've probably been getting pissed."

Liam chuckled. It was kind of beautiful to watch him in the candlelight. It seemed like a proper date.

"Do you normally date people?" Danny asked, mopping up the last of his curry with a bit of too-soggy nan bread. "Or is the fuckbuddy thing your typical MO?"

"Why do you ask that? Because this seems like a date?" Liam grinned.

"Yeah, kinda," Danny admitted. "More of a date than I think I've ever been on, to be brutally honest with you. Ashley and I went to the cinema sometimes, but we wouldn't exactly go for a meal. A take-away, maybe, but then I moved in with a mate and he was still living at home, so it wasn't like we could properly meet anywhere. And then I went to prison, so..."

"I have dated," Liam said, putting his cutlery aside. "Ages ago. I work a lot, so it's never seemed like a priority. And hooking-up is usually pretty easy unless you're too proud to go online, you know?"

"I'm not. Pretty shameless, me. Still, it's more that I can't have anyone knowing. Are you, you know, out?"

Liam sighed. "I don't advertise it, I suppose, but I don't hide it either. Although I think I probably did try to hide it from you."

"Because you thought I might write 'fuck off shitstabber' on your rental car?"

Liam laughed out loud, making Danny feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Something about the way Liam's face changed when he laughed made Danny want to get close to the man. He looked approachable when he laughed. And something about it made Danny think that maybe Liam didn't laugh very often. Not like this anyway. A few other customers turned their way, but they didn't look annoyed. Not the way people looked at Danny and Gavin sometimes when they were pratting about. If anything, they looked amused and approving.

"Please promise me you won't," Liam said when he'd stopped laughing.

"Scout's honour," Danny said.

"On that subject, I'm sorry about that holier-than-thou speech about minorities yesterday. I had no idea."

"Don't sweat it. Hey, what say we pick up some snacks from somewhere and go back to the room? Doesn't seem to be much else to do here and I don't want to end up stuck here because of an avalanche or something."

"Yeah, agreed." Liam actually smiled at him as he stood to leave.

They managed to find an open off-license and returned with a couple of bags of beer and crisps. The redheaded landlady told them they didn't normally allow alcohol to be brought in from the outside, but since it was a kind of state of emergency, she'd make an exception.

"What would you have been doing right now if you were in the highlands?" Danny asked, kicking off his shoes and getting comfortable on the bed. The chairs were vinyl hell and you could only spend so long sitting on the carpet, so the bed seemed like the obvious place to get drunk.

"I'd probably be making good progress on one of the bottles of scotch," Liam said. He was sitting by the foot of the bed; Danny was sitting by the head. They had turned the radio on and there was Christmas music playing. Danny quietly hummed along. "I don't know. I didn't really have a plan. I figured we'd mostly, you know..."

"Fuck?"

Liam let out a little laugh. "Yeah. Something like that. What would you have been doing right now if you hadn't been taken accidentally north by German tourists?"

"Oh, I don't know... Hopefully I'd been in London, but who knows what I'd be doing there. Trying to find a place to stay for the night, I suppose."

Danny saw that Liam was about to ask something about that, or say something about it, but Danny didn't want to talk about it, so he grabbed the cards from the bedside table. "Play again?"

"For information? Or Pringles?"

"Information. I thought that was fun."

"Okay."

They opened the first beer cans and got started. They had moved to the centre of the bed, sitting cross-legged with cards and crisp packets spread out around them. Danny won.

"Okay, ask away," Liam said.

"Your married guy..." Danny started and Liam sighed theatrically and rolled his eyes. "You said he doesn't celebrate Christmas? Is that because he's not Christian?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, come on, don't make me play you to find out what religion he is."

"He's Hindu."

"Ah..." Danny stupidly tried to imagine Liam with an Indian bloke, but couldn't really see it. Just for fun, he tried to imagine Liam with a white English bloke, but he couldn't really see that either. Alcohol clearly did nothing for his imagination. Although when he tried to imagine Liam kissing him, he didn't seem to have any troubles.

"Yeah. Again?"

Danny won again, despite feeling like he had no idea what he was doing. Just for fun, he waited until Liam was drinking deeply from his beer can before he said,

"Are you a top or a bottom?"

He wasn't disappointed when Liam just about and very gracelessly managed to avoid spitting out his beer all over the bed, the cards and, well, Danny.

"Fucking hell," Liam muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Perfectly reasonable question," Danny said with his sweetest voice. "And you seemed a bit fed up with questions about your Love Guru, so I just figured."

"'Love Guru'? That's really fucking awful, just so you know." But Liam was grinning now, so it couldn't be that bad. "And er... I mean, both, I suppose. Or either. It's not like you have to pick one and stick to it."

"So you let your Hindu guy fuck you then?"

"Not sure I want to answer that unless you win again." Liam took another gulp from his beer and wiped his mouth again. "But you probably will, so no. I didn't. I would've let him, but that was never an issue."

"I bet you're a really hot top," Danny said, lying down on his front. "Mhm... I can imagine it perfectly."

"Yeah, well stop it. I don't want to feature in your..." Liam waved his hand in a wide circle, like he couldn't think of a word.

"Dirty fantasies?" Danny grinned.

"Exactly."

"Why not? They're pretty interesting."

"I'm sure they are." Liam got up from the bed. For an exhilarating minute, Danny thought he was coming over to Danny, that they were actually, finally, going to do something other than play cards, get drunk and skirt around the fact that they were both single and could spend their time in this B&B getting off together. But Liam didn't come over. With a curt, "I'm going to the loo," he disappeared from the room.

### CHAPTER EIGHT

When Liam returned to their room, Danny was lying on the bed, propped up against the headboard, singing along to Oh Holy Night on the radio. He was holding a beer can in one hand and his eyes were closed as he moved his head gently in time with the music. His long legs were crossed by the ankles. Liam could just make out the bottom edge of that Nordic/Celtic tattoo below the sleeve of his white t-shirt.

Liam wasn't normally an insecure person. If anything, he was the kind of person who would move to get what he wanted. Make it happen. Maybe the problem with Danny was that Liam didn't know what the hell he wanted. Danny's comment about Liam being a hot top was likely just a piss-take, but it made Liam consider the possibility nonetheless. But was that what he wanted? To fuck Danny? Because this was the idiotic chav who had wrecked Liam's car. The kind of guy Liam normally saw in droves in the city centre, acting like monkeys. Liam would never have considered doing anything with Danny if it wasn't for the fact that fate had thrust them together a couple of days ago and now here they were. An odd couple if ever there was one.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Danny asked, opening his bottomless brown eyes and looking at Liam.

"Er, no." He didn't move though. He scratched his neck, trying to make sense of this insane situation he found himself in. "Actually, I think I'm probably going to call it a night. Got a long drive tomorrow."

"Right."

