Chapter Text
Chris raised his eyebrows, he smiled, he tried to take it in; the snappy closing sound of the box containing the ring Neil was showing him disturbing the silence. He was just surprised. Neil and his boyfriend had been together what, two years or something.
He knew it’d been going well but not that well.
When the engagement was confirmed, his second, internal reaction was: oh, a party, that’ll be fun. Seemed exciting, a bit of a novelty, the idea of it. Family and friends gathered for a different kind of special occasion.
Next, he took the emotional weight of it for Neil a bit more. He couldn’t believe he was actually getting married. Of course he was very aware that a few years ago that wouldn’t even be a possibility, and it was something Neil had thought for a long time would never be a part of his life, which added a layer of significance to it.
Soon enough, the thought of Neil getting married didn’t seem too surprising. Chris knew that Neil had a penchant for weddings. So was it that surprising that he’d decided to do this? Not really. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before this would happen. Slowly, the news settled with Chris as something that was bound to happen one day.
By the next week, Chris found himself forgetting about Neil's wedding. At irregular intervals however, he would remember the news Neil had told him, and in the middle of a songwriting session, completely out of context, he wanted to blurt out: so what made you want to marry him then?
He had to bite his tongue to suppress the question, but it was really annoying him. Because, why? He was just curious. What was so special about his current boyfriend, Mark. Was it that Neil wanted to get married right now ? Was it that Neil and Mark had talked about their future and realised they wanted the same thing? Was Neil just really in love with him? And, did he actually want to be with him forever?
Maybe the real question here was: did Chris really want to know the answer to any of these questions?
So you really love him then? Was the other question he wanted to ask, but the answer to that seemed more obvious than some of the other questions: why would Neil marry him if he didn’t. Nothing qualified him to ask this anyway, but the question was there; a childish need in his gut to ask it. Maybe he just wanted to hear the answer to finalise something in him; because he couldn’t quite square this wedding up to reality, and maybe he needed the sting of hearing “yes” to really feel it.
Well, all of Chris’s questions went unanswered.
Chris had cast the wedding out of his mind once again, until a text inviting him to Neil's engagement party dropped into his inbox. He felt some excitement to see friends and family at a nice restaurant; but, eyes lingering on the word ‘engagement’, he found himself thinking; so the marriage thing is really happening then? Like it took a real mental effort to accept it every time he was reminded of it.
//
The party was essentially a meal in a restaurant: a Georgian house in a leafy suburb with a long sprawling garden behind it. They were in a private room seated around a long table, no more than fifteen people in attendance.
The first thing that annoyed Chris was that Neil was too far from him for conversation across the rectangular dinner table, yet quite easily in his diagonal line of vision. That was fine though, he supposed. It wasn’t like they didn’t have enough time to talk to each other usually.
Neil was next to his fiancé, obviously, and it was strange for Chris to watch them given he had not seen them interact much as a couple before, not at length anyway. Sure, he’d talked to Neil's then-boyfriend a few times previously. He’d even been with Neil to the small art gallery where Mark worked as a curator for some exhibition opening, which was incidentally, the type of event where Neil had first met him. Because of course Neil would inquire about acquiring a painting for his collection and return with both a painting and a boyfriend.
When he’d arrived today Chris had uttered “congratulations” in Mark’s direction and barely met his eyes when he said it. Chris hoped he hadn’t noticed, and that he’d be too caught up in engagement-land to care that he would probably not be initiating much, if any, conversation with him today. Chris wasn’t in the mood to make conversation with people he didn’t really know. He was sure that Neil could explain to him that Chris is just a bit moody, it’s nothing personal.
Chris had plenty of people he knew well to chat to, which he busied himself with and it was easy enough to forget why they were all gathered here in the first place. That was until he heard Neil's laughter, ringing warm and sweet among the noise of chatter, and Chris’s eyes darted across to him immediately. He was close in conversation with Mark.
What, so Mark’s funny now? Chris thought with a surprising amount of venom. Didn’t know he had a personality.
