Chapter Text
We Drink Tea and Chat
From the very beginning, I understood what I was getting into.
“I’m gay,” Baz said.
I mean, it wasn’t the first thing that he said. He sat down at our table first, and made all the proper courtesies. We were at Cinnamon Soho for Indian-style high tea, and we were already on our second and third cups of masala chai when he offered that casual revelation.
He looked impeccable, as always. He was wearing a heathered indigo wool coat that I coveted, and his shirt was the colour of wisteria blossoms.
Many things fell into place.
“Oh,” I said. I finished my cucumber chutney finger sandwich. “I am too.”
“So,” he said, “do you want to get married?”
I Did it for My Mother
It might sound strange, but I married Baz for my mother.
I was only twenty-six, but I couldn’t talk to my mother without her mentioning an engagement, wedding, or baby shower, and then giving me soulful, betrayed eyes.
Over the years, whenever she caught me doing something she hated - skipping ballet, smoking, shoplifting - she’d get overcome with all manner of mysterious illnesses. They just as mysteriously cleared up as soon as I fell in line. I think it’s part of why she married a doctor, so she’d always have a Rolodex of illnesses to call on.
But in the past year, her harping fell off. She’d grown thinner and quieter, ate even less than she usually did. She got tired more easily. She wasn’t going to as many parties.
I asked Dad about it one night, in his study, and he told me she was ill. Stage 3 breast cancer.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“You know how your mother is, Agatha.”
Which, to be fair, I did.
“How bad is it?”
My father is a good doctor. He doesn’t give false hope.
“Bad."
Baz Did it because of His Father
It was a bit different for Baz. For his father, hope sprang eternal, and he had taken to inviting random female guests from the Families whenever Baz visited.
“It’s a veritable conga line of socialites,” Baz said, scornful.
“Shall we swap, then?” I asked. “You can have my suitors, and I can have yours.”
“I’m sick of people,” he said. “I’d rather make time with a dragon.”
“I don’t want to have sex with you,” I said, coming back to the marriage thing. “And I don’t want children.”
Baz rolled his eyes. Even then, he still looked beautiful. Honestly, his good looks were such a waste with a personality like that. I suppose the same could’ve been said for me.
“Let me assure you, Wellbelove, that the sentiment is returned.”
“You’ll probably have to call me Agatha, if we’re going to get married.”
He looked pained. It was satisfying.
“Fine,” he said. “Agatha.”
Penelope Bunce is a Chaos Demon
We were set to be married in May. Our parents planned most of it. I was still busy with vet school, Baz with his PhD.
I did pick the dress, at least. Yards of ivory French tulle, silk organza flowers draped along the train, a v-neck that was just barely decent enough for a C of E wedding.
Baz sniped that Vera Wang was a safe, boring choice. I sniped back that if he wanted to share his opinions on a wedding dress, he could pick one out for himself, thank you very much.
But I did like Baz, otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to marry him. We got on in school, where I didn’t really get on with anyone. Penelope Bunce didn’t count; we were roommates, and she somehow never picked up on my many, many hints that I didn’t want to be friends.
We actually argued over whether to invite Penelope to the wedding. Baz wanted her there because they were in the same program of Obscure Political History That Only Twenty People in the World Care About. I think he also got a kick out of the idea of unleashing her on his more conservative family members.
I didn’t want Penelope there, because I was certain that she would add an element of chaos to an already farcical event.
Baz won in the end. But the joke was on him, because for her plus one, Penelope brought Simon Snow.
Baz Cares About Three Things
There were only three wedding things that Baz cared about enough to actually plan himself:
His clothes
His suit was lovely, pearl grey with a subtle sheen. His waistcoat was striped in two shades of silver-grey, and his tie was the very palest shade of rose, to match the organza flowers on my dress. His cuff links were in the shape of his family’s crest; they were the same cuff links his father had worn at his wedding.
Baz always had excellent taste in clothes. This was part of what cemented our friendship. That, and that we enjoyed going to the ballet and the symphony together and being better-dressed and better-looking than everyone else.
I know. We’re horrid. I wouldn’t want to be friends with us, either.
