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“I need to go home.”
Simon tears his gaze away from the television to look at Mark. “What are you talking about?”
“Was the sentence overly complicated for you, Simon? I have to go home.”
“Because you’ve been spending so much time there since you got back,” Simon says, turning back to the television. “Tell me, Mark, how much of your crap is in my flat? I’ll tell you, all of it. None of what you brought back from Amsterdam ever made it out of here. Your dirty socks are all over my floor, you eat all my fucking food, and when was the last time you didn’t sleep in my bed?”
“What’s your point?”
“Do you really think you’re living back at your childhood bedroom?” By the look on Mark’s face, he hasn’t really thought about it. Simon sighs, shifts on the couch and reaches for another slice of pizza. “Hate to break it to you, Rents, but you’ve been living here since you got back from Amsterdam.”
“Fuck off, I haven’t.”
“If it bothered me, I would’ve thrown you out,” Simon says around a mouthful of pizza. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m not living with you.”
“You kind of are.”
“I’m not fucking living with you,” Mark yells as he stands up, walking over to the kitchen and taking a beer out of the fridge.
Simon looks at the beer pointedly and raises an eyebrow. “Sure you’re not.”
“Shut up.”
“I really don’t understand the problem here, Mark,” Simon says. “Live here, live with your dad, I don’t fucking care.”
Taking a swig from the bottle of beer, Mark swallows it down and looks at Simon. “Last person I lived with, I married.”
That’s a whole other conversation Simon doesn’t want to have; he reaches for the pizza box lid and closes it. “Get divorced first,” he says, getting up and putting the box on the counter in the kitchen. “Then we’ll talk about you making me an honest man.”
“Cunt,” Mark says, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles, his freakout quelled for now.
“Ah,” Simon says, crowding Mark against the fridge and leaning in. “Such romance.”
*
It’s taken this long to get Simon on a rehab programme after the court decision. Hats off to Diane, the girl knew what she was doing in a court, ended up exactly how she told Mark it would end up. Fine all paid off, thanks to Mark’s redundancy package, and now all Simon has to do is stick it out with these non-residential meetings and he’s free and clear.
Fucking sad, is what it is. Group meetings full of life long junkies, like Spud, always one needle away from relapsing, forced to be in the programme because it’s either this or end up in Saughton. Simon hates it.
He was a junkie, but he was never as bad as this. Not in his mind. Amount of times he managed to kick the skag, he wasn’t ever like them. So he sits, he listens to these people, gets his name ticked off the list, and counts down until he’s fulfilled his requirements.
Simon is, actually, clean right now. Random piss tests means he can’t even have a snort if he wants, it’s a fucking nightmare. Every day he wakes up—Mark usually out running like a maniac—and reaches for something he can’t have unless he wants to end up in Saughton with a brassed off Begbie.
It gives him time to think which, as everyone who has ever known him would say, is fucking dangerous.
There’s a decent cafe no’ far from the meeting—Simon doesn’t go to the nearest one for fear he’ll bump into some of the people from the group—and after collecting his tea with a grin for the lass behind the counter, he sits outside and tries to work Mark out. It’s nothing new, he’s spent their whole fucking lives trying to understand Mark, trying to work out what makes him tick, to figure out why, after everything, he’s still so fucking drawn to him.
Gaze passing over people rushing around, Simon takes a sip of his tea. For all his years with and without Mark, Simon is no closer to working out what made Mark act like a fucking moron about living with Simon than he was last night. Commitment has never been Mark’s issue, if anything he’s the sap that gets laid once and falls in love until the next one comes along. Twat.
It says a lot, Simon thinks, that Mark didn’t even dismiss the idea of marrying him.
His phone rings before he can sink too far into that train of thought. “What?”
“Where are you?” Mark asks, slightly out of breath in that way he is when he’s heading back to the flat. “Forgot my keys.”
“Thought you weren’t living with me?”
“Fuck off, I need a shower.”