Danny shot up from the bed, pulling off his t-shirt and his jeans, dropping them on the floor before getting in under the covers. The whole thing was over so quickly that Liam had yet to move from the spot on the floor. Danny flicked off the bedside lamp on his side. Liam had never lived with a partner so he didn't have a reference point, but Danny's sudden mood change made Liam think of a jilted wife. The thought nearly made him laugh.

"You're not going to brush your teeth?" Liam asked, half as a joke. "There's a lot of sugar in alcohol, you know."

Danny pushed the covers aside, got out of bed again, grabbed his hold-all and with a, 'yes, daddy,' he left the room.

Liam was grateful for the chance to get undressed and into bed in peace. He made quick work of it, tossing his clothes in a haphazard pile on a chair and getting into the chilled bed. He could sense warmth from the side where Danny had been lying and he had to resist the temptation to slide over.

He was tired and he was still mildly drunk, but once in bed, he was restless. He waited for Danny to return from the bathroom. Not dreading it, exactly, but waiting with a sort of nervous anticipation. Eventually the door swung open, then shut, and Danny came back in. Liam closed his eyes and listened to the hold-all dropping to the floor, then Danny's feet across the carpet, before the man slipped back into bed. It was a big bed, just like that redhead had said on the night they arrived, and Liam supposed he wouldn't even have noticed Danny was in bed unless he'd known.

Even so, Liam noticed when Danny turned around to face him.

"Can I ask you something else?" Danny said quietly in the dark.

"Go on then," Liam said, half dreading what Danny would ask next.

"Do you play rugby?"

"What?" Liam asked, completely unprepared for the question. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but it wasn't that.

"Do you play rugby?" Danny repeated, sounding like he was talking to someone who was really bloody slow. Which, Liam had to admit, wasn't too far from the truth.

"Do I play rugby? What makes you ask that?"

"You have the thighs of a rugby player," Danny said.

"The thighs of a..." Liam repeated, like an idiot. "And you've been able to tell that through my jeans, have you?"

"No, it's funny you should say that," Danny said. "It doesn't show through your jeans at all. In your clothes, you just look fit, I suppose. Without your clothes, you look like a rugby player."

"What the hell?" Liam stared up at the dark ceiling.

"Hey," Danny continued, "Don't get offended. It's a compliment, if anything."

"When did you see me without my clothes?" Liam asked, wondering whether he was even tacking on to the relevant point here.

"Last night, when you came back from the bathroom. Right before we went to bed."

"But you were asleep."

"So you thought."

Liam really didn't want to sound like some offended damsel in distress, but he realised he probably was.

"So you feigned sleep to check me out?"

"Not exactly like that," Danny said breezily. "More like, I was curious what you would wear to bed. So I watched as you undressed. Come on, it's not like it's a strange thing to do. You would've done the same, right?"

"I don't—" Liam had nothing to follow that up with. "I guess. Yeah, probably."

"Except you wouldn't have rugby-level thighs to look at. Just a scrawny bloke who could apparently pass for 15."

"You're not scrawny. You're surprisingly toned, actually," Liam said, finishing the sentence just as he realised that Danny had set up a trap and he had walked straight into it. "Smooth, mate."

"Yeah, I thought so." Danny grinned, looking very pleased with himself. "So do you play rugby?"

"I used to. Not anymore. But I suppose I kept the build."

"Mhm, you definitely did."

Liam felt Danny turn around in bed, and then Danny was suddenly plastered against Liam's side. Liam felt the pleasant weight of Danny's leg slung over his middle, Danny's arm across his torso and Danny's hand in his hair.

"What are you doing, Danny?" Liam mumbled, even as his hand went to Danny's hip.

"Let's stop pissing about," Danny said. He was so frank about it that it made Liam feel like he was the young one. Not that Danny was even that young. At 25, he was certainly old enough that Liam didn't have to feel like he was taking advantage. "You'll be off to Scotland tomorrow and you probably won't ever see me again. We have one more night to pass in this shithole. I'll be honest, yeah? I fancy you, mate. Even if you had the face of a pit-bull, I'd probably still have at least half a boner over your thighs. Also, drinking kind of puts me in the mood, if you know what I mean. Unless you really just want to roll over and go to sleep, why don't we make the most of it, eh? We don't have to fuck if you're one of those guys who need to work your way up to anal, but we could suck each other off, or just rub off on each other, or whatever you want. I'm game for most things if it means I'll get off by the end of it."

Liam considered Danny's little speech.

"I'm alright with anal," he said eventually.

Danny's answering grin, a flash of white in the near darkness, let Liam know that Danny was, too.

"Did you bring condoms and stuff?" Danny asked.

"Yeah."

"Great. I'm clean, but who knows what the hell your married guy passed on to you, eh?" Danny said and Liam thought he caught Danny winking at him in the dark.

Liam had the feeling he should be offended, somehow, but it was more that Danny had actually said it that rather than the possibility itself. And who knew? Liam had never considered that Hardik might be fucking other guys as well, but what if he was?

"Should I get them?" Danny asked.

"No, you're alright. I'll get them," Liam said and guided Danny off his body to slide out of bed to get his condoms and lube from his bag.

While Liam was digging around in his bag, Danny got rid of his boxers. Supplies in hand, Liam stopped and watched as Danny lifted his hips up and tossed the boxers in the direction of his other clothes that were in a heap on the floor.

Liam walked up to the side of the bed and turned the little bedside table on. He had never been a missionary-in-the-dark type and he wanted to be able to see this. He pulled away the duvet from Danny and enjoyed watching him without having to be circumspect about it. There was just enough light to read by, and the lamp was sort of angled away from Danny, dressing his body in light and shadows, emphasising the rise of muscles, the dip of bone. A hollow by his clavicles, another by his hips. He had very nice definition, actually. He was probably as slender as Hardik was, but where Hardik seemed almost delicate, Danny was tough. Liam took in his small, pebbled nipples, the unapologetic rise of his long cock.

"Like what you see?" Danny asked, putting his arms behind his head.

"I do, actually," Liam said, putting the condoms and lube on the bedside table. He pulled off his t-shirt and dropped it on the floor.

Danny followed his movements with unabashed interest.

"Anything you don't like doing?" Liam asked, unbuttoning his jeans. "Or anything you particularly do like doing?"

He pushed down jeans, underwear and socks in one go and climbed onto bed. He straddled Danny's slender hips, moving up until he could comfortably take both their cocks in his right hand. A tight squeeze, and fucking amazing. He wanted to look at what he was doing, but Danny's face kept his attention.

"I'm okay with most things," Danny said. He didn't look so cocky anymore, and his hips were moving gently in rhythm with Liam's hand. Arousal was not a bad look on him.

"Kissing?" Liam asked.

"You want to kiss me?"

"Would you let me?"

