Page 31 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Because after breakfast and after Aaron had called in sick to his campus shop job, he was back wearing Kenny’s old joggers and tee and padding barefoot over to the piano in the dining room. Kenny had to halt his clearing up when soft, tentative notes drifted through the house as he was, once again, given a stark reminder of the anomaly that was Aaron Jones. The way he played his mother’s old piano, not taunting this time, nor just tinkering, butplaying, soulful, gifted, made Kenny stop in his tracks to watch Aaron’s fingers gliding over the keys with hypnotic precision. Kenny didn’t move, didn’tbreathe, just watched Aaron disappear into the depths of his soul, and the melody carried a naivety with it. An ache. Because it was good.

If Aaron had a different life, brought up and surrounded by love and affection, if he’d had people to nurture him and this talent, he wouldn’t be scraping the barrel, trying to survive. He’d beremarkable.

Kenny realised right then that to him, he already was.

Oblivious to his audience, Aaron transitioned from a classic into something more modern and it took a while for Kenny to grasp what it was, but when he did, his eyes pinched.Stay WithMeby Sam Smith. Beautiful. Heartfelt. So damntragic. And Aaron seemed to dive into the music, body fluid with the melody, and when he stopped, allowing the last note to fade and die, it was as though he startled himself with the silence.

“You play beautifully,” Kenny said.

Aaron tucked his hands between his legs. A sheepish shrug, modest and almost embarrassed. “It’s muscle memory.”

“No, it’s more than that. It’s talent.”

Aaron smiled bashfully, as if he’d never had a compliment like it before. Then he glanced down, the sudden realisation of how he’d received that talent reminding him who he was and what he could never escape. Either of them. So he tapped a few random keys. “Needs tuning.”

“Can you do that?”

“No. Surely you’ll know someone from the uni who can?”

“Maybe. I sort of like it out of tune, though.”

Aaron furrowed his brow.

“Reminds me of Jessica. My sister. Mum taught her. She was on her grade six when she…” He didn’t finish that sentence. “She wasn’t as good as you, though.”

Aaron smiled, but the moment had to end there with Kenny returning to his obsessive cleaning, having had to cancel the usual agency he paid to do that for him while Aaron was here, and Aaron locked himself in the bathroom for a while, the power shower whooshing into life. But the day went on much like that. Easy. Comfortable. With Kenny ordering groceries online for delivery, so they could both tackle a roast together while Aaron put the old jukebox in the corner on shuffle, peeling vegetables whilst humming to old sixties and seventies classics from Kenny’s eclectic mix. Kenny couldn’t fathom how Aaron knew them. But his gentle swaying, tiny dancing, with a wink and a smile, had Kenny almost falling to his knees.

What started as an attraction based on lust had mergedeffortlessly into this. And Kenny couldn’t stop it. He’d said before, if he let Aaron back into this house, he might not let him leave.

He didn’t want him to.

Which was why, by the time Sunday evening arrived with darkness creeping in through the windows, Kenny still hadn’t suggested taking Aaron back to campus. Instead, they once again found themselves sprawled in the living room, Aaron stretched out across the sofa, legs draped over Kenny’s lap as Kenny balanced his laptop on the armrest and spread out the notes from Jack’s file on the floor, over Aaron’s legs, and the coffee table while Aaron half-watched a quiz show, shouting the answers with smug confidence.

“Florence!” Aaron gestured to the TV, theUniversity Challengehost having asked Oxford’s finest which Italian city is home to the Uffizi Gallery, one of the most famous art museums in the world. “Seriously, fucking hell. Even I know that, and I don’t do art. This numpty’sreading art history!” He poshed up his voice to deliver the last line.

Kenny peeked up from the headache inducing notes of Connie Bishop’s last moments alive and drank in the way Aaron squished his face into the cushion, eyes on the television, platinum blond hair tufty from the lack of products he usually used and how it caught the dim glow of the tall lamp behind him, making him almost angelic.Beautiful. Kenny’s heart ached.This. This was what he wanted. Quiet closeness. A sense of belonging. Thisnormality.

But he couldn’t have it with Aaron.

“You ever been to Florence?” Aaron wiggled his bare toes to snap Kenny from his trance, the paper transcript of Connie’s friend’s interview falling to the floor.

He grabbed the pages, then clenched his hand around Aaron’s foot to stop him waggling it. “Yes.”

“Ow.” Aaron ripped his leg away, then dumped it back on Kenny’s lap. “Yeah? When?”

“Long time ago.” Kenny tucked his glasses back up his nose to scroll through the toxicology report Chong had emailed him on his laptop.

“With whom?” Aaron tucked a hand behind his head, eyes wide with that faux innocence Kenny could see right through.

“Jack.”

Aaron scrunched up his nose. “DI Bellend?”

Kenny ignored him to return to his notes.

“Can’t imagine what that stiff’s like between the sheets.” Aaron wiggled his bare toes again. Desperate for a reaction. Probably wanting Kenny to touch him again. So he didn’t. “What’s he like? Does he have to read you your rights before he lets you come?”

Kenny slipped off his glasses, pointing one arm at the bookcase in the corner. “See that book over there? Bottom shelf. Big one. Yay thick.” He gestured the thickness of the textbook with his hands. “Blue.”

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