Page 64 of Maybe
Oh lord, already I was going to have to explain gay people. To an inquisitive ten-year-old. Exactly how unprepared was I for this conversation? Fully aware my cheeks were turning scarlet, I sucked in a deep breath.
“I… um… I slept in here too?”
Jonty tutted. “I know that, silly. I meant which side of the bed?”
The breath left me in a deep whoosh. “Th-this side.” I pointed to the left, and he gave me a triumphant look straight out of his father’s playbook.
“I guessed. Daddy stole the pillows. As usual.”
While Jonty was testing out the springs, the pillow thief himself appeared in the doorway. A minute later than ideal but thank fuck anyway.
“Daddy?” Jonty cocked his head, frowning. “If I have a baby brother, will I have to share a bed with him when I stay at Mummy’s?”
Ezra shook his head. “Nah, not for a while. He’ll be too small. Don’t want to roll over in the middle of the night and squash him.” He grinned. “And he’ll poo in his nappy, mate. You won’t want to wake up to that.”
“Yuck, no.” Jonty pulled a face. “I don’t want that in my bed. Perhaps I’ll wait until he’s older before I invite him over to ours for a sleepover.” His sharp, Ezra-like gaze switched between the two of us. “Not as old as you two waited. I saw you kissing yesterday, in the kitchen.” For a second, he seemed uneasy. “On the lips. Is it okay for brothers to do that?”
The bottom dropped out of my world. Ezra, however, hardly missed a beat. “They don’t normally. But the thing is, buddy, although Isaac’s my brother, his mummy and daddy are different to mine. Granny was once married to Isaac’s daddy.After she died, we grew up in the same house, and Isaac’s mummy—Janice—and Daddy looked after me.” His lip curled in contempt. “Sort of. But you and your new brother have the same mummy, so you’ll be like you and Freya.”
“I’d never kiss her on the lips. That’s yucky too. I don’t even like holding her hand; Mummy always makes me when we cross the road outside their house.”
“Exactly.” Ezra’s eyes flicked to mine, no doubt sensing my sigh of relief. “So it’s okay for me to kiss a brother like Isaac, whose parents aren’t my parents. How we want to be with each other can take on any size or shape.”
Chewing his lip, Jonty fondled the corner of the duvet as his growing brain absorbed yet another layer of complexity known as modern family life. Then, with a precise nod as if he’d cleared a few things up, he lifted his dark head. The mischievous grin spreading across his gap-toothed face was as blessedly bright as the morning sunshine.
“Can it be a big hexagon?”
CHAPTER 24
EZRA
As predicted, Jonty loved Isaac’s flat. He’d never slept in a place so nice. He moved from room to room, examining everything, always asking Isaac lots of questions, like how close he lived to Buckingham Palace and whether any famous footballers lived in the same block. As though inspecting the cleaner’s dusting, his little hand swept over the smooth walls and solid furniture, across the top edge of the television. He stroked the stack of thick towels in the bathroom; he sniffed Isaac’s branded shampoo.
At bedtime, after finishingKevin the Vampirefor the millionth time, the inevitable happened. “Daddy, can we stay here a bit longer?”
“’Fraid not, buddy. It’s too far from school, for starters. And from Faizan’s house. We can’t smell his mum’s samosas from here.”
Weighing things up, Jonty chewed on his lip. “Yeah, but it’s so much nicer than our flat. Look at this.” He fiddled with the light switch next to the bed, dimming then brightening the overhead pendant. “We’ve never had a light like that.”
Jeez, how to make a father feel inadequate. “I’m trying to get us sorted with a better place. Nearer your mum’s.”
His eyes lit up. “Will it have pillows like this?” He patted the one under Pandora’s massive head. “And a bed with a padded headboard? And a park over the road, like the one here, with those nice dogs walking in it? And a lift that doesn’t stink of wee?”
“I’m doing my best, mate.”
Of two flats I’d visited this morning, one had a view of a skip and the back of a crematorium. The second had a junkie slumped on the steps. I’d declined to view it. “Not sure I’ve got the cash for a flat overlooking a park like this one. I’ll make sure it doesn’t have any mould on the walls, though.”
“My chest is much better here.”
“I know.”
He lowered his voice. “And Isaac’s really nice, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. He is.”
Isaac stayed up late, revising for next week’s exam that he didn’t want to take and might not pass, in order to decline a career for which he was unsuited. If only I could unravel that conundrum. When he joined me, I was half asleep. But I soon woke up as he pottered around the bedroom. I became instantly alert, in fact, when he hauled his shirt up and over his head.
“Mmm, hang it in the Louvre.” I pillowed my arms behind my head, as he coloured and flicked me the V sign.