"Yeah." Danny gasped and nearly jumped when Liam tightened his grip a little. Then he let out a content moan. "Hell yeah."

Liam leaned forward, making sure he pressed his body into Danny's in every way that counted. Then he kissed Danny.

Danny tasted of tooth paste, with the echo of whisky on his breath. It was the sort of kiss that started small and grew, that dragged mindless, greedy arousal in its wake. Liam might have had some idea about what he wanted to do when he got into bed with Danny, but he was quickly losing control. They were moving together now, hands everywhere, and every point of contact beautiful.

"You want to fuck me then?" Danny breathed against Liam's lips.

"You want me to?"

Danny laughed. "Oh yes, please." Then he licked Liam's lips before he pulled away enough to look properly into Liam's eyes. "Like, on your back? Can you, like, sit with your back against the headboard and I'll get on top with my back to you?"

"Ok, sure."

Liam put the pillows behind his back and leaned back against the headboard. He leaned over to get a condom and the lube, and didn't notice what Danny was up to until he felt a hot mouth around his cock.

"Fucking hell," he breathed.

"Mhm," Danny replied. Then he pulled off. "Pass me the lube and I'll slick up."

Liam did as he was told, watching in the half dark as Danny reached between his own legs. He couldn't see exactly what Danny was doing (probably a good thing or he would've combusted), but he saw the shadows in his right arm as it moved. Christ. He was pretty sure this was one of the hottest things he had ever seen.

"Alright, suit up," Danny said and sat back, watching as Liam put the condom on in record speed.

"Okay," Liam said, only vaguely feeling like a dirty old man, because when was the last time he had fucked someone who was 25? "Get on."

Danny flashed him a grin and threw his leg over Liam's body. Faced with Danny's back, Liam noticed a tattoo he hadn't seen or at least not paid attention to before. A small sacred heart on his left shoulder.

"Are you Catholic?" Liam asked, like an idiot, just as Danny took him into his body.

"What?" An almost annoyed glance over the tattooed shoulder. "Oh, the tattoo? Yeah."

"Me too." Then Danny was all the way down, resting his tight arse against Liam's thighs. "Jesus."

"Yeah..."

For an eternity, it seemed the only movement in the room was the rise and fall of Danny's chest as he was breathing. Liam watched the subtle movements of Danny's body and listened to the sounds of the house. The noisy old plumbing, a crying child somewhere, creaking boards and the wind still rattling the windows. He hadn't noticed any of those sounds before but somehow in this moment he was hyperaware of everything. And when Danny started moving up and down – slow and careful at first, then increasingly fast and hard – he closed his eyes, put his nose to the sacred heart and his arm around Danny's waist and just let himself be dragged away.

Gradually, he became aware of a change in the sounds Danny was making and a kind of tension in his body that hadn't been there before.

Liam pulled Danny close to his chest and held him tight with both arms. They were moving together now, Liam pushing up and down as much as Danny was. Liam moved the hand that had been resting on a slender hip down to take Danny's erection in hand.

"Fuck, Liam, I'm going to come," Danny moaned.

Liam picked up pace. "Come with me."

"Oh shit." Danny's hand found Liam's on his chest. "Oh shit."

It was fucking beautiful. Stupidly, ridiculously, perfectly beautiful. Danny's sounds, and the sight of his white-splattered stomach moving with his rapid breathing.

"Christ," Liam panted, wanting to laugh at the fact that they had finished nearly at the same time.

Danny's head dropped forward, his hands on his thighs. Liam leaned back just a little, watching the bend of Danny's back and the shadows his ribcage created on pale skin.

"God, I'm going to have to get off you now, aren't I?" Danny sighed.

"Yeah. You get off and then you get off. Those are the rules," Liam said.

"Fucking hell, and you thought 'love guru' was bad..."

"Sorry."

He wasn't though. Not a bit.

### CHAPTER NINE

On Christmas Day, Danny woke up wrapped in Liam's burly arms. He wasn't exactly sore, but he could definitely feel that he'd been well and truly shagged last night. And how. Danny smiled, burrowing into the warmth of the duvet and Liam's body. He had obviously won Liam over with his little ships in the night speech, but now that he had been with Liam, he sort of wished he'd been angling for something a little bit more long-term. To the end of the holidays, at least. But there was always the chance that Liam felt the same and decided to bring Danny along to Scotland for the holidays. Yeah, fat chance.

But it had been nice last night. Almost romantic. And Liam had kissed him again before they fell asleep. And not just a little peck on the cheek either. They had been snogging like teenagers until they nodded off. Oh God, what if Danny had fallen asleep mid-kiss? Maybe Liam hadn't noticed until Danny went all slack-jawed and drooly. Way to make a fantastic impression on someone you wouldn't mind shagging again. Sheesh.

Behind him, Liam grunted and tightened his hold on Danny. A not-half-shabby morning semi was pressed against Danny's buttocks, but Danny resisted the impulse to wiggle against it. Good thing too, because suddenly he felt Liam stiffen. Danny held his breath as Liam slowly disentangled himself from Danny. He clearly thought he was being smooth about it, the way he made some sort of sleepy noise and rolled to his back, away from Danny. Not exactly a safe distance, perhaps, but near enough.

"You awake, mate?" Danny asked, trying to get things back into a decently comfortable mood.

"Just about," Liam sighed. "What time is it?"

Danny reached out for Liam's watch on the bedside table.

"About half eight."

"We should probably get down for breakfast then, I suppose," Liam said.

"Yeah, probably."

"You want to head to the bathroom first?"

"Uh... Yeah. I suppose. I'll be quick about it though. Won't have a bath until right before we leave, I think."

"Okay. Yeah. Probably a good idea."

Danny got out of bed, deciding that he was not going to feel awkward about his nakedness. And though he wasn't exactly awkward about it, he was certainly aware of it in a not particularly comfortable way. He quickly pulled on yesterday's boxers, jeans and t-shirt, grabbed his hold-all and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Liam was already dressed when he returned. Two days without shaving made him look decidedly beardy, despite being blonde. It also made him look decidedly hot and Danny wanted to dive into every bit of body hair he could find on Liam and just breathe in that scent of after shave and skin. God, he never should've slept with Liam. He was hooked now.

"I'm just going to brush my teeth and then I'm ready for breakfast," Liam said, not really looking at Danny.

Danny just nodded and dropped his bag on the floor. The condom and lube was still on the bedside table, like a smug reminder of what had happened last night and what wouldn't happen again.

"Alright, you ready?" Liam said when he returned.

"Yeah, fine, let's go," Danny muttered.

"You okay, mate?"

"Yeah, fine."

"Okay."

There was Christmas music playing in the dining room when they came down. Some families were lingering, but most had clearly already had their breakfast. Danny sat down opposite Liam at the same little table where they had sat yesterday.