His ring
Baz chose an elegant wedding band in white gold. It had grooves along the top and bottom, a satiny finish, and four diamonds embedded at each of the cardinal directions.
My engagement and wedding rings were gorgeously simple: two interlocking twists of white gold with a solitaire diamond, framed by tiny chevrons of blue sapphires.
“A princess-cut diamond,” Baz remarked, when he saw my rings; he’d given me his credit card so I could buy them during my lunch break. “The cliches abound, Wellbelove.”
The cake
This last one surprised me, honestly. I didn’t think that Baz cared for dessert that much. But Penelope Bunce said that her flatmate Simon had just opened a bakery. Apparently he did gorgeous wedding cakes, and it would really help his business out if he scored a society wedding like ours.
Also, Penny said that she would pursue Baz like one of the hounds of hell until he went to Simon’s for a cake tasting.
Baz was still fuming about the tasting when we met up at his flat for dinner. We had takeaway from MotherMash, and Baz kept stabbing his steak and Stoutheart pie instead of eating it.
“I’ve never met such an idiot,” he said. “A bumbler. A fool. An absolute nightmare.”
“Okay,” I said. “We still have that list from my mother with three other bakeries.”
Baz whipped his head around to stare at me.
“No,” he said, loudly. Too loudly. He was oddly flushed. “I don’t care if I have to murder and then resurrect him - Simon Snow is making our wedding cake.”
Baz is Bad at Words
“What was so bad about this Simon Snow?” I asked Baz, as we were walking down to the car park.
“He was just.” Baz stopped. He didn't just stop talking, but walking as well. He made some kind of hand gesture that I think was meant to be cutting, but that I couldn’t understand. “He was so -”
I waited. It was rare for Baz to be this inarticulate.
“You have to see him to understand,” Baz blurted out.
I shrugged. “You can keep dealing with the cake, if you care that much.”
The Cake Becomes the Locus of Madness
The cake drove Baz to the brink of insanity.
He started scowling a lot more and eating one-handed during dinner, so he could shoot off texts to the mysterious Simon Snow. We went out for sushi one time, and Baz abandoned a piece of sashimi halfway through to actually call Simon Snow.
“Snow, I told you that my cousin Marcus has a coconut allergy. Find some vegan substitute other than coconut oil so that you don’t accidentally murder one of my family members, as much as I know that that would bring you delight!”
I stared at him as he hung up his mobile.
“Baz,” I said, carefully. “Do you think maybe the wedding stress is getting to you?”
“Hmm?” he said. He finished his sashimi and reached for a piece of inarizushi. “Not at all. Why would you say that?”
“Well,” I said. “It sounds like you just called the baker to leave him an incredibly unhinged voicemail.”
Baz just snorted. “Snow deserves it,” he said. And then, darkly: “He knows what he did.”
I Finally Meet Simon Snow
I met Simon Snow in the garden outside of the chapel where I was doubled over, trying not to have a panic attack.
It just hit me, I think, what I was doing. Getting married. Getting married to Baz.
“Hey there,” said someone. “Do you want some water?”
I looked up, and there was a man I’d never seen before, offering me a water bottle. Bronze curls, broad shoulders, broad nose. He was wearing an electric blue tuxedo jacket and an honest to goodness matching silk cummerbund as if he was a fan of The Wedding Singer.
“Do you have a flask?” I asked instead, and he tipped his head back and laughed. He had a nice laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he said, still looking merry. “I didn’t know it was going to be that kind of wedding.”
“A cigarette, then?”
“‘Fraid not. I know I smell like smoke, but it’s only because I borrowed this jacket from my Uncle Jamie.” He patted his chest. “Nah, no contraband. Sorry.”
I drew myself up. “You’ve no flask, and no cigarettes. You really weren’t prepared for this wedding at all.”
“I did bring spare fondant lilies and extra frosting, in case the cake needed touch ups.”
“You’re the baker,” I said. “Simon Snow.”
“One and the same,” he said. “And you’re Agatha Wellbelove. Or - soon to be Agatha Pitch.”
“No,” I said. “I’m keeping my name.”