Ok, that was unfair. He was being petty for no reason. Of course, he was sure that Mark was an interesting person from what he knew about him, from what Neil had told him. He was sure he must be interesting, clever, probably really nice. Why wouldn’t he be if Neil loved him? Didn’t that make this all worse? Maybe Chris just wanted someone to hate because; well, he just wanted to be bitter. It was fun to be bitter and resentful about loved-up people.
While he was looking in their direction, Chris took the chance to take in every detail of their body language: Neil tilting his head to say something to Mark, Mark’s smile, where Neil's hands were placed, smoothing out a napkin on the table, the way Neil looked at Mark. Chris took in as much as he could and then forced himself to look away.
People started standing up, walking round to say hi to others as they finished their main course. Chris started to to and fro between trying to engross himself in conversations with others, and in any pauses, craning his neck, looking around the room, searching for Neil. He wanted to know what he was doing, who he was talking to.
He supposed he wasn’t used to not having Neil's attention. When they were at industry events especially, it always felt like they faced everything together. It was like there was an invisible string between them, they reeled themselves out and came back to each other. Chris returned to Neil's gaze, back to murmur something or share a joke with him, and Neil's attention never seemed far from him. Maybe Chris hadn’t realised how much he usually enjoyed having it, nor how much he craved it when he lacked it.
Eventually, during his many stolen glances at Neil, Mark caught Chris’s eyes across the room, in a somewhat icy split second exchange. Chris averted his eyes immediately and avoided looking anywhere near their area for a while. Had Mark noticed how much he’d been staring at them? Oh god.
Chris wondered if this party was going as well as he’d like to claim it was, or whether everyone could see, Mark included, the emotions he was trying to keep a tight lid on, the ones that were threatening to engulf him.
He thought for a second about what Neil's fiancé might think of him. He wondered if Mark had ever asked Neil if anything had ever happened between them, and he wondered equally as much what Neil's answer would be. Probably something like: “oh, nothing significant”. Or maybe he’d just boil it down to “nothing”. Technically, it was true. They had only ever been each other’s friend. Technically. Just like, technically, he should be enjoying this party, and technically, he should not be feeling more desperately miserable every time he looked over at Neil and he wasn’t looking back at him.
Nothing, Chris thought, broken scenes filling his mind, as hazy as the smoke-filled nightclubs where it always started. Many, many years ago.
Neon lights slicing through the haze, his hands in Neil's hair, kissing with a desperation that betrayed his usual silence on the matter, clinging onto each other in some forgotten corner of the club, bassline thrumming through them. But only - only on a few selected nights when they’d been too drunk to care.
If kissing only happened on those nights, it had only ever gone further on a couple of the most disastrous ones. The sum of which was only the memory of Neil’s whispered apologies for being nervous, and how much he was trembling - like Chris had cut through his outer confidence and found only an abundance of insecurity and inexperience inside. Neither of them relaxed or sober enough to be any good at what they were doing, or to really enjoy it, or remember it, for that matter.
The following morning, Chris had woken up on Neil's bathroom floor, with a banging headache and the thought churning in his stomach: it shouldn’t have happened like that. But it never happened any other way.
Chris realigned his vision on the person in front of him, realising he had completely zoned out of a conversation with one of their ex-managers who they’d kept in touch with over the years. This really was not the time to dig those sorts of memories out of the archives, was it?
Chris sat back down at the table for a moment, feigning the need to check his phone for some reason, when he honestly couldn’t care less right now.
The next time he looked over at Neil, something hit him like a punch to the stomach. Neil was casually holding his fiancé’s hand on the table while they talked, brushing his thumb over his fingers. It was just unusual to see Neil acting like this, he supposed. And what were they talking about anyway? Wedding planning? Him? (No, they’re not talking about you. Get a grip, Lowe, he berated himself). He watched Neil’s hand cover Mark’s, locking their fingers together. Just another casual affectionate detail, but to Chris it felt like twisting the knife.
