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They both stand up, Paddy’s hands twitching about nervously, dad’s shoulders braced.
Robert considers, quite seriously, just going back out the door and walking directly into the sea. It’d be a long walk, probably, but no worse than this.
“Robert” Paddy says brightly. “Your dad's come to see you”
Robert can see that, so he doesn’t say anything.
“I’m just making sure you’re being looked after” dad says. He doesn’t sound like he’s bullshitting either, which is fairly impressive. He is wringing his hat into a tight ball though. Robert feels a bit like his heart is between those fists.
“Why?” he manages to sound impassive. Fist pump.
Dad’s face has gone a bit red. Not as red as Paddy’s. “You are still my son.”
Robert, who has never felt less like anybody's son, scoffs. “You punched me in the face.” He'd punched him in a lot of places.
Paddy looks a bit like he’d forgotten about that and it makes Robert’s insides squirm. It felt like good ammunition but he’d rather not have to keep bringing it up. He doesn't need the pity, but he's afraid it might be the only thing keeping him here. It's not a good feeling.
“Why don't we sit down,” Paddy suggests, scrambling to keep the scene together. “I'll put the kettle on.”
“He's not staying,” Robert tells him. Because if he is then Robert's not.
Dad's face is a blank wall. “Don't you think it's about time you stopped all this? You need to come home, Robert. This is ridiculous.”
Robert is ridiculous, is what he means.
“I can't” Robert says. He means to say that he wont and he wants to flinch about not being able to keep the truth on the inside where it belongs.
“Your sister misses you.”
That's a low blow.
“But you don't.”
Dad doesn't seem to have a lot to say about that. Shocking.
“I'd still be gay,” he says, even though he isn't, just to stick a knife in. “In your house.”
It's impressive that dad manages not to react really. Robert wonders, idly, if it's Paddy this performance is for or himself. Jack Sugden never did like to look to closely at himself. Robert learnt from the best.
“I'm not coming back,” he says.
He looks at Paddy, a prayer. He realises that he doesn’t actually know how far Paddy’s goodwill extends if Robert doesn’t genuinely have to be his problem. It's a strange thing to not have anywhere to belong.
Paddy looks back him, eyes big and wet and steady. Like he knows that's what Robert needs. “He can stay here for as long as he wants,” he tells dad. And he sounds sure about it, which is gratifying, makes Robert feel a tiny bit less pathetic.
Dad's mouth twists. Maybe he hadn't banked on anyone else giving a shit. “I’ll pay his board,” is what he says in the end. Like he's doing them all a favour.
“You don’t have to do that.”
But dad nods, like that's it sorted. “I’ll take care of it. The least I can do if you're putting him up.”
He waits for a second, like he's expecting Paddy to say thank you or something and Robert could honestly kiss him right on the mouth when Paddy just looks at him, blinking.
And then he’s gone. The rustle of that wax jacket, hat back on his head. And Robert, anchorless, bobbing in his wake.
He feels split open, all his raw nerves on show. All the worst parts of him that Paddy doesn't need to see.
Paddy's hand is heavy on his shoulder, just the two of them left in the kitchen, reeling.
If Robert's only barely managing not to cry, at least Paddy's good enough not to say anything about it.
:::
“He did what?” Aaron's pacing Robert's bedroom, furious on his behalf. It's quite nice.
Robert nods, lounges on the bed. He doesn't have to pretend he's fine now Aaron's here but Rome wasn't built in a day.
“What a twat,” Aaron says. His face is all screwed up like he's so offended he doesn't know how to express it. “I wish I'd been here to give him a piece my mind.”
“A thump, you mean.”
Aaron waves an arm. “Yes. He needs a good smack. What a fucking bellend,” he spits it, paces a bit more, muttering to himself.
Robert, who would really rather avoid any further violence at this point, is ashamed to find himself charmed.
“You're fit when you're annoyed,” he tells him, because he is and because he knows it'll make Aaron deflate. He still goes a bit funny when Robert says nice things to him. Robert hasn't decided yet if it's a habit he wants to break or not.