“Ah, smart.” He lowered his voice. “Now, I don’t want to speak ill of your beloved. But if you wanted to do a runner, I wouldn’t stop you. In fact, I might even help.”
“And why would you do that?”
“Because I have talked with your fiance many times over the phone and over text. And - not to disparage your taste in men - he’s kind of a dick.”
I burst out laughing before I can help it. “He is!”
I felt gleeful saying it to someone else. Baz had been so cool and unaffected all week, which had made me feel even crazier. He could have had the decency to show at least a shred of hesitation or doubt or worry about getting married.
But.
But.
“But he’s also my friend,” I heard myself say. “And I made a promise. We made a promise to each other.”
Simon Snow looked back at me. He had an interesting face, rough and kind, dotted with freckles and moles. His nose looked like it'd been broken at least once.
“Friends are important,” he said. “Promises are important, too. And afterwards, if you make it through this - there’ll be cake.”
He offered me his arm. I took it, and we walked back to the chapel.
I asked, “Did Baz really demand that our cake be vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, and low-sugar?”
“And free of coconuts, too,” Simon said. “Because ‘coconuts are not a nut, Snow, and I don’t have time to talk you through the finer linguistic points of various tropical fruits’.”
I almost choked. His Baz impression was spot on.
“Don’t forget,” Simon said, “that the cake also had to be beautiful and photogenic.”
“We could’ve just ordered separate desserts for all the different dietary restrictions,” I said. “I don’t know why Baz was so hellbent on everybody being able to eat this cake.”
“Don’t you?” Simon asked. “He wanted it to be perfect, for you. For your wedding day.”
Baz doesn’t care about me that way, I wanted to say to Simon, but he had already delivered me back to the little waiting room that I’d been cloistered in, before I escaped to the garden.
“Thank you,” I said to Simon. “For the cake - and everything else.”
“Don’t say thank you until you’ve actually tried it,” he said. “And Agatha?”
“Yes?”
He gave me that smile again. “I’m rooting for you.”
The Cake is Delicious
Baz and I got married. Neither of us burst into flame for lying in a church about loving each other til death do us part, et cetera.
And afterwards, there was cake.
It really was very good cake. I stood by the cake with Simon, eating a second slice.
“What’s in this icing?” I marvelled. “Crack cocaine?”
“Close,” he said. “Silken tofu. And homemade vanilla.”
“I really hope that you overcharged us a ridiculous amount for this cake,” I told him, and I meant it. Most wedding cakes tasted like mediocrity covered in buttercream.
“I overcharged your husband,” he said. “So that feels pretty good.”
My husband - my husband - was at that moment being spun around the dance floor by Penelope Bunce. He looked very displeased by this turn of events.
I was considering eating a third slice when I saw Baz’s cousin Dev making a beeline for me, cutting across the dance floor. He looked flushed, his tie was undone, and he was clutching an empty tumbler.
“Eugh,” I said to Simon. “Dance with me.”
“All right,” he said, surprised. It was clear about two seconds in that he didn’t know how to dance, so I ended up leading. He didn’t seem to mind.
“This is a nice song,” he said. “Did you pick it, or did Baz?”
I listened for a minute. The Book of Love is long and boring / No one can lift the damn thing…
“Neither of us,” I said. “I think it was Baz’s Aunt Fiona.”
Speaking of Fiona, it looked like she had caught Dev by the ear and was giving him hell. Bless that woman.
Dancing with Simon was nice. I didn’t understand why Baz sneered whenever he talked about him; Simon seemed perfectly lovely to me.
“Don’t look,” Simon said, laughter brimming in his voice, “but I think your new husband is already jealous that you’re dancing with another man.”
Of course I had to look. Baz had stopped dead in the middle of the dance floor even though Penelope was trying to drag him into doing the hand jive, and he was glaring at us. At Simon. At me. Back at Simon.
Many things fell into place.
Baz and I Dance
Baz cut in. He was a much better dancer than Simon. For a minute or two, we just danced and listened to more of the Magnetic Fields:
I don’t believe in the sun
How could it shine down on everyone?
But never shine on me?