Chris looked away, tugging at the edge of his shirt, bemoaning one of his go-to smart casual garments, feeling hot and uncomfortable. It was fine, it was fine. He was just annoyed because Neil was all happy and he wasn’t. He could feel jealous of that couldn’t he?
It’s not like he’d been feeling alone. He was quite literally surrounded by friends, and he had actually been seeing someone recently. Neil had pointedly encouraged him to bring a plus one, but honestly, Chris couldn’t envision ever wanting to bring someone to an event like this. He didn’t want to introduce someone to all these people he knew, or to play out some happy couple showcase. It felt like yet another thing that most people seemed to have no problem doing, but that he felt uncomfortable with.
To be honest, he knew the deeper reason he hadn’t wanted to was that it felt like letting someone into his life in a way he was never comfortable with. He hated people trying to get close to him, even potential friends sometimes; his instinctual reaction was always to push people away. It felt to him like he needed some kind of earth-shattering initial connection with someone to even slightly alter the way he usually was. It had to be something strong enough to demolish the way he usually kept people at bay, and since finding that kind of connection was unfathomably rare, most would only ever see his deadpan exterior before he distanced himself.
Besides, now he was definitely glad he had not taken upon Neil's offer; the last thing he needed was someone to witness the way his mood was wavering and cracking like a creaky ship in a storm at this party.
Chris stood up and went to talk to someone else. The next time he looked over, Neil and Mark were gone. Chris scanned the room; it wasn’t that big, anyway. He looked out of the long glass doors, even out at the stairs descending down to the garden. Nothing.
He found them on the balcony. Neil had his arms around Mark, holding him close for a few seconds, before proceeding to start pointing things out in the landscape visible from there, one arm looped around Mark’s waist as he did so. It was just another brief moment of affection between them, and one Chris wasn’t meant to have seen, really, but he’d gone looking for them, which was already ringing about fifty alarm bells in his mind.
None of what he was seeing should really affect him but god, did it affect him. He could feel his whole “I’m totally ok with Neil's wedding” charade practically disintegrating in his hands.
Chris wanted to move but he felt rooted to the spot, unable to look away, his throat tight, battling a desperate urge to interrupt the scene somehow. Something about seeing them there made him want to smash the glass he was holding against the stone balcony ground; and no, it wasn’t that he wanted this wedding for himself, it wasn’t that he was feeling alone, it was just - Neil. Him. And the ocean of feelings he’d been doing just fine not addressing for years.
Chris walked out onto the steps leading down to the garden. He’d leave now if it wouldn’t be ridiculously strange and everyone would be wondering why. Neil would probably be offended, not that he’d given him a jot of attention the entire afternoon. He couldn’t leave, but he couldn’t muster any party conversation right now, and he didn’t want anyone to so much as look at him, so he descended the stairs to the garden, feeling like he needed the air. He needed to inhale deeply and calm down for a good few minutes.
Chris found an old vintage-style set of swings in the garden and, for want of another seat, sat in the swing as it moved back and forth gently. He looked up at the balcony, making sure no one could see him because he needed space alone.
Once the initial burst of jealous insanity was subsiding, Chris started to face that this ran way deeper than a rogue episode of childish jealousy. It felt too heavy and painful; it was also longing, it was heartbreak, it was regret.
It was strange, because he’d not really had a problem with Neil being in this relationship before the engagement. In fact, he always used to be one to encourage Neil to pursue a fling or a relationship with someone he liked, especially when they were younger and Neil was much more insecure and out of his comfort zone doing that. Since then it seemed to him that Neil had only ever increased in confidence in that regard.
At various times in their long history he’d encouraged Neil, he’d supported him, and he’d even enjoyed having distance from him. But was it a crime to just want Neil to come back to him, after all was said and done?
Chris knew that a lot of what he was feeling was related to the finality of the engagement; and the fact that it seemed to represent the end of the possibility of something happening between him and Neil. This was Chris facing the existence of a vague dream he hadn’t even dared to admit to himself that he had. That vision of them being together, one day, somehow. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been harbouring that dream; that he’d been guarding it so closely, and now he couldn’t bear to let it go. And he didn’t want to face the fact that Neil's vision didn’t match his.
