Sideswiped


"Why?"

Richard closed the front door to James' home and leaned against it, hand still on the knob pressed into the small of his back. The question was a continuation from the conversation - if it could be called that - they'd had in car on the way back from Dunsfold.

James flicked on the lights as he crossed the polished wooden boards of his hall and dumped his coat over the stair railings at the other end. Taking the first step he said, "Because."

"Because what?"

He turned his head, "Because I didn't want to do it in front of all those people. Lock the door, would you?"

"No. Not until you tell me why you didn't want to do it in front of all those people. Jeremy was happy to - more than happy to."

Rolling his eyes, James dropped his foot back to the wooden boards and walked back towards the door, reaching around his friend to slide the bolt home and turn the lock.

"Why?"

James glanced at Richard, his breathing catching, chest hitching, and now that there weren't several million pairs of eyes on them, he wrapped his arms around Richard, grabbed him and hugged him. He was crying before he realised that he was, feeling Richard's arms around him, heard soft words of comfort murmured into his shirt and knew that at some stage he had to let them mean something, had to let Richard's living, breathing presence chase away the cold feeling he kept experiencing whenever he thought too hard about… it. Whenever he thought back to the phone call.

Eventually his frantic sobbing eased and with tears still sliding over his face he let go, stepped back, watched Richard's arms fall from his waist rather than look at his face.

"It's okay, James. I know, and I understand, I really do."

He nodded once with absolutely no conviction, muttered something about cleaning up, and locked himself in the downstairs toilet for a couple of minutes, listening to the sound of Richard locking the door and walking through into the lounge, hesitating before he sat down. Running his hands under the cold tap, James splashed his face, wiped his eyes, and for a few long moments he stared at his own face in the mirror as if he didn't recognise the reflection staring back at him.

"Pull yourself together, man," he ordered himself, knowing it was pointless. Unlocking the door he stepped around into the lounge and set his eyes on Richard, sitting side-on on the sofa, one arm hooked across the back cushion, one leg folded under him. "Sorry."

"For what?"

James pointed back tentatively into the hall. "That. Back there."

"Don't apologise." There was no mocking in the big brown eyes just that hint of sorrow he'd seen there before. Listen, mate, I know coming from me this is going to sound unusual but please talk to me."

With a deep breath he plonked himself down in the opposite corner of the couch and pushed his fingers through his hair. "I can't. Not yet."

"James… it's been six months, over six months."

"Right, and as the sensitive one I'm supposed to want to talk, right?"

"You burst into tears on me in your hallway."

"And Jeremy? Let me guess, Mr Huggy not only spilt in every national newspaper he opened his heart to you over eight pints…."

"Actually Macho Man chose to deal with his feelings by taking his mid-life crisis sports car out on the country roads around his home and burying it in a ditch."

James' eyes widened and the corner of his mouth turned up. "You're serious?"

"Absolutely."

"What did the AA man say when he called to get it pulled out?"

Richard laughed. "Probably told him what a hideous colour it is."

~

"That is a really hideous colour." Jeremy, sitting on the back of the low-loader, nodded his agreement. "Why did you buy one this colour?"

"It was a dare. And then… I forgot I'd ordered it."

"How do you forget you've ordered a Lamborghini?"

Something happens, he thought to himself, something that turns your life, your whole world, upside down. And by the time everything's okay again a new car's become the least important thing you can think of. And then you get a phone call saying it's ready for you, and you realise you've spent a small fortune on a car your mates dared you to buy in the worst colours they could think of….

"You do know this is gonna cost you a ton of money to fix, don't you? You'd have been all right if it hadn't been for the metal gate…."

"I don't care. This is… the most important car I own."

The AA man looked up at him as if he'd lost his mind and right at that moment he thought maybe he had.

~


to be continued....