“I don’t know why Fiona thought 69 Love Songs was an appropriate choice for a wedding,” Baz said. “Maybe she just thought it would be funny to have something with 69 on the playlist.”
“Baz,” I asked, “do you have a crush on the baker?”
He stumbled.
“Of course not,” he lied.
We Eat Food and Study Together
After we got married, Penny started inviting us over for study nights at the flat she shared with Simon.
“Why didn’t you have us over before?” I asked, curious, as I took out my textbooks. Baz had an evening course, so I'd beat him to the flat, and Simon wasn’t home yet either.
“I was trying to keep Baz and Simon from meeting before,” she said, pushing up her glasses. “I thought they’d fight like cats and dogs. Now it’s too late and everyone knows each other, so I can be more efficient by combining my socialising and studying.”
“But they do fight like cats and dogs.”
“Not my problem,” she said, opening her laptop.
The door opened, and Baz and Simon came in together, carrying tote bags full of groceries, and clearly in the middle of an argument.
Simon broke off to call out, “Honey, I’m home!” and Penny waved her hand to acknowledge him, still not looking up from her laptop.
“You’re insane, Snow,” Baz said, as Simon put away groceries. “It’s just common sense to salt the eggplant then rinse it, to draw out the bitterness.”
“I’m telling you,” Simon said, shaking his head. “I’ve never bothered, and my lasagna’s always turned out fine. You can always add more salt to a sauce if you need, but you can’t take it away.”
“That’s just-”
“Get out of my kitchen,” Simon said, snapping a tea towel at him. “Go be swotty with Penny and your wife.”
Baz stalked over to the living room, still scowling. He threw himself into the worn brown armchair by the coffee table, as if it was a throne.
I touched his ankle. “Hey Baz.”
“Agatha,” he said. “Good day at the clinic?”
“Mm-hmm,” I said. “Looking forward to eating one of Simon’s home-cooked dinners. I earned it today.”
Penny looked up. “How come you and Agatha don’t have any cute pet names for each other?”
Baz turned his scowl on her. “We do. Our pet names are Baz and Agatha.”
“Boring,” Simon called, from the kitchen.
Baz sniffed. “Pet names are infantilizing. I’m not going to insult Agatha that way.”
“He’s just mad about that time I called him Tyrannus Rex,” Penelope said to me.
“When was this?”
“When I introduced him at a colloquium,” Penelope said, shameless, and I choked on a laugh. “Simon dared me to. I think it might be part of the conference proceedings now.”
I looked up at Baz. There was a faint ridge of colour across the tops of his cheekbones and across his long, crooked nose. It was a good look for him.
I understood a bit better why Baz was friends with Penelope and by extension, Simon. He needed people like them to take the piss out of him, to make him more human. He liked spending time with them, even though he would never admit it to me.
We got down to studying. I was still doing my coursework, catching up on readings for Veterinary Epidemiology. I should’ve asked Niamh Brody if she still had her notes from when she took this class, but she would probably just look at me with that hatchet-like face and say that I won’t learn the material properly unless I take my own notes. She was such a killjoy.
Penny and Baz were both working on their dissertations, occasionally reading bits out loud to each other and getting into increasingly nerdy arguments about the subaltern speaking and invisible knapsacks.
Simon rang an actual bell to signal a break for dinner. He’d arranged huge chunks of freshly baked garlic bread, cut at an angle, on a wooden cutting board, and there was a blue Le Creuset casserole dish filled with eggplant and lentil lasagna. He’d decanted a bottle of red wine and there was powdered sugar dusting his cheek, which meant that there would definitely be cannolis for dessert.
And Simon made sure it was all vegan for me, because he’s some kind of angel. Baz and I don’t bother cooking for each other; his favourite meal is steak, so rare it’s practically still bleeding on the plate.
“Are you sure you don’t want to marry me?” I asked Simon, after I took my first bite of eggplant lasagna. He laughed, his hands sloshing a bit as he poured some red wine into a jelly jar. “I’d leave Baz for you in a minute. Or rather, I’d leave Baz for this lasagna.”