“Again,” Simon says, already standing up and walking off, tea in hand. “Thought you weren’t living with me.”
“Simon, come on, I’m sweating my balls off here.”
“Calm the fuck down, I’m coming,” Simon says, not speeding his pace at all. “If you didn’t sneak out before I wake up, you wouldn’t have this problem.”
“I don’t sneak.”
“You leave without waking me, what would you call it?”
Mark snorts down the line. “You want me to leave you love notes? Like ones you used to fob girls off with when you walked out on them? Wake you up for goodbye kisses?”
“Fuck off.”
“Just get here.”
The line goes dead, and just for that, Simon stops in to browse a bookstore before he heads home.
*
The days spent sitting around with Mark don’t seem to ever stop. Mark hasn’t moved any of the shite he brought back from Amsterdam, and Simon’s getting sick of tripping over it. “Would it be so hard to unpack your clothes?” he asks, rubbing his foot where he’s walked into Mark’s suitcase again.
“Yes.”
Rolling his eyes, Simon crashes onto the couch, glaring at Mark where he’s sorting through the dvd cases, trying to find something to watch. “We’re still not married if you stop acting like a backpacking teenager, oh, wait, you were a backpacking teenager, weren’t you? Nostalgic for your youth again?”
“How’s your bald patch?” Mark asks without looking at Simon. “Feel a chill on the back of your head?”
“Fuck off.” Simon unconsciously reaches up and touches his head. “Like you look any better.”
“Good enough for you.”
Simon can’t deny it, just lifts his mug of tea to his mouth and takes a sip. After a moment, Mark straightens up from the floor, abandoning the dvds, and turns around, looking at Simon. “Do you want me here?” Mark asks.
“Already told you, Rents. If I didn’t, I would’ve put you out on your arse.”
“I’ve got an interview,” Mark says as he sits down on the couch, slumping down until his shoulder is up against Simon’s arm. “A job.”
“Well I didn’t think it was with The Record. Good salary?”
“Good enough. It’s no’ far from here.”
Simon turns his head, noticing the way Mark’s avoiding meeting his eyes, is instead concentrating on flicking through the numerous channels on the television. “Does that mean you’re admitting you live with me?”
“Maybe.”
Turning away, Simon tries to keep the slight smile off his face. “Unpack your shite, then.”
*
Nothing changes, not really. Simon carries on going to the meetings, stays clean. Mark gets the job, starts bringing in an income, more than what the pub does at any rate. Mark’s socks mingle with Simon’s underwear, and his cheap t-shirts rub up against Simon’s designer shirts, it’s a strange kind of domesticity that Simon’s never experienced before.
He’s pretty fucking sure it should be a lot more of a pain than it actually is.
“What are we doing?” Mark asks one night when they’re in bed.
“I, Mark, am trying to sleep,” Simon responds, shifting slightly, enjoying the pull in his muscles from their earlier activities. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Isn’t that a silent activity?”
There’s a dip in the bed and then Mark’s on his stomach, resting on his elbows as he looks at Simon. “Are we just gonnae keep doing this forever?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Simon says. “Are you gonna take my money and run off again? Why do you want to talk about this now?”
“I don’t know.”
Simon huffs out a sigh and reaches over, yanking the drawer of the bedside table open. He rummages around one handed, closing his eyes when his fingers skate over the hotel key card he used to cut lines with, until finally his hand wraps around what he was looking for. “Here,” he says, shoving the item at Mark. “Maybe this will shut you up.”
“Simon, why are you giving me a ring?”
“Why the fuck do you think?” Simon rolls onto his side and closes his eyes. “Now shut up, I’m going to sleep.”
*
“You know I’m not even divorced, right?”
Simon looks up from his bowl of cereal. “What’s your point?”
“You know what my point is, Simon,” Mark says, fixing him with a glare before taking a sip of his coffee.
“Sign your fucking papers, then,” Simon says. “They’re on the counter.”
