| They sat
together, across from one another at
the desk, in a peaceful Sunday evening silence. Bernard held his usual pose; a book in one hand, lit cigarette dangling lazily from his top two fingers while the lower ones cradled a cheap wineglass full of cheap wine. Manny sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, slouched as best he could in the uncomfortable chair, staring odd into space. It was over two hours after their latest argument before Bernard looked up again and regarded Manny with private frustration. The man was obviously determined to sit there like that until he apologised. Like that was ever going to happen. "Manny?" "What?" "Are you still sulking?" "Yes." "Why?" "You know why." "She wasn't good enough for you." Driven by a rare surge of anger, Manny sat up and leaned forward over the desk as if to make his point more valid. "No one's good enough by your standards! She's the third girl you've scared away in the last nine months! I don't want to end up unloved, Bernard! I don't want to end up alone! I don't want to end up like you!" Silence, along with that terrible expression of hurt on Bernard's expressive face, the one Manny had seen before and had hated himself for months because he'd been the one put it there. Now he'd done it again. He sat back, looking down to emphasise his apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." "Yes, you did." There was a hint of self-pity and it made all the difference. Because back then, on the night of meltdown, there had been anger and pain and neither were things Bernard was used to dealing with. "I didn't. Look, Emma was a... a bitch. It's just... we both deserve more than this." "More than what?" "More than... every night sat here waiting for Fran to come round so that we can get takeaway. Sitting here... just getting older. Even Fran has dates!" "I don't want a date. I don't want love, not if that's what it means. Not if someone can take it and cut out your heart with it. It's nothing to be happy about, it's a weapon is love. It's hurtful, it's... destructive." Regarding Bernard, trying to put in his eyes the affection he'd always felt for him, Manny leaned forward again. Not aggressive this time but gentle. "It doesn't have to be." "But it is! No one will ever love me. I won't let them. And I don't want anyone loving you either." It might have sounded cruel, but the quieting of his tone, the lowering of his eyes, those things told Manny far more than the words actually said. The words were incidental now. They didn't translate to what they would have done if spoken by anybody else. "You don't want anyone to hurt me," he clarified, "and I don't want anyone else hurting you. So why don't we... not hurt each other?" Bernard looked up. Manny raised his eyebrows in question as if he was just asked whether it was Kung-Pow Chicken or King Prawn Chow Mein. "We could, I suppose." He conceded with a shrug, trying to pretend that the outcome of the conversation was as important to him as being asked if he wanted another cup of tea. "If you... want to." "I do, Bernard." Manny smiled softly. "I do." "Okay." With a quick, tiny smile, Bernard resumed his reading. Manny watched him for a while, not quite able to believe that he'd just... what? Asked Bernard out? Maybe he had. "Umm...." Bernard looked up, silently asking, 'what?'. "Dinner? Tomorrow night?" "Fine," and went back to his book. ~ Fran glanced at her watch and swung her legs from the desk. "I'm meeting Anna for coffee," she told Bernard, not knowing and not really caring if he was listening. He muttered something that might or might not have been an affirmative. "Later?" Then he did look up. "Can't. I have a date." Only once before had she heard those words in his lulling Irish accent and she'd dispensed with 'Kate' with ease, more out of peevish revenge than any dislike. And she wondered who this new-found love of his life was. Bernard tended to go in head-first and in the past they'd had to pull him out by his feet before he drowned. "Tell me everything," she instructed, elbows on the desk, happy to be late meeting Anna if it meant finding out who else was mad enough to risk being seen in public with the crazy Irishman. Bernard's dates were all too rare for her to pass up such a golden opportunity. But the way he was looking at her wasn't conducive to her finding out. "I'm not telling you anything. Go to your coffee meeting." "Not until you tell me. I'm not leaving until I have a description and a name if I have to sit here until she arrives or follow you to wherever you're meeting her." She knew that he knew that she was telling him the truth. Screw Anna. Her Latte could go cold for all Fran cared. Her life revolved around Bernard and Manny, any change in their lives was a change in hers. She would never forget the night of the party - the night of 'meltdown' as Manny always referred to it - and Rowena. There had been a wonderful simplicity to the proceedings. 9pm - party. 11pm - arrived back the shop, went nuts for a while. 11.20pm - Manny accused Bernard of being a heartless bastard and Bernard had retaliated with the story of Emma. 11.25pm - she'd told Manny that Emma wasn't actually dead and true to form, Manny had relayed the information to Bernard just as she'd asked him not to. 11.35pm - Rowena had turned up and after a few awkward moments, she and Manny had disappeared upstairs. 