"Good morning you two," the redheaded landlady said, putting down a small tea-pot on the table. "And Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," Liam and Danny said as one.

"Full English?"

"Yeah, please," Danny said. "Can I have it without the tomatoes though?"

"Sure you can, love. And how about you?" She turned to Liam.

"Full English, please. I don't mind tomatoes. Or anything else."

"Right you are. And will you both be staying for Christmas lunch later?"

"What's the weather forecast?" Liam asked.

"They still recommend you don't get out on the road unless you have to, but some of our guests are talking about trying to get going. Your room will be certainly available for another night if you want it."

"Thanks," Liam said. "What time is Christmas lunch?"

"One o'clock."

"Can we leave it until then to decide whether we want the room for another night?"

"Of course you can, love," the redheaded landlady said before disappearing into the kitchen.

Danny felt strangely happy that Liam had graduated from 'sir' to 'love' since they checked in. He wasn't sure why it mattered, but it sort of did.

"You really want to stay another night?" Danny asked, pouring himself a cup of strong, sugary tea.

"What I want doesn't really seem to enter into the equation this Christmas."

"But you're still going up to Scotland?"

"Yeah, suppose so. Not like I have anything else to do, really. You still want me to drop you off in Glasgow?"

Well, Danny thought, what he wanted didn't seem to enter into the equation of this Christmas either.

"Actually, I might try my luck getting to London," Danny said.

"Oh."

Danny looked up in time to catch a small frown on Liam's brow. Was that promising? Danny decided it was.

"Yeah, I don't really know anyone in Glasgow, so I reckon my chances are better down south. And the snow is bound to be worse the further north we get right? So probably best to turn around."

"I suppose."

They spent the rest of their breakfast in silence. Danny ate his breakfast leisurely, watching the families packing up and leaving, the snow outside the large windows, Liam's hands as he reached for his tea cup. It was a pretty nice scene, except he struggled with that feeling of being on the outside of things. Of not really belonging, he supposed.

After breakfast they went back to their room. Danny didn't really have anything to pack, so he lay down on the bed and watched Liam put away some clothes, some empty bottles and the bloody condoms and lube.

"I'm going to take a walk," Liam said, meeting Danny's gaze properly for the first time that morning. "Just to see if I can get an idea of what the weather is like, whether it's worth making an attempt to get out on the roads. You want to come?"

"Really?"

Liam looked confused. "Er, yeah? It's a walk in the cold."

"Right. I thought you were back to hating me again, so I was just surprised. No, if it's all the same to you, I think I'll probably stay here."

"Good choice." Liam pulled on his coat and dug out a hat from his bag. "Alright, I'll see you in a bit."

Danny stayed on the bed, closing his eyes and trying to come up with a plan. Glasgow had never been a good idea, and the only reason he even considered it was that he had managed to get attached to Liam. He could go back to Leicester and hope that Gavin had kept his mouth shut about Danny's involvement in that little incident outside Hardik Chopra's office. But even if Gavin hadn't said anything to the police, he had probably spread the word amongst their mates, so the best Danny could hope for was that he was a kind of persona non grata. It fucking sucked.

So London it was, he supposed. He had a few mates down there who might be willing to put him up for a bit. It wasn't like he had anything going for him in Leicester anyway. Not even a proper place to stay. It was bloody depressing when you thought about it.

He nearly dozed off in his miserable funk and when Liam returned, snow-covered jacket and hat, swearing over the weather, he jolted awake.

"I mean, it's snowing again. What is this? This is fucking England, it's supposed to rain, not snow. Jesus." Liam got out of his coat and hung it on a coat hanger in the corner. Danny remained quiet as Liam made his way over to the bed and sat down. "Fancy another night here?"

"Er... Yeah?"

"Okay, good. You could probably try to get a lift with someone going south, but there's always the risk you'll end up having to share a room with someone else and better the devil you know, eh?"

Danny laughed. "Yeah, suppose so. Next person I have to share a bed with might not be so accommodating."

"Exactly. On that note, I was going to have a bath before Christmas lunch. I'm not a big fan of baths so I've been putting it off, but I'm beginning to feel a bit filthy."

Oh right. Nice one. Apparently Liam thought Danny was contagiously dirty. Maybe he should take his chances going south anyway.

"Uhm," Liam added, looking a bit awkward. "Do you want to join me?"

Or maybe not.

"You want me to take a bath with you?"

"If you want to."

"Yeah, alright." Danny did his best not to smile. "Now?"

"Yeah."

"I'll go and get the bath running then," Danny said. "Bring a couple of glasses of scotch with you when you come, okay?"

"You want to drink in the bath?"

"Why the hell not? Seeing as it's Christmas and all."

"Yeah, alright." Liam sighed and stood. "Why the hell not, indeed."

Danny quickly grabbed his hold-all and made for the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the tub, watching it fill. The room was steaming up nicely. The mere idea of sharing a bath with Liam had Danny pretty excited. Eventually the guy turned up, bringing the plastic glasses half full of scotch.

"I don't know what it is about Christmas that makes it seem perfectly alright to start drinking in the morning," Liam muttered, putting the glasses down on the toilet lid. He locked the door behind him and stood in the middle of the room. "Shall we?" he asked, nodding at the steaming water.

Danny quickly shucked his clothes and climbed into the hot water. It was maybe a little hotter than comfortable, but it would cool soon enough. Liam handed both glasses to Danny before he got out of his clothes, giving Danny a nice view of his big, hairy body.

"Fuck, mate, your thighs aren't half nice, are they?"

"So you keep saying," Liam muttered and rubbed his hands over his thighs in a way that looked surprisingly self-conscious. Then he stepped into the water and swore at how hot it was. Danny laughed.

"Nice hot bath, glass of scotch and a snowstorm outside? I think that's pretty nice actually," Danny said.

"Yeah, but I'm suspecting you're probably comparing it to spending Christmas locked up, so your standards are pretty..." Liam dropped off but wiggled his hand as if to say 'so-so'.

Danny was undeterred, his previous foul mood dissolved like morning fog as soon as Liam suggested they take a bath together.

"And I'm sharing the bath with a hot, hairy, naked top, who's just on the right side of angry, so you know... Good times." Danny saluted Liam with his plastic glass and took a sip of the scotch.

"I'm not angry. Or a top, as such." Liam took a good mouthful of his scotch too, then ran a hand down his chest. "Can't argue with 'hairy', I suppose."

"Or hot," Danny added, sliding his foot forward and pushing gently at Liam's bollocks, soft and large in the hot water. Liam made an honest attempt to reciprocate, but there was just not enough room for it. Although Danny wasn't as broad as Liam was, the bath decidedly wasn't big enough for too grown men.

"Fuck it," Liam said, spreading arms and legs as best he could. "Want to come here?"