The engagement felt like Neil had betrayed a promise they had never actually made.
Regret was swirling its way around his thoughts. Wanting to change something or maybe everything, to rewrite their story, to have dared to do so much that scared him.
You had your chance, he told himself as memories started to form shape in his mind. You had plenty of chances.
Some of these were memories best left forgotten, jagged and painful like shards of glass, but now they were flooding freely into his mind.
Him and Neil sat on the carpet in the King’s Road flat. The night Neil had reached to hold his hand, tentative and nervous, and the way Chris had pulled his hand away abruptly.
The “I’m sorry” from Neil, his voice sounding broken. “I just- I wanted to ask-”
The “don’t” he’d replied, sounding harsher than he’d intended.
The fear of acknowledging whatever was between them had almost flared through Chris’s body as anger. Don’t get all lovey-dovey with me, mate, he’d thought. Just because I got you off after some drunken night out once.
His body was tense with the possibility of Neil trying to press the subject again, but as the excruciating seconds passed, he realised he’d done enough to prevent that. Neil looked devastated enough, staring down at the carpet from behind his thick glasses.
Chris had been dreading the possibility of Neil asking about it. About what he felt for him, about what he wanted, about what - if anything - was going on between them, and other things he didn’t have the answers to. Chris wasn’t sure about anything concerning Neil, and he didn’t think telling him “I don’t know how I feel about you” left them any better than they were in that moment.
He hadn’t wanted Neil to ever try and ask him again, and in that he supposed he’d succeeded.
It was painful to think about now. Mostly because he wanted to apologize to that younger version of Neil and pull him closer, tell him he’d never felt the way he did about him about anyone before, but he still understood his past self. Falling in love with a man had not exactly felt like a helpful turn of events in his life.
Another memory stood out. Some years later, a sort of inversion of the earlier memory, at some celebrity-frequented club in the 90s.
Neil was sitting next to him in a corner of the club. It was late, and the sweet haze of drunkenness and maybe another substance taken with some of their fellow musician friends was starting to ebb, which was unfortunately the part of the night where the some of the feelings Chris had been trying so diligently to numb seemed to come into relief in even starker shapes than before.
His thigh was pressed to Neil’s, and Neil's hand resting on the plush seat had felt irresistible for him to latch onto. He’d wanted to feel the way he knew locking his fingers with Neil's would kickstart his heart racing. He’d wanted to properly kiss him, knowing it could make him feel something that any amount of partying could only try and emulate.
Neil had let the touch of his hand linger for a second before pulling his hand away.
“How drunk are you, Chris?” Neil looked startled, his eyes searching his face for answers. “Have you- taken something?”
“Oh my god, Neil. Why d’ya think I have to be intoxicated to want-”, Chris swallowed hard. To want you. Chris had held onto his arm, letting his forehead rest on Neil's shoulder, hoping Neil would draw him in, hoping he’d melt into their closeness, but he didn’t.
“I don’t know, past experience?” Neil retorted, shaking him off, albeit gently. “Don’t, ok?”
Chris sat back against the seat, trying not to look visibly stung by the rejection. Neil was sitting silently, clearly still brewing in his thoughts.
“Don’t you ever think about our career? Our friendship?” he asked.
Chris frowned. Was that what was bothering Neil? That if he wanted him it was somehow a show of carelessness for everything they’d built in their career? “So you think I don’t care about those things.”
“Certainly seems like it tonight, Chris.”
The bitterness in Neil’s tone was sharp. Chris matched it in his response. “Why are you always so unnecessarily disciplined about everything?” he asked.
“Why are you always so unnecessarily inconsiderate about everything?” Neil hit back.
Neil started to gather his jacket and stood up to leave, and Chris felt a sudden wave of desperation to make him stay. He couldn’t leave, he needed him; needed him just to stay by his side.
“Neil, wait”, Chris tried. “Please, just - stay.”
“I’d rather not”, Neil replied.