Aaron eyes him. “Don't change the subject.”
Ugh. “Why not? He came, he left, Paddy'll get some cash out of it. No big deal.”
“And you're fine are you?”
“Yes,” Robert says. “No. I don't know. I'm sick of thinking about it.”
He wishes, sometimes, that he still knew how to lie to Aaron.
Aaron still looks like he could go for a while longer, but seeing as the ranting isn't actually helping anything, is sort of making Robert feel worse the longer it goes on, he's relieved that Aaron lets himself be pulled down on to the bed.
Robert rolls on top of him to make sure he stays there.
“I know you have a vested interest in me being happy or whatever,” Robert says, holding on to him. “But can we please, just for ten minutes, stop taking about my bloody dad.”
Aaron rolls his eyes but he's cuddling Robert back at least and his hand is soft when it cards through Robert's limp, sad hair.
“I just want you to be ok,” Aaron says, all gruff, like that isn't as soft for Robert as the rest of him.
Robert presses their cheeks together, wonders how much of this he's going to have to endure before Aaron will let him have a little kiss.
“I will be, I promise.”
He will be.
:::
“He did what?”
Donna's outrage is different to Aaron's. Less bluster and somehow more deadly. Robert reminds himself, not for the first time, never to get on the wrong side of her.
“How dare he? After what he did to you, he thinks he can just show up and throw his money about.”
“Will you be quiet,” Robert hisses. They are in the cafe after all. He doesn't actually need Bob knowing all his business. It bad enough that Bob even knows his name.
“I don't understand how you're so calm about this,” she says. But it's at normal volume and she does pick her tea back up, so Robert'll take it.
“It's not a big deal,” Robert tells her, because lying to her is still very easy and if she tries to hold his hand again he might actually scream.
She huffs a bit, but she settles. “And what did your Aaron have to say about it then?”
Robert smirks at her. “It went quite a lot like this, actually. You're very similar personalities.”
She dribbles her mouthful of tea right back into her cup to squawk at him, because she's disgusting. “You're a knobhead. He's a knobhead. I can't believe I hang around with so many knobheads.”
“You love me.”
And she does, is the thing, it's bizarre.
“I tolerate you for all this excellent gossip. Speaking of which, did I tell you who Kelly's knocking off this week?”
Robert couldn't give a shit whose husband Kelly's shagging now, if he's honest, but it is nice that even if the earth has shifted out from under his feet, some things never change.
:::
It's warm in the barn today, the wettest spring on earth finally giving way to summer.
Robert sits in his chair. Opens his book.
:::
He feels better when he wanders back down to the village. Hours of peace and quite and his mum's handwriting in the margins settling him back into himself.
He must be feeling better because he's got eyes on the pub and he's wondering if his sad face and the reminder that he doesn't have a family would be enough to get a cheer up blow job out of Aaron.
Charity smiles at him as she bustles past. So she's heard then.
God, Robert hates this.
Of course Andy and Katie have to be in the playground, don't they? Pushing Vic on the swing even though she's old enough to do it herself and slobbering all over each other. It's enough to send his good mood up in a puff of smoke.
“Robert!” he hears, when he's almost managed to slink past. And then Vic's barreling into his knees, arms twined around his waist.
He cups the silky back of her head. It fits, fragile, in his palm.
“Robert,” Andy nods. He's got Katie's hand in his, knuckles white. She's not looking at him.
“Hello, brother,” Robert says, and then, “Little sister,” far more warmly. Vic still hasn't let go of him, sometimes it's like she knows.
“You alright? We were just taking Vic to the park.”
Vic tips her face up to look at him, little pale face and the pink of her cheeks. “Will you come too, Rob, please?”
Robert would rather walk into oncoming traffic, but seeing as there's only one other person on earth who has ever looked at him like that, he's sort of powerless to say no.
Which is sort of how he ends up pushing Vic on the swings himself, even though she doesn't need him to either, while Katie leans awkwardly against the post of it and Andy's over in the corner talking to Pete and definitely not avoiding him.
“How's your revision going?” Robert asks her, for lack of anything else to say.
