Page 36 of Asking For a Friend

Mate? Happy to help? Does that mean they’re not boyfriends, that they were acting? Did Lando want me to think they were together? This is getting too messy. All I wanted to do was get them home without having to hang around for an Uber or a taxi.

The car is quiet for a long time. Connor breaks the silence. “You’ve got a great car, Hesketh.”

“Thank you, I like it too.”

More silence.

I turn into the road Connor told me he lived on. “Where’s your place, Connor?”

“It’s a bit farther down, number eighty-six.”

I carry on driving until he taps my shoulder. “This one.”

I come to a stop. He opens the back door at the same time Lando opens his. They’re both getting out. “Can you hold on a sec? I need to talk to Connor.”

He’s not going in with him? More proof that they’re just friends. I look down the street. Two houses away is a gap in the row of parked cars. “I’m double-parked, so I’ll wait over there.” I point to the spot. He nods and gets out.

Obviously, I can’t hear what they’re saying to each other, but I can watch them through the passenger side mirror. It looks like quite a heated discussion, both gesticulating with their hands. Then they hug. Connor walks to his door, and Lando jogs the twenty feet back to me. This time he slides into the passenger seat and, without looking at me, buckles his seat belt. “Thank you.”

“It’s not a problem.” I check over my shoulder and pull back out onto the street. The roads are mostly empty at this time of night. Only a few cabs are about. People all dressed up in party clothes walk along the pavement, but it’s not a clubby area, and they don’t stagger like noisy revellers.

“I’m sorry I shouted at you. It was a shock to see you in a place I wished I wasn’t. I should’ve realised why. I know what you do.” Lando sounds dejected, worn out. No wonder. Tonight has been a fucking mess.

“Thank you. I saw you when you first arrived. I should have put your names together. And I noticed your parents’ reaction. It wouldn’t have surprised me if you’d turned and walked out again. I think I may have.”

“We nearly did, but I wanted some answers. I also knew I wasn’t going to like them. You know, he called me that night I saw you in The King’s Head. He told me he was dying. That’s why I was trying to get out of the pub so quickly. I needed to get my head on straight. Connor was with me, but he stayed. He was on the pull.”

The segue gives me the perfect opportunity to apologise, but I have so many reasons to say sorry. I don’t know where to start. Instead, being the coward I am, I stay silent.

“My dad was trying to impress the people at our table. He wanted their business. He knew they were family orientated and wanted to use me to show his united family. It didn’t work.”

“How come?”

“One of the women recognised me, and the conversation moved away from my dad’s spiel on how good it would be to work together to me writing gay novels. He wasn’t happy about that.”

This sounds like something out of a TV drama, a Netflix tragedy people watch avidly, but sadly it’s only too real. “Is that when Connor spoke out?”

“Sort of. The dinner had ended. One of the couples has a son who has recently come out. They spoke of him so fondly, that they loved him regardless. The man said to my dad how proud he must be of me. Connor told the group this was the first time in ten years he’d seen me because my parents hadn’t reacted to my coming out as well as they had. My dad was livid, and the guy wasn’t happy he’d been lied to. My dad had told them we saw each other regularly. They retreated to his office. I think the contract he wanted has just flown away in the night air.”

“Ahh, that explains the shouting I heard coming from behind a closed door.”

“Connor isn’t my boyfriend.” Lando was quieter now. “We did it to embarrass my parents. Connor does drag every now and then and can pull out the camp gay like no one else I know.”

“Hence the matching outfits,” I say, a smile on my lips. “You look amazing, by the way.”

“Thank you. So do you. You suit a tux very well.”

Silence stretches between us again. I pull up outside Lando’s house, and he opens the door.

“I hope your boyfriend is still waiting up for you.” Then he’s gone, leaving my head reeling.

As he drives away, I curse myself for not speaking to him, for not at least finding out the truth about what I saw. Any chance we had has gone. He seems to struggle with what to say as much as I do. Now I feel I’m right back to square one, needing to grieve for all I lost, the life we lost because he thought it was okay to go on radio silence for two days and then embrace and be kissed by another man in broad daylight.

I’m sure he’s sorry, but is it because he got caught? I don’t think I’ll ever know. The press of a body against my legs draws me out of my musings. Flanaghan yowls by my feet. I scoop him up and open the door.

The shrill ring of my phone wakes me up from a deep sleep. When I got home, I dropped into bed, knackered from the stress of last night and the weeks before. God, I want to sleep for days, but I slap my hand over my bedside table until I find the source of the irritating noise.

“You’d better be dead or dying,” I mumble to whoever is on the other end.

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