“I love you”, Chris breathed, before he’d even realised what he was saying. He felt like all the air left his lungs as he said it, even in his intoxicated state. It felt like the most vulnerable thing he could possibly say to him.
Instead of making him stay, it seemed to hit a nerve in Neil that angered him further.
“Don’t start with that”, Neil hissed. “Tell me when you’re sober, then maybe I’ll believe you.”
Neil left him. Chris had leaned back against the seat, eyes stinging with tears. Half hurt and half angry, before slowly sinking into the realization that he’d been acting like it was a night out in 1982, expecting Neil to kiss him back and pull him close whenever he felt like initiating it. But Neil had grown up and now he had to, too. It seemed to him that anything Neil had once felt for him was gone, leaving only bitterness and hurt that would always poison their words if they touched the subject.
He’d never tried to cross that line with him again.
So there it was, their grand love story. A collection of intoxicated or ill-executed attempts at being more than friends. So little had ever happened between them, and yet it was an internal saga that could fill volumes.
They were at a standstill, really. In Chris’s eyes, he’d been convinced that if he ever brought up any of that stuff from the past, it was just a sure-fire way to cause a painful argument between them and not much else. Chris reasoned that in Neil's eyes, he probably thought that if he brought the subject up, Chris would do what he’d always done: panic and run away.
So Chris knew all the reasons why they’d never talked about it. In many ways, it had often felt like it was for the best, the way things had turned out, and that was before he considered all the other fears that froze him up in those scattered moments where he wondered about it: How would we make it work? What if I push Neil away? What if I lose him? What if I’m not good enough for him?
The thought of him and Neil almost felt safer as an idyllic dream that could never be tarnished or broken. Of course he’s better off with someone like Mark, he reasoned; someone younger, who’s probably less riddled with scars and fears as you are.
And yet, he thought, despite his best efforts, he’d been unable to contain the intensity of what he’d felt today. The desperation of seeing something he needed slipping through his fingers, becoming unreachable.
Chris knew there was a depth of emotion in him that he felt was only for Neil. A certain closeness he wanted to reserve only for him. Neil could make him give up all his pretences and his defences. Creatively, he sometimes wondered how much he’d ever have explored his own songwriting abilities without Neil. Neil had always seemed to uncover new possibilities in him, he made him explore hidden depths of himself. Emotionally too, Neil had always made him feel things that were overwhelming, undefinable, sometimes. There was an incredible warmth to those feelings though, something he could completely lose himself in, if he allowed himself.
Chris wondered if he could convincingly argue with himself that he was not in love with him?
Chris was shocked out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps coming towards him, rustling garden leaves strewn on the grass.
It was his sister, Vicki, who was approaching him carrying a tall glass of something fizzy.
“Oh, great”, Chris complained. He really was not in the mood to talk right now.
“Nice to see you too,” she joked. “I brought you this”, she handed him the glass, which was stacked with ice and lemon slices, and sat in the matching swing beside his own. “Non alcoholic, because that’s probably for the best right now.”
“Thanks”, Chris offered, taking the glass and ignoring the last comment. He took a sip and set the glass down beside the swings.
Vicki started rocking back and forth in her swing and Chris copied her in his, and for a strange moment, it felt like they were kids again. Chris let the moment linger for as long as possible, knowing some inevitable comment or question was coming as to why, exactly, he’d ditched the party to go and sit alone in the garden.
At last, as the swings stilled, a comment landed: "You know, you could at least try and look happy for Neil.”
Chris hadn’t exactly been expecting that, but then again, he and his sister were close, and she didn’t usually waste time in getting to the point with him.
"I am happy for him", Chris tried anyway.
She stopped the swing and looked him dead in the eyes. "Liar.”
Chris looked back at her. His sister was looking at him with a I know you too well look, as if challenging him.
Chris sighed. “Why wouldn’t I be happy for Neil? I know he’s waited a long time for this. I know he really wants this.”
“Then why were you sitting there looking like it’s a funeral rather than the celebration of an upcoming wedding?”
Chris considered what exactly he wanted to share.