“Fine.”
“Right.”
“Yours?”
“Yeah. Good. I've got geography and business on the same day, so.”
She's good enough to wince. “Not fun.”
“No.”
And there's the silence again. Vic flies through the air, laughing. Oblivious. Robert's sort of out of breath about it and glad of the distraction every time she falls back into his waiting hands.
“You're still at Paddy's,” Katie says. Not a question.
Robert nods. He giving nothing away, he's sure of that. “Best place for me, I reckon.”
She nods back, face creasing. “I am sorry, you know. About what happened. And I know Andy is too.”
“Please don't.”
“I'm just saying,” she sighs, waits while Vic asks him to stop the swing so she can run off to the climbing frame, put her hands on hips he wishes he didn't know the shape of. “I'm just saying. I do still care about you.”
Robert looks over her shoulder, past the sun bright glow of hair around her face to where Andy is laughing, one hand on the fence post, not a care in the world.
“Thanks,” he tells her, short, because she might be saying it but he doesn't think he can feel it any more. He thought he did, once.
She puts her hand on his arm and he pretends not to notice her checking that Andy isn't watching before she does it. “You're happy with Aaron, aren't you? You look happier.”
Robert puts his hand over hers, the bird-like softness of it, and tries to remember that, at her core, Katie is someone who used to spend time with him out of choice.
“Aaron's great,” he tells her, “We're very happy. And you and Andy seem...good?”
She pulls a face. “Yeah, course.”
“Oh god, what's he done now?”
“Nothing! It's just, you know, Andy.”
Robert does know. She wouldn't have let Robert get her knickers off quite as easily as she did if Andy was anything more than what he is. It doesn't quite feel like a victory these days though.
“Well I'm glad it's all worked out then,” he says. “Everyone's happy.”
And they share a look, the sort of look Robert doesn't think they're supposed to be sharing any more. Like they know each other too well to need to say anything else. Maybe they do.
Her face is quiet. “You said you love him.”
“I do. More than I know what to do with most of the time.”
She takes a breath, lashes fluttering and gives him a smile he probably hasn't earned. “I always knew he fancied you.”
A peace offering. He hasn't earned that either but he'll take it.
“He did, didn't he? He wont admit it.”
He can't remember the last time he made her laugh and it's a shame that that's the thing that has Andy making his way back over to them. It's a good job she's taken her hand back.
Andy's arm slithers over her shoulder like a snake, a fairly embarrassing stake of his territory, and he looks at his watch.
“Time to go?” Katie asks, and if Robert didn't know any better he'd be buying the love sick look on her face the way Andy obviously is. Smug prick.
Vic doesn't go without a fight of course, wrapped back in Robert's arms until he gives in and picks her up. She's getting too big for it really, legs dangling down past his knees.
“When are you coming home, Rob?” she asks, little hands on his shoulders and his mother's somber eyes. He wishes it didn't hurt him to look at her sometimes.
“I’m not. I can’t, Vic. But you can come and visit me at Paddy's whenever you like, we have movie nights.”
It's not the sort of offer he'd have made a couple of months ago, last week even, but it feels like it might crack him in two to upset her too much.
His bruises might have healed on the outside but Robert's starting to think that beat down might have rearranged the inside of him permanently.
Either that or he's finally growing up.
:::
Aaron lets him get away with being quiet for about the time it takes Paddy to get bored of them and shuffle off upstairs, then he pins him to the sofa with a look. It shouldn't work, on account of Aaron having crisp crumbs in his beard, but Robert's sort of weak for him at this point.
“I saw Vic today,” he says. “And Andy and Katie.”
Aaron's lip curls because he might be the only person on earth who hates Andy as much as Robert does. And probably because he'd quite like Katie to be a bloke so he could punch her.
“We went to the park,” Robert adds.
Aaron's face is appalled. “Why?”
Robert shrugs. “Vic asked.”
Paddy's settee is lumpy and Robert's only shifting about to get more comfortable. Not because he's shifty.
“And?” Aaron prompts.
“And what?”