“What God has joined, may none sunder – except for pasta,” Baz said. He took a lengthy sip of his wine and narrowed his eyes at me. Baz didn’t like it when I flirted with Simon, which is part of why I did it. He refused to admit he had a crush, and I had no idea why.
And anyway, Simon was fun to flirt with. I was married, so it was safe. I would’ve worried before about someone (usually men) getting weird and attached, or reading my disinterest and boredom as “playing hard to get.” Now I could just flash my rings, and get left alone.
And my mum was still over the moon. Though when we visited, I could see her visibly biting down on her tongue to stop herself from asking why I wasn't pregnant yet.
“Simon can’t get married until I defend my dissertation,” Penny said. “It’s very convenient having a wife while I’m in school.”
Simon laughed again, mock-outraged. “How’m I your wife, then?”
“It’s mostly food-related,” Penny said. “You make dinner,” she gestured to the spread before her, “and you pack lunches for me sometimes, and everyone loves it when I bring your baking to class.”
“That’s just bribery, Bunce,” Baz interjected. “You’re buying our professor’s favouritism with pastry.”
“From that description,” I said, “it sounds more like Simon is your mum than your wife.”
“Not my mum,” Penelope said.
“Nor mine,” I said. I don’t mention Baz’s mum or his stepmother, even though I do like Daphne an awful lot. We go riding together, at the club.
“Well,” I said, “this is a fine mess, isn’t it? I want Simon for a wife, but he’s already Penny’s. How do you think we should settle this, Baz?”
There was a muscle in Baz’s cheek that jumped when he was annoyed. He was usually so good at staying smooth-faced; it was satisfying to know when I succeeded in ticking him off.
“I think that Snow would make a terrible wife,” Baz said, and Simon made an offended noise. “He thinks that eggplants don’t need to be salted and rinsed. Ridiculous.”
“Hasn’t stopped you from enjoying that lasagna,” Simon said triumphantly, and Baz looked down at his empty plate, appalled.
Baz Resists and I Don’t Understand Why
Simon sent us home with half of the lasagna, a dozen cannolis - they were lemon, my favourite - and a kiss on my cheek. It was more to annoy Baz than anything else, though Simon was endearingly oblivious as to why it riled Baz up.
On the drive back to Islington, I asked Baz, “Why won’t you just ask Simon over for a film or something? I can leave the flat for an evening, sleep over at Penny’s.”
Baz stiffened like an offended cat. “I don’t need to dignify that with a response.”
“We didn’t promise to be faithful to each other,” I said, exasperated. “In fact, we explicitly promised that we would let each other do whatever we wanted, when it came to our sex lives. I don’t understand why you’re holding out.”
“It’s complicated,” Baz said, gripping the steering wheel.
“It’s really not.”
If Simon was into Baz, then yay, hurrah - Baz could explain how our marriage worked, and they could fool around or shag or whatever it was they wanted to do. If Simon wasn’t into Baz, then he’d be kind and straightforward about rejecting him, but he would stay our friend. He had to; I couldn’t imagine living without that lasagna.
And I thought Simon might actually be into Baz. He watched him a lot, especially when Baz had his hair down. He liked to fight with him, to challenge him. He seemed brighter, more vivid, when Baz was around. I’d definitely seen him check out Baz’s arse when he was wearing this one specific pair of dark jeans.
But I didn’t say any of that to Baz. It would feel like tattling on Simon. Spilling secrets that weren’t mine to spill.
“Should we bring something to your mother tomorrow, when we visit?” Baz asked, clearly trying to change the subject.
I wanted to keep fighting about Simon– or maybe not fight, but push. I’d never known Baz to give up on anything.
"Are you worried that he's straight?" I asked. "Baz, he was wearing a purple shirt that said Chaotic Bisexual."
"Which is ridiculous, because he's clearly Lawful Good," Baz said. And then, "It could've been Bunce's shirt. Snow treats all clothing as common property."
I scoffed. Sometimes, it was like Baz was determined to be unhappy.
“I don’t understand why we got married at all, then,” I said, “if you won’t take advantage of our situation to do what you really want.”
“Oh, and you are?” he sneered at me. Baz did love a good sneer. “Have you asked Niamh Brody to coffee lately?”