Danny grinned and moved as quickly as he could to sit with his back against Liam's chest. The bath overflowed just a bit as he moved, but it'd be soaked up by the carpet, so no damage done. He couldn't get comfortable, exactly, but at least he could lean back against Liam, who wrapped an arm around Danny's chest, the other arm resting on the side of the tub, his whisky glass in hand. When Liam's hand ended up on his chest, rubbing a thumb over Danny's nipple, Danny sighed happily and let the little tingles of excitement travel through his body like errant fireworks.

"Danny..." Liam's voice near to his ear seemed to add to the fireworks, washing over him like the hot water.

"Mhm?"

"Please don't feel obliged or anything, but why don't you tag along to the highlands with me?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, really," Liam said, lips and whiskers tickling Danny's ear. "It will obviously look shitty if that incident outside Hardik's office goes to court, but you know... Why not? If you want to."

"'Course I want to. And we'll spend it fucking and drinking, right?"

Danny felt Liam's chest shaking as he laughed quietly.

"Well, yeah. Though I thought we could maybe go skiing a bit as well, if you fancy it."

"Can't ski, mate."

"Have you ever tried?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure I'll probably kill myself if I did try."

"It's not that difficult. And it's actually fun. I'll teach you."

"Alright," Danny said, feeling strangely happy about the prospect of doing something with Liam that wasn't fighting, drinking or fucking. Although particularly the latter seemed like a really good idea right about now, since he could feel Liam's hard-on against the small of his back and his own was popping up above the water like some really dodgy-looking island.

As if he had been reading Danny's thoughts, Liam lowered his hand from Danny's chest and gently stroked him a few times.

"Later," he said against Danny's ear. "It's nearly time for Christmas lunch and I need to shave."

"You don't," Danny said, leaning his head back against Liam's shoulder. "Keep it."

"Still need to tidy it up a bit. I don't like the scruff on my neck."

"Fine. You do that. I'll just stay in the bath minding my own business."

### CHAPTER TEN

It hadn't been a spur of the moment decision, exactly, asking Danny to tag along to Scotland. The thought had crossed his mind the previous night, when Danny had fallen asleep in Liam's arms, his slender body a perfect fit against Liam's bulkier one. The way Hardik would probably have felt against him, except Hardik and he had actually never slept together. Even when Falguni were out of town, Hardik had insisted on returning home in the evening. It wouldn't do to let the neighbours see that he was away the whole night. It also wouldn't do to let the neighbours see that someone else was spending the night at Hardik's. So despite having fucked Hardik more times than he could count, Liam realised how little else they had done. The kind of banter he had with Danny was already more than what he had had with Hardik. A bloody depressing thought if ever there was one.

He almost decided against it in the morning, when Danny seemed to be in a bit of a standoffish sort of mood. Liam hadn't wanted to crowd him – he had even rolled away when he woke up and realised that he must have held on to Danny all night. The last thing he needed was to come off as some sort of needy dumped loser. So he put the idea on ice. Breakfast was an equally unfriendly affair, so when Liam – almost defiantly – suggested Danny tag along for a bath, he had expected Danny to tell him to fuck off. Instead he got a smile so brilliant it made Liam's insides hurt with some sort of wanting or longing or... Or something.

And now here he was. In a somewhat shabby-looking dining room in a Lancashire B&B, where the tables had been put together to create the semblance of familiarity, despite the guests not knowing each other at all. Although, Liam had to admit, they were getting somewhere closer to getting to know each other thanks to the plentiful alcohol provided by the landlord and –lady. He glanced at Danny, wearing a red crown and what Liam supposed must be his Christmas best (jeans and a stripy polo shirt), who was showing a small girl how to use the yo-yo she'd got in her cracker. He lost himself in the sight of Danny interacting with the girl and almost jumped when someone put a hand on his shoulder. He turned to the landlady with the fire hydrant hair, as Danny came up to stand next to him.

"Enjoying yourselves, lads?" she asked, smiling at them both.

"Oh yeah. Thank you. It's very well organised," Liam said, feeling Danny fidgeting next to him and wondering what had him so worried. "And the turkey was lovely."

"I just wanted to say," she continued in a strangely conspiratorial voice, "that a couple of the families have decided to leave after lunch, so there will be a couple of spare rooms." She looked between them. "You wanted separate rooms, right?"

"Oh." Liam looked at Danny, who had that miserable look about him again that Liam recognised from earlier in the morning. "Er. Actually, I think we're happy to stay in the same room." He glanced quickly at Danny, who looked a little less miserable.

"Oh, that's alright then," the landlady said. "We have a couple of spare beds as well if you want one."

Liam wasn't sure what to say, but Danny cut in.

"We're alright in the one bed," Danny said, putting a hand on Liam's shoulder.

"Er, yeah, what he said," Liam added, feeling more than a little sheepish.

"Oh, I thought so," the landlady said, beaming at them. "I told my husband, I said, they're denying it but they have that look about them. You look like you're in love, if you don't mind me saying. And you shouldn't pretend otherwise, you know. I know not everyone's so accepting as we are here, but unless you show yourselves, people will never get used to it." She paused as if she was done, but then she found her second wind. "And what the hell is there to get used to anyway, I wonder? Anyway, I'm glad I was right. You make a handsome couple."

Liam looked after her as she made her way through the room to her husband.

"Hear that, mate? We're a handsome couple," Danny said in his ear before he returned his attention to the young girl with the yo-yo.

"So..." Danny closed the door behind them and leaned against it. "That was nice, right?"

Liam sat down on the bed, head buzzing from too much food and too much alcohol. He had presumed they'd get Christmas lunch over in a couple of hours at most, but the meal had dragged out. Then there had been drinks. Then games, which by then – God help him – he had been drunk enough to actually enjoy. And watching Danny trying to mime The Scarlet Letter during charades had been hilarious. The guy was clearly more than prepared to make a complete spectacle of himself for the benefit of others. Liam looked at Danny by the door and got kind of stuck on him. The angle of his hips in slightly baggy jeans. The half-mast eyelids.

"Surprisingly nice," Liam agreed. "I wasn't expecting to enjoy it, but it wasn't bad."

"And you came out to the landlady. Well done, you." Danny pushed off the door and crossed the room to the bed.

"Hey, I'm not the one in the closet. You came out to the landlady. Well done, you!"

"Thank you." Danny sat down next to Liam and leaned his head against Liam's shoulder. Liam reached up and patted his cheek. "So I was going to offer to bugger you through the mattress since your Hindu guy only wanted to take it, but honestly, I'm too stuffed to do anything much at all."

Liam laughed. Then he thought about how he had probably laughed more with Danny in the past couple of days than he had in the previous two months.

"Yeah, well, we have a couple of weeks in Scotland to do that," Liam said, kicking off his shoes. "So, just sleep?"

"Just sleep," Danny said.