11.40pm - she'd fallen asleep on the couch, according to Emma later, Bernard had phoned her, made a terrible joke and hung up. Between that time and 4.30am when she'd woken up, desperate for the toilet, something had happened. Because Rowena had left and Manny and Bernard were both asleep at the kitchen table and although they denied it to this day, they'd definitely been touching more than was expected of two straight men. The details of what exactly had occurred were still a mystery, because both Bernard and Manny claimed they couldn't remember Bernard was still considering her threat not to leave. Then he put down his book. "All right. A compromise. You can have a description." She grinned. "Deal." "Long blond hair, blue eyes, round face." "Tall?" He considered that. "An inch or two shorter than me." "Job?" "Shop assistant," he added casually, "that's how we met, actually." Her mobile rung and she knew without having to fish it out of the bottom of her handbag that it was Anna. She gave in and got up. "I want to meet her." But his smug smile wasn't shifting. ~ It was one of those nights he knew he'd treasure always, no matter what happened. The restaurant he chose to take Bernard to was perfect - nothing posh, nothing special. An Indian on Russell Square. Not their local, not one they've ever been to before. Not one where they were known. They sat and talked about the shop, about customers, about Freddie's imminent release from a Vatican jail, and about Fran. Manny made a joke about how she wasn't the only one to go out with men who usually ended up with other men. And Bernard laughed. Really laughed. It was a sound Manny wanted to hear again and again. It was nothing short of miraculous, like the sun breaking through after months of dim cloud and rain. And his smile! Manny basked in it, keeping the jokes coming just to see it, digging down into a reserve of humour he'd never known himself capable of. They walked back the short distance to the shop, drunk on Cobra, arm in arm, weaving across the pavement, bumping into one another. "Is this for a long time, Manny?" Bernard asked him when they were half way home. Manny bumped his shoulder against Bernard's. "For a very long time," he replied with the absolute certainty of the inebriated. There didn't seem to be much else to say, so Manny slid his hand down Bernard's arm, pushed his fingers between the cold digits, and tucked both their hands into the large pocket of his winter coat. Bernard leaned into him deliberately for a few seconds without a word before righting himself as best he could. They reached the shop and Bernard did the traditional fumbling with the keys until Manny took them off him and unlocked the door. Stumbling inside in the darkness, they tripped over several small piles of books, falling into one another before crashing into the table in the centre of the shop. "You'll wake the... the things," Bernard grumbled, hands grasping Manny's arms. Manny's arms, in turn, had managed to wrap around Bernard in a very intimate way and the things that had bred from whatever was under Bernard's bed were almost the last things on his mind. So to speak. His thoughts were occupied with cataloguing the very physical differences between holding Bernard like this and holding, for example, Emma in the same way. Not that he didn't have previous experience. He did, but with other men. Not with the grouchy Irishman he shared his life with. For a moment he felt as if he'd been given access to something hitherto out of bounds. And then that feeling fled under the gentle, hesitant onslaught of Bernard's tongue clumsily finding its way into his mouth. Their first kiss wasn't anything that could be described as mind-blowing or Earth-shattering. But it was perfect in its own way. Half-standing, half-leaning on the books on the table, Manny's hand blindly finding purchase in Bernard's hair to hold him still long enough to trap his lips with his own. Bravely he worked his other hand under the thick woollen material of Bernard's heavy coat and around his waist, barely waiting a heartbeat before flicking his shirttails out of the way and settling against warm skin. Bernard moaned, the sound vibrating along his tongue into Manny's mouth. A second later, an ominous wooden creaking caught their attention and they managed to stand up on their own four feet just as the table collapsed away from them scattering books in all directions. "Bollocks." "Shit." "Whoops." "Bernard, we should..." "Sofa." "...clear this..." "Sofa!" "...up in the morning." There was nothing more convincing, Manny decided quickly, than Bernard's surprisingly nimble fingers working their way into his trousers. ~ "Morning!" Fran stepped into the shop and stopped, door slamming to behind her. "Awww...." Bernard and Manny were asleep on one another on the sofa. There were two sets of limbs, two torsos and two heads but she couldn't make out at first sight which bit belonged to who. The only parts she was sure about were the heads. They were pushed up against one of the arms of the sofa, Manny's forehead rested against the side of Bernard's. Definite snuggling had been involved. And more, if the position of at least one hand was anything to go by. Locking the door she pottered into the kitchen to make some tea. 'Long, blond hair' indeed. She'd have Bernard. It was ginger, not blond! She laughed when she remembered his quip about his new love being a shop assistant. Her fault for being dim, she supposed. Settling into Bernard's chair behind the desk she gazed at them as they slept and wondered what life was going to be like from now on, whether this would change anything. She decided not, after a while. Bernard would still abuse Manny mercilessly, Manny would still pester Bernard about the state of the shop. But with any luck they'd be waking and sleeping together. And things would maybe be a little less tense around the place. She smiled to herself happily and sat back to wait for them to wake. She was going to enjoy teasing them for at least the next ten years. |