”I don’t know, Vic. Maybe it’s just-” he paused, thinking his words through. “There’s nothing like seeing two people happy like that to make you feel completely miserable, right?” He laughed softly, moving in the swing for a few pensive seconds. “I suppose it makes you wish things would’ve turned out differently.”
His sister considered his words. “There’s no reason you can’t have something like that yourself.”
“I don’t want to get married”, Chris countered.
“Ok, well, just being happy with someone. There’s no reason you can’t have that.”
“Are you sure about that?” Chris challenged.
“What makes you think you can’t?”
Chris gave her a weighted stare. He felt that she should know at least some of those reasons without him saying a word; she probably did, and was only waiting to see what he was willing to share.
Hearing no reply, Vicki eventually continued with: “Maybe it’s not too late.”
At that, Chris felt compelled to hit back with: “Seems a bit late to me, given the fact that Neil's getting married.”
“Oh,” the formation of a wry smile crept into her face, like a detective finding the suspect with the smoking gun. “So this is about Neil.”
Chris winced at the statement. “You know, I was just sitting here peacefully enjoying the view of this garden until you interrupted me.”
Vicki rolled her eyes. “God, Chris, is that what you mean or not? That you wish things had turned out differently between you and Neil?”
Chris averted his eyes and looked straight ahead, beginning to rock the swing again gently.
“Chris,” she insisted, firmly but gently. “If you can’t tell me, how are you going to tell him?”
“Tell him!” Chris laughed bitterly. “You’re funny. Did you miss the part about how Neil's getting married?”
Vicki did a face of exasperation towards the sky and stood up from the swing. “I don’t know, Chris,” she shrugged dramatically, “what do you want to do then? Just sulk about it?”
Chris frowned. “This isn’t some soap opera, Vicki. What do you want me to do? Go to his house in the pouring rain? Interrupt the wedding? Can you actually imagine how that would go? As I just mentioned, we know how much of a big deal this is for him; and you want me to just interrupt that suddenly and say, ‘Hey Neil, I know you’ve just found eternal happiness and everything, but I’ve just been thinking about my feelings for you, so do you mind calling it off?’ And all of this said to someone whose feelings towards me I don’t even know anymore, so what for? Just to completely ruin everything, upset Neil, and possibly end our friendship completely. Yeah Vic, that’s a great idea!”
Vicki crossed her arms and observed him for a moment. “Well”, she sighed, “so you want to just…leave it?”
“Basically, yeah. In a lot of ways, it’s better off this way.”
“Why?”
“Lots of reasons. First of all, Neil wants this” , Chris gestured at the building, “wants - I don’t know -”
“What, a wedding? Oh, that doesn’t matter.”
“Not just that. There’s many reasons it never happened for us. I don’t think I’m the right person for him anyway.”
Vicki looked incredulous. “What do you mean?”
“I dunno, I just- I don’t think he’d be happy with me.”
She huffed; “It’s funny you should say that, seeing as I think you could make Neil happier than anyone else in the world. I think you already do, actually.”
“Yeah? I think Mark would have something to say about that!”, Chris challenged. “Look, I can’t- ”, he paused. It felt too personal a thought to share, the feeling that he couldn’t love him, that he could never be the person he wanted to be for him. It felt like his flaws and fears had won the battle a long time ago. “I haven’t got anything to offer him. It’d never work, and I’d only ruin it. Honestly, I’m actually glad he’s getting married.”
Vicki paced up and down a few steps, deep in thought. She stopped. “You want to know what I really think, Chris?”
“Seems appropriate”, Chris answered.
“I think sometimes you just want to convince yourself of these things- oh I wouldn’t make Neil happy, oh I’d ruin it, oh it’s better like this, just because you’re scared, which is understandable, but it means you just create all these excuses for things you think you can’t do. And it’s like you just want to be able to say: ‘look at how miserable I am, everyone! ’, because, I don’t know- you don’t think you deserve to be happy, or you want to prove a point, or something. And I get that maybe you got attached to that way of thinking, but the thing is, you’re not going to get a prize for being unhappy.”
