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The music in Greg’s car came to a sudden halt, and Greg almost swore until he saw that it was because he was getting a phone call. “Ringing to tell me you miss me on the road?” he asked after he tapped to answer the call.
“Hilarious,” Ed Gamble said dryly. “But I’m not on tour this week, old man, which you would know if you ever went on any social media ever.”
“So then why are you ringing?” Greg asked, ignoring the dig at his age so that he could get one of his own in. “I thought your generation didn’t know how to make phone calls.”
“Again, hilarious,” Ed said. “You should really look into a career in comedy, mate.” He didn’t wait for Greg’s reply. “Since I’m not on tour this week, I wanted to see if you were up for a late night pint and some darts. Or just a pint, I’m not picky.”
Greg grinned. “So you did miss me,” he said, just a little smugly.
“Suppose now is a bad time to tell you how many other people I’ve already rang before getting to you.”
Greg barked a laugh. “Fuck off,” he said. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to dig even deeper into your contacts and make some other calls because I’m not in the city right now.”
He could practically hear Ed’s scowl through his car’s speakers. “What? Where are you?”
“At the moment, on the M25,” Greg said. “On my way—”
“To Chesham?” Ed supplied, still sounding like he was scowling. “Should’ve guessed. Bit late for Alex and Rachel to have you round.”
He didn’t saying it accusingly, but Greg still shifted uncomfortably. “Rachel’s out of town, if you must know,” he said, glancing in his rearview mirror before changing lanes. “So I decided to surprise Alex.”
Ed sighed. “I hate when you sound like that,” he complained, and Greg raised both eyebrows.
“Like what?”
“Happy,” Ed said sourly. “Makes it hard for me to take the piss out of you for driving an hour and a half to surprise your boyfriend.”
Greg pulled a face. “Don’t call him that,” he said.
Not because the term didn’t apply. He just hated to think of himself as 56 years old with a ‘boy’friend in his mid-40s.
“What shall I call him, then?” Ed asked, amusement clear in his voice. “Your lover? Partner? Fuckbuddy?”
Despite himself, Greg laughed. “Oh definitely that one, yeah,” he said, nodding, unable to stop his grin at the thought of the look on Alex’s face if ever he heard someone refer to him as Greg’s fuckbuddy. “If only because Alex would absolutely hate it.”
Ed made a retching nose. “You are disgustingly in love. You realise that, yeah?”
“Yep.”
Ed sighed again. “Fine,” he said. “Tell Alex I say hi.”
“And give Charlie my love,” Greg said. “Drinks the next time you’ve a free weekend?”
“Yeah, all right,” Ed said, though he sounded slightly cheered by the thought. “Bye bye.”
Greg jabbed his car’s touchscreen to end the call just in time to take the exit from the M25 towards Chesham. He settled back as his music started again, picking up from where it had left off.
It was, he thought in an idle sort of way, not unlike him and Alex and how they always managed to pick up right where they left off, no matter how much time passed due to their various commitments.
Christ, he really needed to get laid if he was thinking such sentimental horseshit about fucking Apple CarPlay.
Thankfully, it was only another quarter hour before he was finally at Alex’s house. Alex’s suspiciously dark house, with Alex’s car suspiciously missing as Greg parked.
He frowned up at the dark, seemingly empty building as he grabbed his bag from the boot. He hadn’t planned on needing it, but thankfully, he had brought his spare key, and he dug it out of his pocket as he made his way to the front door, letting himself in and dropping his bag on the floor of the hall. “Alex?” he called, closing the door behind him.
There was no answer.
His frown deepened as he wandered through the house, flipping on lights as he went. There was absolutely no sign of Alex, or any of his family. Even Loky was conspicuously absent.
Greg ended his search in the living room, where, as if on cue, his mobile rang. He softened when he saw Alex’s name on the screen. “Hey,” he said, holding his phone up to his ear.
“Hey,” Alex echoed, sounding tired. “Where are you?”