Simon doesn’t really know why he’s pushing this, marrying Mark. He’s never even thought about marriage before, not with anyone, let alone his asshole best friend. Partner. Maybe. In all things, he guesses. Crime, sex, heroin. He and Mark have done it all together.
“You really want to do this?” Mark asks, looking down at the papers.
“Apparently so.”
There’s a slight pause from Mark and, without looking at Simon, he flicks to the end of the pile and picks up a pen, scribbling his signature on them. “There,” he says, looking up. “It’s done.”
Simon raises his empty bowl in an imitation of a toast before lowering it to the table in front of him. “I’m thinking a June wedding.”
“Fuck off.”
“You don’t like June?”
“We’re not having a wedding,” Mark says, sitting on the couch next to Simon. “Waste of fucking money that we don’t have. Who would we invite? The girls at the sauna? Betty at the bar? Spud?”
“And here I thought you’d want to be a blushing bride.”
“I’m definitely not wearing white.”
“Mark, I don’t—scratch that, I do give a fuck what you wear, but the rest of it? Fuck it.”
“Romantic.”
Simon waves a hand in the air. “We’ll get a license, head down the registry, and go for a drink. It’s no one’s fucking business anyway.”
“Yeah,” Mark says, a note of surprise in his voice like he thought Simon would want some fancy do. “You’re right.”
“So file your fucking papers.”
*
They don’t talk about it after that. Simon waits for Mark to bring it up, but he never does even though he’s wearing the fucking ring. It skims over Simon’s skin when they fuck, catches the glint of the light when they’re watching tv and drinking, and Simon just wants Mark to say something, to fix a goddamn date for them to get this done.
Simon didn’t think he’d ever be impatient about getting married, but here he is, just waiting for his erstwhile partner to get with the goddamn script.
“You’ve been acting like a cunt for days,” Mark says in bed one night, passing the fag over to Simon.
“What’s your point?” Simon examines the burning end of the cigarette before taking a drag. “You want me to talk about my feelings?”
“Do you have to be such an arsehole all the time?”
Simon reaches over and stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray with slightly more vehemence than it deserves. “Don’t like it, you know where the door is.”
“Is that—” Mark pauses, turning on his side and looking at Simon. “Do you think I’m going to leave you?”
“Don’t be such a girl,” Simon sneers, turning his back on Mark and letting silence fall over them. “You’re wearing the ring,” he says after a while, when he realises Mark isn’t leaving.
“Am I not meant to be?”
“Not like you’ve done anything about it.”
“Simon.”
Simon closes his eyes and shifts on the bed, burrowing into the pillow. “Fuck off.”
There’s no verbal response from Mark, but just as Simon’s falling asleep there’s a press of lips to the back of his neck, and whisper of a promise Simon’s not sure he believes.
*
Five weeks later, they’ve got Spud over at the flat, he’s waving the final copy of his fucking book and Simon wants to smash it in his face. Ridiculous, is what it is, who the fuck is going to be interested in what their lives have been like, but Mark’s got some stupid idea of it being the thing keeping Spud sober, so Simon’s got to put a face on or risk losing blow jobs for a month.
“Whassat?” Spud asks, pointing at Simon’s hand.
“It’s a ring, Murphy,” Simon says, running his thumb over the tarnished silver. “Surely even you can see that?”
Mark rolls his eyes and puts a mug of tea in front of Spud. “We got married,” he says, glaring at Simon. “That’s all.”
It’s the funniest fucking thing to watch, Simon’s not going to make any bones about it; Spud’s face contorts into one expression after another, his mouth opening and closing before he smacks himself on the forehead and laughs. “That’s all?” he says in between gasps of breath. “You got yourselves hitched? The two of yous?”
“What of it?” Simon asks, a note of defensiveness in his voice and, fuck, who thought he’d be the one getting like this over their goddamn marriage.
Wiping his eyes, Spud shakes his head. “Got a new fucking book to write now, don’t I?”
And, fuck Simon’s entire fucking life.