Aaron gestures at Robert's...everything. “You've got that look. That, I've done something I shouldn't have look. So out with it.”
Honestly, Robert doesn't remember Aaron being this perceptive back when Robert was still pretending he didn't want to snog him.
“I haven't done anything,” he says, just to say it. “I talked to Katie a bit.”
“And you've got your guilty face on why, exactly?” Aaron's eyebrows are suspicious. His whole face, actually. Enough that Robert put a hand on his belly because it feels like they should be touching.
“I haven't, it was just weird. We were perfectly civil, I just. I don't know, I got a vibe. She was asking about you and it was weird, that's all. Nothing happened.”
Aaron doesn't relax at all so that didn't help.
Robert used to be able to squirm his way of situations like this, he's sure he did.
“I'm none of her fucking business,” Aaron's saying. “If she thinks she can just waltz back in and-”
“She doesn't,” Robert interrupts. “She knows how I feel about you. She's probably just gutted it's left her stuck with him.”
Aaron deflates a bit, and he finally wipes his face cleans so maybe Robert's on to something here. He drags him closer by the shoulder, kisses his cheek. “We're supposed to be working on trusting each other,” Robert reminds him.
“I trust you,” Aaron says, “I don't trust her. She's always had her claws in you. It used to dive me mad.”
This is new.
“Did it?”
Aaron glares at him. “Don't look so fucking happy about it. You weren't the one who had to sit there watching the pair of you sloping off together every chance you got. You used to look at her like-” he cuts himself off, like he didn't mean to say that. It's a shame, Robert's always liked being the one Aaron says things to.
“Like what? Like I look at you? I never,” he gets Aaron' by the chin so he can't keep looking down at his lap. “ever, looked at her the way I looked at you.”
Aaron looks like he wants to believe that, blue eyes and the stubborn pout of his lips, breath on Robert's face. “No?”
Robert strokes his cheek, thumb smoothing right down to the corner of his mouth. “No. Aaron. She never made me feel safe or loved or any of that. It wasn't anything like you and me.”
“I make you feel safe?” Aaron's hand is on Robert's leg now and Robert can see him, visibly, caving in on himself.
“You know you do.”
He holds Aaron's gaze, doesn't let either of them look away until Aaron's mouth quirks, that half smile Robert's been trying to win since he was six years old.
He knows.
:::
The barbecue had been Donna's idea. Which means, as the idea man, she's done fuck all to help set it up and is being of absolutely zero use now it's in full swing.
Robert doesn't actually mind turning sausages and drinking beer while half his year from school and the three townie mates Aaron has collected stumble about in Donna's garden, but he's not a massive fan of the way Aaron is currently sat on Donna's garden wall with Ross Barton and a box of Stella cans.
“Have I mentioned that time he broke my nose yet today?” he asks Donna, who is drinking pink wine straight out of the bottle and hovering around like a bad smell. She's a vegetarian this week and he's already been told off for using his sausage tongues to flip her Linda McCartney's.
She rolls her eyes. “Once or twice. I think it's nice that they're getting along.”
“I don't.”
That gets him an elbow in the side and he nearly drops a chicken drumstick. “Ross has apologised to you about four times, Robert. And you did try to shag his brother.”
“I didn't try to shag him!”
“Whatever. This is a good thing,” she slurps loudly, flutters her eyelashes. “We can go on double dates now.”
She's trying to annoy him, Robert realises. He never used to be this much of an easy touch.
“It's a good job I like you,” he says.
Donna slings an arm around him, squeezes him tight. “I love you too, knobhead.”
Robert sighs, shakes his head at Aaron when he catches his eye and frowns at the pair of them. He'd like it if Aaron came over here, pressed their shoulders together in front of all these people who know Robert by reputation alone, but he doesn't need a rescue.
He's happy enough to stay here, doling out of burgers while the shadows grow long and exchanging barbs with Donna.
He knows he'll get to be the one to drag Aaron's drunk arse back to the pub, maybe even tuck him into bed if Aaron's not too pissed for it.
He's fine.
He's happy enough.