They kicked off their shoes, removed their clothes and got under the covers. Liam pulled Danny close, enjoying Danny's soft, downy skin against him.

"You're not going to make me get up to brush my teeth, are you?" Danny mumbled. He sounded like he was half asleep already.

"No." Liam pulled Danny tighter. "First thing tomorrow morning though, right?"

"Right."

Liam was nearly asleep when Danny spoke again.

"Liam?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't roll away tomorrow morning."

"What do you mean, don't roll away?"

"I mean, don't freak if you wake up wrapped around me and roll away."

"Oh." Was that what had had Danny in such a foul mood this morning? "I only rolled away this morning because I didn't want you to think I was clingy," Liam said with an honesty that felt strange but refreshing.

"I don't mind clingy," Danny said, wiggling a little.

"Okay, I'll remember that. Good night, Danny." Liam pressed a kiss against Danny's head. "And Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," Danny replied, pulling Liam's hand up to kiss it.

Liam woke the next morning to the sound of his mobile phone vibrating on the bedside table. He realised that apart from a few texts yesterday wishing him a happy Christmas, his phone had been unusually quiet. It had been lovely. Careful not to let go of Danny – who was still in his arms – he reached out and grabbed the phone.

"Liam Parker."

"Oh, hello Mr Parker, and Merry Christmas. This is Linda Guthrie." The owner of the cottage Liam had rented. "I'm glad to hear your voice. You're alright then?"

"Yes, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? Is there a problem?"

He felt Danny stirring next to him, then turning to throw a leg over Liam's body and an arm over his chest. He let his free hand trail up and down Danny's back, feeling the soft down of his skin, the bumps of his spine.

"There was a bit of bad weather last night and a neighbour of ours went out this morning to check on the cottage. She said the roof is completely caved in, but since she couldn't see a car, she thought perhaps you weren't there."

"No, I'm on my way, but I got stuck in Lancashire."

"Oh, good. I mean, not good, but I'm relieved to hear you weren't in the cottage when the roof caved."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ms Guthrie. It must be a bit of a shock to you?"

"Well, yes, but I'm well insured, so at least the financial damage shouldn't be too bad. On that note, I'll obviously refund your money since you won't be able to use the cottage now."

"Oh." Oh. "Yeah, of course. Thank you."

"The check should come through in a few days. I'm sorry about the inconvenience."

"Not at all. Thank you for call."

He put his phone back on the bedside table and wrapped both arms around Danny.

"What's up?" Danny asked, raking his fingers through Liam's chest hair.

"Uhm, it seems the roof caved in on that cottage."

"Shit, mate. Imagine if you'd made it there. You could've died."

Liam chuckled. "Yeah, I suppose so. Uhm. Obviously this means skiing in the highlands is off, I'm afraid."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

They were quiet for a while, listening to the sounds of children running past their door and a woman's voice telling them to get into the bathroom or Santa would revoke their Christmas presents.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," Danny said, sounding dejected.

"Danny..."

"Come on, mate, what do you think will happen? We won't keep this up when we get back to Leicester, will we?"

No, Liam didn't suppose they would. He wanted to, though. Or rather, he didn't want to get out of this strange cocoon he had been living in for the past couple of days. But to keep seeing Danny?

"Can't we see what happens?" Liam suggested, pulling Danny on top.

"Yeah, sure," Danny said, but he didn't meet Liam's eyes. "I mean, look, I don't mind. It was just to pass the time, right?"

"Right."

Liam rolled them to the side and let go of Danny. He got out of the warm bed, and quickly dressed in the morning chilly room. It had started as a way to pass the time, but he couldn't deny that it had moved beyond that pretty quickly. At least for him. Danny obviously felt differently about it.

"We should probably get down for breakfast, it's nearly half eight," he said.

Danny didn't reply. He just pulled his clothes up from the floor and got dressed under the duvet. A pretty clever way to do it, Liam supposed.

"Okay, let's go," Danny said and stood.

If Liam thought yesterday's breakfast had been a bit of a chilly affair, it was nothing compared to today's breakfast. Danny didn't say a word, barely ate, and Liam had to force himself to eat his full English.

After breakfast, Liam went to pay the bill while Danny went to get the bags.

"Hope you've enjoyed your stay," the landlady said as they grabbed their bags to leave. "I know it wasn't how you were planning to spend Christmas, but I hope you had a nice time nonetheless."

"Lovely. Thank you," Liam said, forcing a smile.

### CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was a lot easier driving south. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, but at least the fresh snow had stopped falling. Danny spent the better part of the journey with his forehead pressed against the window, looking out at the bleak world, trying to decide whether to feel more miserable about how things had gone with Liam or about the fact that he had no idea what he was going to do now.

"Where do you want me to drop you?" Liam asked when they approached Leicester.

Danny sighed. "My mum's, I suppose."

"Alright, where does she live?"

"Braunstone."

"Okay."

Liam looked about as grim as he had when he first picked Danny up. Danny was hoping that maybe Liam was a bit disappointed by how things had turned out as well.

"Up here, mate," Danny said when they approached his mother's terrace.

Liam parked outside the house and killed the engine, like he expected to be invited in or something.

"Do you have a mobile phone?" Liam asked.

"Yeah."

"Do you want my number?"

Danny didn't reply, just handed over his battered old phone. Liam quickly added his number and handed it back.

"Call me, okay? If you want to meet up, or if you need anything, or you know... For whatever reason."

"Okay. Bye."

Danny grabbed his bag from the backseat and waved half-heartedly at Liam before he knocked on the door to his mum's.

He didn't call Liam. Obviously not. What the hell was he supposed to say? 'Oh hi, mate, fancy a shag?' Hardly. He did look up Liam on Facebook though, and there he was, smiling behind a pair of sunglasses with some mad blue sea in the background. Danny couldn't see anything else without friending Liam and he wasn't going to do that.

After a couple of weeks and an unpleasant confrontation with Gavin, Danny learnt that Gavin hadn't given his name to the police. Gavin was due in court in a couple of months, however, and made it very clear that he felt that Danny owed him big time. Between Gavin and bloody Ashley and his stupid girlfriend, Danny realised he needed to change social circles. Easier said than done, obviously, but on a whim he joined a football team and soon enough he was friends with the lads there. They were a bit of a motley bunch. A few university students, a couple of IT guys, a few builders. Danny got on with all of them. When he said he was looking for work, three different guys managed to get him interviews. Danny was a bit worried that his prison record would stop any chances he had, but it turned out the builder guy on the team who had set him up on the interview had done a bit of time as well. And that's how Danny ended up as an apprentice builder. The pay wasn't great, but good enough that he could find a room in a shared terrace, thanks to a friend of a friend of one of the university lads on the team. When the time rolled around for Gavin's court date, Danny had managed to turn his life around completely. Life, for once, was pretty good.

