Page 79 of Out of the Shadows
My voice rises in a kind of pleading wail. I hate it but I can’t help it, because whatisit that’s so difficult for him to understand? But there’s another reason I not only want but need for him to come with me, and to come willingly. I let my head drop forward as I take in one deep breath after the other.
“Cosmo? Are you okay?”
Concern threads its way through his voice. I look up, and see it reflected in the deep blue of his eyes.
“I—I don’t just want you to come with me, I need you to.”
“Need?”
“Yes—” My voice catches. I clear my throat and start again. “I didn’t want to tell you about — somebody I was with…”
“What do you mean?” Daniel’s brow furrows, but his intense gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Tell me what you need to. Please.”
I suck in a breath, steadying myself before I begin.
“For a few months, I was with somebody. Leon, his name was. Or is. He meant a lot to me, and I meant a lot to him, or that’s what I thought. Looking back, I think I was infatuated. God knows why. But it blinded me, to all the signals and red flags. When we met, it was always on his terms. He was unreliable, too, I never knew where I stood with him.”
My cheeks throb with heat. No matter how embarrassed and ashamed I am, Daniel has to hear this, to understand why I need him to come with me.
“He’d ring at the last moment with excuses not to meet up. We hardly ever went out properly and when we did he was always edgy. We used to meet up at a hotel, most of the time.” My cheeks burn. Said out loud, it sounds so grubby. “It felt like we were hiding away, which was exactly what it was, yet I chose to ignore it. He wasn’t properly out, he said. He was having to do it gradually. Take small steps. I believed him because I wanted to. He refused, point blank, to meet James, and met Freddie only a couple of times, mostly by accident. I didn’t care about him meeting anybody else, but my cousin and my friend—”
“And you think this is the same?”
“No, no I don’t, but….” I look down at my hands, clamped together on the tabletop. “Leon stopped calling. Suddenly. His number was no longer in use. He’d cut me off, completely and out of the blue. This went on for two or three weeks. But then I remembered where he worked, he’d let it slip one time, without meaning to I think. So I turned up there and caught him as he was coming out. He went ballistic. I couldn’t believe it. It was a side to him I’d never seen before. I was stunned, and then I saw the wedding ring.”
I rub my hands down my face, as it all comes back to me.
“The things he said to me. What he called me. I was deranged. I was filth. I’d been stalking him. He’d deny any claim I made. Who’d believe my lies, who’d believe a dirty little queer? He was straight, and he had the wife and three kids to prove it. He said if I ever tried to see him again, he’d kick my head into a pulp.”
“Christ, Cosmo.” Daniel’s voice is tight with held back anger I know is not for me. “I’d never, ever do anything like that to you. You can’t think I would, surely? What he was, I could never be that man.”
“I know, but you gave me no option but to tell you. It’s not something I’m proud of—”
“You’ve no reason to feel ashamed, it’s that bastard who should.”
“That’s the thing, I think he was ashamed. Not of me but of himself, deep down.”
“Of course I’ll come with you.” He takes my hands in his and squeezes tight, and Christ, but my heart squeezes too.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “If this was just any old party I wouldn’t be pushing you like this, but this is important to James, which means it’s important to me. And—and I want it to be important to you too.”
Daniel gazes down at our joined hands, and sighs.
“I’m not him, and you have to believe me when I say that. I know I need to be more open, and I’m trying to be, but after years of living one kind of life the whole switch around takes some getting used to. I understand why you need this from me, but you need to understand my perspective, too. Yes, I’ll come because I can see what it means to you. But will I be completely easy about it? I don’t know, is the honest answer.”
“Your honesty is what I want. But there’s something else I have to ask you. Will come with me as my boyfriend?”
If I see doubt or hesitation in his face, I’ll get up and walk away and refuse to look back. My heart’s hammering hard and my stomach’s twisting into knots as I wait for the answer that either takes us forwards, or stops us in our tracks.
“Of course as your boyfriend. What did you think I was going to say?”
That I wasn’t sure? That I didn’t know?
“I—no, that’s all I wanted to hear. I know getting together with me is an adjustment for you—”
He throws back his head and laughs, sudden and unexpected.
“Oh, Cosmo, how can you say that with a straight face?” His laughter dies, but his smile is warm and soft. “It is an adjustment. Getting to fifty and turning my life on its head is, I think it can be said, something ofan adjustment.”