That stopped me. “What does that mean?”
“Niamh,” he said. “Brody.” And then he added, in that annoyingly superior way of his, “It’s obvious that you’re attracted to her.”
“I’m not attracted to Niamh,” I said.
Baz gave me a Look, with that eyebrow thing he knew that I hated.
“I’m not attracted to Niamh,” I said again.
I’m Not Attracted to Niamh Brody
Niamh Brody and I played on the lacrosse team together at school. I didn't keep in touch with her when she graduated; we weren't that close. She went right onto vet school, as if she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
I didn't have that kind of clarity. I went to uni in America for a year - Mum hated that. I left UCSB after Ginger left me, and went competitively into show jumping. That was a glorious time - travelling all over the world, competing at such a high calibre.
But after my fourth concussion, I had to re-think some things. I still wondered what my life would’ve been like if I had stayed on the competitive circuit. If I could’ve gone higher, if I could’ve qualified for the Olympics. If, if, if.
I came back home. Finished a degree, helped out at my father's clinic a bit. Niamh opened up an (animal) clinic next to my father's (human) clinic and I would lend a hand when she was short-staffed. And that made me consider vet school again.
I waffled, for a long time, over whether or not to apply. I knew how competitive it was to get in, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for the potential heartbreak of being rejected. I thought I'd pick Niamh's brain about it - a mistake, in hindsight - and all she'd said was, “If you want to do it, then do it. If you don’t want to, then don’t. Don’t waste time fussing about it when you could be adding items to your CV.”
Anyway, I was not attracted to Niamh. She had been much more tolerable to look at ever since she took my advice and cut her hair back like it was in school, but that was it.
Well - and there was this one time. I was assisting with a surgery on a Percheron yearling who’d been hit by a lorry, and there were unexpected complications. The yearling died before the anaesthesia wore off.
I went back to the clinic, and Niamh caught me crying in one of the exam rooms. “I’m just cleaning up,” I lied, scrubbing at my face.
“Sure,” she said, and she backed away. Actually walked backwards out of the room, like my tears might be contagious.
But later on, I found a package of Lotus Biscoff biscuits in my purse, the kind that I usually have at break time. So maybe Niamh Brody wasn’t completely terrible.
I Think About My Exes
I was still thinking about what Baz said as I’m getting ready for bed that night. We had separate bedrooms, of course. Lucy jumped into bed and curled up with me, and I stroked her long, silky ears.
Niamh wasn’t like any of the people I’ve been attracted to before. Real people, I mean, not celebrities, because she was a touch - just a touch - like Gwendoline Christie.
Sacha
There was Sacha, in high school. He taught me how to smoke cigarettes and kiss with tongue. I think I liked the cigarettes, and the way I looked smoking cigarettes, more than I actually liked being with him.
Minty
She wasn’t properly my ex, just one of those unrequited teenage loves that you never completely get over. She was so lush. I’m still haunted by the way that she looked in her mint-green bikini whenever we had pool parties at her house. She got a boyfriend in fifth year and I never got up the nerve to confess after that. We kissed once at a party, on a dare.
I would’ve kissed her without the dare. I would’ve kissed her without the party.
I don’t think she would’ve kissed me.
Ginger
I wanted to protect her, as if she was a baby. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to teach her how to throw a punch, how to see through bullshit, how to roar. I’m only good at one out of three of those things.
She got embroiled in some scheme with crystals that sounded like an MLM or a cult (same difference), and I couldn’t talk her out of it. She said she didn’t need someone with such negative energy trying to douse her light. I cried and ate too much Pinkberry to try and get over her; I filled up a whole stamp card the week she moved out.
I Think About Niamh Brody Again
Niamh wasn’t like any of them. She despised smoking. “Why give yourself cancer?” she said, the last time we went to a pub.
She didn’t own a bikini, though I knew she was a strong swimmer; I used to see her doing laps in the lake at school, even when it was freezing.
I was pretty sure she knew how to throw a punch, how to see through bullshit, how to roar.
Niamh Brody.
Niamh.
I am Attracted to Niamh Brody
I hated it when Baz was right.