There was obviously no way he could attend the hearing, but he went around the court house after work just to have a look. He thought they were probably already done, but as it happened, he walked up just as Gavin came out. Danny pulled away, watching him from behind a tree from a safe distance. Gavin looked furious. He lit up a fag before walking away in angry strides.

Danny stayed behind his tree, looking for Liam. About ten minutes later, Liam walked out from the court house alongside Hardik and what Danny presumed was Hardik's wife. Danny watched as they waved good bye to each other and then Liam walked towards a side street. Danny followed, careful not to be seen.

He quickly cut around the block and followed Liam to a small car park. He watched as Liam walked up to his silver Audi. Danny was itching to go to him. Say hello, see where that would get him. Liam had left his number after all, so he couldn't be completely opposed to the idea of Danny contacting him. He had just decided to announce himself when Hardik came around the opposite corner, entered the car park and walked quickly towards Liam.

"Liam," Hardik said, reaching out for Liam's arm.

"Don't," Liam said, pulling his arm away.

"Come on, I'm sorry. How many times do I need to say it?"

"I've heard you. I accept your apology. Now fuck off."

Liam made to open the car door, but Hardik grabbed his arm.

"Love... Come on... Falguni's off to Birmingham for the night. We could get a hotel room, or..."

Fucking hell, Danny thought. Liam was fucking Hardik. How had he not put two and two together before? Of course Liam was fucking Hardik. What else would he be doing in Hardik's office? And that talk about his married Hindu guy on the side. Jesus.

"Look," Liam said, staring at Hardik's hand on his arm until Hardik let go. "I told you when you fucked off to India that that was the last you'd see of me and I wasn't joking, okay. I don't want this anymore. It was fun while it lasted, but Jesus, Hardik... Go back to Falguni."

"You're throwing away something good," Hardik said, but took a step back.

"No, I really don't think I am," Liam replied, getting into his car. "Not with you."

Heart pounding, Danny decided that it was definitely time to get going. He was still wearing his builder's gear and his dirty high vis vest wasn't exactly inconspicuous, but he didn't think Liam would spot him. He quickly went round the corner and towards a smaller street, hoping Liam would head for the bigger street in the opposite direction.

Didn't exactly change anything, this, did it? Danny had known that Liam was involved with a married Hindu guy, it didn't matter that it was Hardik, did it? Except it sort of did, because Hardik was such a massive wanker. Liam could do so much better than him. Danny snorted. Yeah, right, like him? He got the Rizlas and tobacco from the pocket of his high vis vest and rolled himself a fag. He'd get over Liam in time. Now that he was sharing a place with a couple of arty farty students, he'd even let on that he was gay. He could easily bring guys back without anyone thinking twice about it.

"Danny?"

Danny opened eyes he hadn't even realised he'd closed and looked at Liam, who had pulled up to the curb and rolled the window down.

"Yeah. Hiya."

"Hi. How are you?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"Yeah, alright, I suppose. Just come from court."

"Oh yeah?" Danny hoped he sounded convincingly surprised. "How did that go?"

"Your pal got a pretty staggering number of hours in community service."

"He's not really my pal anymore, mate. I've—"

The angry sound of a car horn honking behind Liam cut Danny short. He saw Liam looking around, realising he was blocking the entire lane.

"Shit. Danny, get in, will you?"

"Er..."

"Come on. I can drop you off further down the road or something if you want."

"Right."

Danny stubbed out his fag and got into Liam's car. Same car, he presumed, that he had vandalised only a couple of months ago. The car behind Liam honked his horn again.

"Alright, mate!" Liam shouted, though the other guy could presumably not hear him. "Jesus, some people."

"I bet he's saying the same thing about you, mate," Danny said, smiling. He couldn't help it. Seeing Liam again had kind of put him in a good mood. Despite the whole fucking Hardik-thing.

"Yeah, probably," Liam agreed, smiling at Danny before driving off quick enough that Danny felt like he pretty much merged with the seat. "Sorry about the kidnapping."

"I don't mind."

"No?"

"No."

"I'm going to push my luck a bit then. What say we go for a meal somewhere?"

Danny laughed. "I'm straight from work, mate. I think even Mickey D's would turn their nose up at me."

"I can't imagine they would," Liam said. "We could always get a take-away, if that's not too kidnappy for you."

"That's fine."

Liam took off towards the town centre.

"So you work now, huh?" A quick glance before returning his focus to the road.

"Apprentice builder."

"That's brilliant."

"It's alright," Danny said, though he agreed. It was brilliant. "The thing with Gavin and then the whole mess with Ashley meant I needed to move circles, so I ended up on this footy team. One of the lads on there got me the interview and yeah... Worked out well."

"I'm impressed."

Danny looked at Liam to see if he was taking the piss or what, but the guy looked like he actually was impressed.

"Got my own place and everything," Danny continued. "I mean, not my own, because I share, but you know. I'm not living with my mum or with Gavin or anyone. I share with a couple of students, actually."

"Sounds like you've grabbed life by the bollocks," Liam said.

Danny laughed. "Yeah, something like that."

Liam's flat was every bit as posh as Danny had imagined. Very sleek, very modern. Nothing like the cosy clutter of the house where Danny lived. It didn't seem very personal, and it was no surprise when Liam told him that he had had very little to do with the decorating beyond telling some hired hand what he liked and didn't like.

They shared a meal and a few beers, sitting in Liam's industrial-style kitchen. They chit-chatted, hedging around the real issue, Danny felt. Although conversation came easy, there was so much they were not saying. After pudding in the shape of a tub of Ben&Jerry's that Liam dug out of the furthest corner of his freezer, Danny felt sufficiently full and round-footed to bring up what he had learnt earlier. He leaned back in his chair, watching Liam who was swirling beer around in his glass.

"Why didn't you tell me you were fucking Hardik Chopra?" Danny asked.

Liam looked a little caught.

"I didn't want to out him."

"Hope he's a better shag than he is a landlord," Danny said, feeling very pleased indeed when the comment pulled a laugh out of Liam.

"He probably is," Liam said eventually, draining the last of his beer.

"You don't sound too sure, mate. You're probably better off without him, eh?"

"Yeah, likely."

Danny snorted. "Shit, mate. I can't imagine it. You and Hardik. Fucking hell. Is that your type? Skinny and Asian?"

"I don't think I have a type."

"What did you see in Hardik, though? No offense."

"None taken." Liam sighed. "I'm not sure. It just kind of happened. I suppose maybe I got a thrill out of him being so obviously interested despite being this married, supposedly religious, upstanding citizen, you know?"

"Oh, you're one of those guys, are you?"

Liam quirked an eyebrow at him. "What guys?"

"Those guys who get off on the whole straight vibe. Is that why you fucked me? Because you thought I was this homophobic chav?" Liam actually looked a little embarrassed, which made Danny burst out laughing. "Yeah, I've totally got your number, mate."