Chris looked at her over another long pause. “You don’t get a prize for being happy either,” he answered, more as an observation than anything.
“Yeah,” Vicki considered, “but you could be with someone you love. Isn’t that the same thing?”
Chris didn’t have an answer to that. He wasn’t about to argue with any of what she’d said; he simply sighed: “doesn’t change the fact that Neil's in love with someone else.”
“I know,” she answered softly. “And I’m not asking you to interrupt the wedding, as exciting as that’d be, but if you get a chance one day, to be happy with Neil, or with someone else: promise me you’ll actually take it?”
Chris opened his mouth and closed it. The time he had to find an answer to that was cut short because he could hear a familiar voice calling them from far down the garden path.
Both of them turned around to see Neil making his way down the path towards them. “There you both are”, he was saying.
Chris jumped up from the swing and turned to face him. As Neil reached them, both him and his sister straightened their backs and stood silently, looking like they’d just been caught committing a crime.
They both looked so startled that Neil was forced to ask: “is everything alright?”
“Yeah, fine”, Vicki insisted quickly.
“Never been better”, Chris added; and Vicki shot him a stern look.
“Well we’ve got desserts and speeches in a minute, so let’s go back in.”
“Didn’t realise it was already the wedding”, Chris deadpanned.
“Oh, by speeches I mean it’s just me thanking you all for coming, that’s all”, Neil smiled. “By the way”, he added, looking delightedly at the surrounding garden and building. “What do you think of this place? It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, great choice”, Vicki agreed, and Chris nodded.
“You know”, Neil lowered his voice; “Mark doesn’t know this, so keep it to yourselves (it’s not like I talk to him anyway, thought Chris), but for our honeymoon we’re actually going to a place with a garden like this. It’s actually a renovated château in France.”
“That sounds lovely, Neil", Vicki smiled.
“You’ve already booked the honeymoon?”, was Chris’s response, and Vicki looked at him as if to say just say something nice, for god’s sake.
Chris ignored her. He was just panicking, he supposed, wondering how much of this he’d be forced to endure. Neil was in the background saying something along the lines of “well, of course I’ve booked it, Chris…”, while Chris felt a pang of guilt for having just been vaguely entertaining the idea of trying to end Neil's wedding plans, when Neil seemed so delighted and excited about the whole thing.
Chris exhaled deeply as they went back into their room in the restaurant. He’d better get used to this. This was merely practice for the fucking wedding day.
Chris sat at the table, stirring his coffee, hand poised to choose between a selection of chocolates that had been left post-dessert. He chose a chocolate, feeling the sweetness melt pleasantly in the aftermath of the coffee, and sat back in his chair, arms crossed and brow furrowed. It was so difficult to tear his eyes away from Neil, and Mark, for that matter, seeing as Neil continued to need some kind of permanent physical connection with him, apparently. Now Neil was sitting sideways in his chair, his arm resting on the back of Mark’s chair, fingers skimming his shoulder, talking to one of his relatives over Mark, who was smiling at whatever Neil was saying.
Chris was fixated on the placement of Neil's hands and the whole spectacle in general. People were starting to leave the party, and Chris felt like his heart had been cracked open and he didn’t think he’d be able to fit all the things he’d been thinking back into it again.
Neil’s eyes had met Chris’s across the table by this point, Neil’s face a picture of contentment, eyes practically shimmering with it. Chris managed a small smile and looked away. He wanted to tell himself that he could never be the one by Neil’s side. That even if he wasn’t getting married, he could have a hundred chances to tell Neil how he was feeling and he’d stay silent for every single one. It was so easy and tempting to repeat those thoughts endlessly. However, his sister’s words were reverberating in his mind, about making excuses for things he didn’t think he could do, and it was sort of stopping him from slipping into those old spirals - or at least, it was making him start to question them.
If Chris knew anything, as the party ended and as he hugged Neil with a heightened tenseness before leaving, was that he had a lot - a vast depth of feelings and problems - to think about.