Greg snorted a dry, humourless laugh. “Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
Alex let out one of his little hums. “Well, I am currently sitting in your living room, where you currently are not.”
He sounded more curious than suspicious, which was one of many things that Greg loved about him. Ordinarily, one of the other things that he loved about Alex was his ability to surprise him.
This time, not so much. “Right,” he said, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Probably because I’m currently in your living room.”
A beat, then– “Ah,” Alex said, and Greg nodded.
“Yeah.”
He heard Alex sigh. “My Zoom meeting ended early, so I thought I’d pop into the city, surprise you,” Alex said, almost apologetically.
Greg nodded. “And since I had nothing on, I thought I’d come out to Chesham and surprise you.”
Alex didn’t quite laugh, but it was close. “Mm,” he said, and Greg could almost picture the smile that inevitably twitched at the corners of his mouth. “I suppose that’s what we both get for trying to be spontaneous.”
“Learned our lesson, I suppose,” Greg agreed. He hesitated. “So now what?”
There was another pause before both started at the same time. “I can drive back out—” Alex offered, while Greg quickly added, “I can head back to—”
They both broke off, each man laughing lightly, even if there wasn’t really anything all that funny about the situation. “Look,” Alex said, taking charge of the situation as he was wont to do, “why don’t we just sleep where we are and sort things out in the morning? It’s too late for either of us to be driving anywhere.”
Greg glanced automatically at his Apple Watch, pulling a face when he saw the time. “And you don’t think it’s weird for me to spend the night in your house while no one’s here?” he asked sceptically.
He could almost hear Alex shrug. “I don’t think it even scratches the surface of weird when it comes to us,” Alex said in a firm sort of way, and despite himself, Greg laughed.
“Fair play.” He paused. “Of course, this little arrangement is to your advantage, you realise. You’ll be asleep about ten seconds after we hang up.”
“That’s not true,” Alex protested, though Greg could hear the smile in his voice.
“Mate.”
Alex laughed lightly. “It’ll probably take me at least a minute,” he told Greg. “Possibly even two. Especially without you here to cuddle.”
Though Alex said it teasingly, it made something clench in Greg’s chest and he cleared his throat. “Well, I’m going to Goldilocks it, I think,” he said bracingly. “Try every bed in the house to see which is the most comfortable.”
Alex honked a laugh. “I can save you the trouble,” he said. “It’s Tom’s.”
“And how do you know that?” Greg asked, amused despite himself.
“Because I did the same thing last time I was home alone.”
Greg snorted a laugh and shook his head. “Christ,” he sighed fondly. “Well, fortunately for Tom, I’m not going to sleep in your teenage son’s bed, if that’s all the same to you. So which is more comfortable between your bed, the guest bed, and your in-laws;?”
“Your bed,” Alex said in the same tone he’d use to correct some stupid grammatical error Greg had made, and Greg frowned.
“Sorry?”
Alex cleared his throat. “You called it the guest bed,” he said. “It’s yours, really.”
He said it in an almost painfully off-hand sort of way, but the breath still caught in Greg’s throat at the thought. “I—”
“You’re the one who sleeps in it most, at least,” Alex hurried to add, and if Greg had been there with him, he’d’ve cut him off by kissing him until they were both breathless.
As it was, the only thing he could do was choke down the unexpected emotion and manage, his voice cracking despite his best efforts, “Right.”
“Anyway,” Alex continued, a little too quickly, “I’d wager my in-laws’ bed is the most comfortable, though I can’t imagine you sleeping in the garage.”
Greg laughed, even though it wasn’t really funny. “So your bed it is,” he said, mock-cheerfully, and Alex laughed lightly as well.
“Suppose so,” he said. “You may as well, anyway. I’ll be sleeping in your bed, after all.”
Greg almost joked about ordering Alex to sleep in his guest room, but maybe it was Alex being sweet before, or maybe it was just because Greg had planned on having the man in his arms by now, but instead what he said was, “Our bed.”