"I fucked you because you practically threw yourself at me and serenaded my thighs."

"Didn't put up much of a fight though, did you?"

"No, I don't suppose I did."

Danny caught Liam's eyes and he could somehow feel that whatever stupid face he was probably pulling was a proper conversation killer. He probably looked at Liam like he wanted nothing more than to hump him. Which wasn't too far from the truth.

"Look, Danny..." Liam started, dropping his gaze to where his finger was drawing a narrow circle on the table. Danny followed the trail of that finger, too.

Fuck, Danny thought, this was not how it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be dinner and sex and a fucking... Reunion. Not this Olympic level awkwardness.

"Alright, mate. No sweat. I can take a no even when it's really fucking subtle." Danny pushed his chair out and stood. "Thanks for feeding me."

"Danny, for fuck sake."

"What?"

"Come."

Danny walked over to Liam, feeling a little bit like a stupid child about to get a serious talking to from his parent. And not even remotely in a daddy kink sort of way either.

"I feel like I'm taking advantage of you," Liam said, taking Danny's hand in his.

Danny looked up from the floor to Liam's pale blue eyes.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No."

"How are you taking advantage of me?"

"I don't know... You're ten years younger than I am, for one. I've been thinking about Christmas and how maybe you just agreed to tag along to Scotland because you didn't have anywhere else to go. I don't know."

"Give me a bit of credit, mate. I'm 25, not 15. And you know, I might have been up shit creek for Christmas, but I wanted to tag along to Scotland with you because you're, you know, really fucking hot. And fun, when you let your guard down a bit."

"I know that. Really. It's a hard feeling to shake though."

"But let it go, okay? Am I taking advantage of you, mate? I push a hell of a lot more than you do."

"Of course you're not."

"So there."

They were quiet for a bit, Liam sitting on the chair, Danny standing next to him, holding hands and probably looking like two proper knobs.

"So," Danny said eventually, when his skin was crawling with the silence and anticipation. "You want to or what?"

That made Liam laugh.

"Yeah."

### CHAPTER TWELVE

Liam couldn't quite let go of the feeling that he might have somehow coerced Danny into this, but that feeling was slowly drowning in the much larger feeling of strange delirious rightness. They were making a mess of Liam's tidily made bed, wriggling around like two stupid worms, trying to get themselves and each other naked. Thankfully Danny had kicked off his clunky work boots when he stepped through the front door, so when Liam finally got Danny's dirty jeans down his hips, they quickly got all the way off and landed heavily on the floor.

"Shit, mate, let me suck you," Danny panted once all of their clothes were dropped or thrown across Liam's bedroom.

Liam didn't have the time or wits to answer before Danny dragged himself down the bed, pressing sloppy open-mouthed kisses on Liam's skin along the way.

"Good for you that you're so hung or those thighs would've made your cock look tiny," Danny said happily, running his hands up and down Liam's thighs.

"You really do have a thing for thighs, don't you?" Liam asked. He wanted to laugh but was too turned on to really make it work.

"Oh yeah, big time. And your thighs? Jesus, mate, I'm dripping already."

Danny pushed himself up a bit and grabbed his cock as if to show Liam that he wasn't lying.

"Fucking hell," Liam said. "God. Get to it."

Danny grinned and found a good position. He sucked deep, hard and slow, promise and delivery in one. Liam made an effort to keep his eyes open, watching the mop of black hair bobbing up and down. His gaze travelled down Danny's body. Skinny and strong, lean, perfect, that tight little bottom raised like he was just waiting for someone to grab him by the hips and drive home. Danny dragged a finger from Liam's balls to his arse, a sudden reminder that their roles weren't necessarily given. He had been too long with Hardik to expect anything else. Liam reached over to the bedside table to get a bottle of lube. Danny didn't look up until Liam held it out for him.

Danny pulled his mouth free, his cheeks hollowing and his big, innocent eyes fixed on Liam.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah," Liam confirmed. "If you want to. I'm easy either way."

"You don't think that'd be a bit weird? Like a chihuahua humping a grand danois or something?"

Liam snorted. "Who the hell cares? I'm not about to sell ringside tickets, you know."

"Fine," Danny said, grabbing the lube and going back to his task.

Liam closed his eyes when he felt Danny's slick fingers against him, prodding, then pushing inside. Danny was surprisingly gentle, and between the attentions of his mouth and the attention of his long, agile fingers, Liam was soon little more than an incoherent bundle of need.

"Jesus, come on, Danny, fuck me already," he pleaded, not really liking the needy tone of his voice, but also not really caring.

"Condoms?"

Liam reluctantly pulled away to dig around the bedside table for a Durex and handed it to Danny.

"How do you want me?"

"The way you are is fine, mate," Danny said, tossing the wrapper to the floor.

It was nothing like a chihuahua humping a grand danois, Liam decided. It was ridiculously perfect. Danny hooked Liam's legs over his arms and moved with confidence and skill that Liam realised, feeling slightly ashamed about it, that he hadn't expected.

Liam reached down with a hand to touch himself almost lazily, not picking up pace until Danny was beginning to make continuous little moans.

"Close?" Liam asked.

"Fuck yeah," Danny panted. "Fuck, can I come on you?"

"Yeah." It was just a breath.

Danny pulled out, ripped the condom off and tossed that to the floor as well, then wanked furiously over Liam's stomach. They didn't come at the same time, but they weren't far apart. Danny breathed, his eyes closed, for a few moments, then looked up and flashed Liam a brilliant smile before he started drawing little circles in the mess on Liam's stomach.

"Just think how many times in the past couple of months we could've been doing that," Liam said, reaching again for the drawer in his bedside table, this time for a tissue to wipe himself off.

"Yeah..." Danny grabbed another tissue and wiped his hands before flapping down next to Liam. "That was a bit stupid, I suppose."

"Do you want to stay the night?" Liam bloody well hoped so.

Danny laughed. "Yeah, I don't think I'm in any sort of state to make my way anywhere at the moment."

Liam managed to untangle the sheets enough that he could pull the duvet up around them. Being in bed with Danny in his arms felt right. They were a good fit. As if he could hear Liam's thoughts, Danny snuggled closer.

"Don't pull away from me tomorrow morning, yeah?" Danny said in a sleepy whisper.

"I won't," Liam replied, thinking he didn't want to pull away from Danny ever again.
About the Author

Kit Edwards was born in Sweden in the early 80's. She spent ten years at university before finally deciding against an academic career, though she still moonlights as a translator and editor of academic texts. At various stages of her life, she has been obsessed with Mozart, late 70's punk, folk music, Rimbaud, Lord Byron and Alexander the Great. Having spent her formative years in the Swedish Bible-belt and the English Midlands, she now lives with her family in the old Viking centre of Sweden.

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