Alex was silent for a long moment before he told Greg, his voice low and sincere, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Greg said. Then, because he could hear how tired Alex was from his voice, he told him, “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Alex hummed lightly. “Goodnight, Greg.”
“Goodnight, my sweet boy.”
He hung up and sighed, glancing around the room at the overwhelming evidence of a life well-lived, a life he only tangentially fit into. Normally he took comfort in the chaos of the Horne household, and equally took relief in getting to leave Alex to the madness while he went home to his own, much more self-contained lunacy.
But that night, it just made him feel even lonelier as he walked the well trod corridor to the guest bedroom– to his bedroom. It did feel like it, in its own way, every corner of the room as familiar to Greg as his own bedroom, every bit of tat well-catalogued and mocked over the years.
As Greg perched on the edge of the bed, though, he knew that even if this room felt like his, even if it was his, he wouldn’t find any comfort in it tonight.
Because for all its familiarity, the thing that made it feel like home was Alex.
Alex, who was almost 40 miles away and almost assuredly fast asleep already. Alex, who’d been the whole reason for this trip to Chesham in the first place. Alex, who’d been so swamped with work and family commitments recently that Greg had barely gotten to see him, let alone to hold him in his arms while he drifted off to sleep.
As soon as the thought flitted across his mind, Greg knew that he wasn’t going to sleep that night. At least, not there. Not without Alex.
And if he wasn’t going to sleep anyway, there was really no reason to stick around until morning.
He was out the door not even 30 seconds later, though he did have to double back twice (the first time to piss, because he wasn’t an idiot; the second time to reset the alarm, because he was an idiot).
Then the only thing between him and Alex was 38 miles of motorway and a healthy disregard for the speed limit.
A little over an hour later, he parked by his flat. Exhaustion had hit halfway through the drive but by that point, there was nothing to do but push through it. Greg had always enjoyed driving at night anyway, had always taken a strange sort of comfort in passing cosy houses with everyone tucked up in bed.
And now there was only one person tucked in bed that he wanted to see.
He let himself into his flat as quietly as possible, not that it really mattered since Alex was a fairly heavy sleeper. Still, he stripped to his vest and pants in the corridor before finally cracking his bedroom door, his heart swelling at the sight of Alex curled up under his duvet.
The only bit of Alex that he could see sticking out from under the edge of the duvet was a bit of his knee, but it was enough to see that Alex had donned Greg’s pyjamas instead of his own, and judging by the fact that it was missing from its spot at the top of the bed, was cuddling Greg’s pillow in his sleep.
It was one of the most beautiful things Greg had ever seen.
Greg grinned as he padded over to the bed, lifting the duvet just enough to slide in next to Alex, reaching out to pull him close, wrapping an arm around his waist and holding him tightly. Alex let out a tiny, muffled noise of discontent before stirring enough to squirm into a more comfortable position against Greg.
After a long moment, Alex asked sleepily, “What’re you doing here?”
Greg kissed the top of his head. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said, which wasn’t entirely a lie.
Alex let out a little hum. “Suppose I shouldn’t be thankful for your insomnia,” he murmured, and Greg laughed lightly.
“No,” he agreed, “but it did come in handy this once.” He ran his fingers lightly down Alex’s side. “Are you going to give me my pillow back?” Alex made a small sound of disagreement, burrowing his head more firmly against Greg’s chest, and Greg laughed again. “Fine, then I’ll just use yours,” he said, tugging the other man’s pillow to his side of the bed. “Not like you need it anyway.”
Alex’s breath evened out and Greg sighed happily, stroking Alex’s back gently in time with his breathing, the rhythm enough to finally let him drift off to sleep. But before his eyes could close all the way, Alex shifted once more before murmuring, so softly that Greg almost didn’t hear him, “I love you.”
Greg didn’t think his heart had ever been so full. “I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”
Alex sighed contentedly. “Glad you’re home,” he mumbled before finally tipping back over the edge into sleep.
Still, Greg couldn’t help but bend down to kiss the top of his head once more. “Yeah,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “So’m I.”