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“No, I didn’t know that either.”
Ripley picked up bread, milk and some sort of exploding chocolate pudding that made Fen’s mouth water as he looked at the packaging.
“Are there any treats you’d usually have?” Ripley asked. “Some type of chocolate? Alcohol?”
“Not really. Maybe this?” Fen held out a tin of croissant pastry.
“Croissants in a tin? Why not buy the ones from the bakery?”
“Because the ones in the tin taste nice. You’ll see.” Fen put it in with everything else.Too much food!
Ripley stared at the trolley. “I’m not sure we have enough.”
Fen gaped at him. “There’s enough food in there for us to survive an alien invasion. But we need toilet rolls.”
Ripley laughed. A big laugh that made people turn and look at him and Fen’s heart began to sing.
27
Fen was happy. He thought Ripley was happy too. He was smiling a lot anyway. That night, they sat on the couch and watched a Christmas film while they ate pizza and drank red wine. Fen wasn’t sure he agreedDie Hardwas a Christmas film but if Ripley thought so, and wanted to watch it, then that was fine. And the scary bits did mean Fen found himself yipping and trying to hide behind Ripley, which made Ripley laugh, then cuddle him.
There’d been another call from his mum to check he was okay and Fen felt he’d finally managed to convince her he was. How could he not be? He was next to Ripley in a warm room, with a Christmas tree twinkling next to the window, plusDie Hardhad finally finished and he could breathe again. He’d eaten too much pizza and drunk too much wine but it was Christmas, a time when rules could be broken. Maybe a time when magic might happen.
Fen wasn’t sure how he was going to get Ripley’s presents under the tree without him noticing. Maybe he’d have to get up in the middle of the night. He was a little worried about making Ripley embarrassed because he probably didn’t have anything to give him unless those parcels he’d collected from the lockers outside Waitrose held presents. But Fen didn’t need anything more than he already had.
He was touched when Ripley left out a bowl of oats for the reindeer, along with a mince pie and a brandy for Santa. They were long past the age of doing that and yet Fen loved that Ripley had suggested it.
“It’s what my father did,” Ripley said quietly. “My mother went to bed and left us to it. I did wonder if she’d ever meant to have children, given the interest she showed in me. He was the one who read to me. I used to try and stay awake so he’d read a story when he came back from work.”
“That’s sweet.”
“When I panicked because I had to wear formal shoes for school, he was the one who taught me how to tie laces.”
“Do you think he’d have minded that you were gay?”
Ripley hesitated. “I think he’d have worried for me. I want to think he’d have been okay about it and still loved me. I wish he’d been around in my teens. I think I could have talked to him. Unlike my mother. He always had a balanced view about things. At least, that’s what I remember.”
“Was he patient?”
“Endlessly. I used to think he knew everything. He told me things his own father had taught him. Like how to check whether an electric fence was live using the back of your hand, because if you use your palm, and you get a shock, you might grip the wire. Always approach a horse from his left and from the front. How to whistle with a blade of grass. Never put your hand into a hole you can’t see into.”
Fen smiled. It was hard to imagine Ripley as a child. “When I left home to live on my own, my mum’s advice was never do anything I wouldn’t want to explain to paramedics.”
Ripley almost spat out the wine he’d tipped into his mouth. “Have you evernotfollowed that advice?”
“I might have. I mean it’s not what you think before you do something, is it? Is this going to result in me calling 9-9-9 and having to come up with some acceptable reason for me having my cock stuck in a bottle of milk?”
“I think we better take this conversation upstairs.”
Ripley followed Fen up.
“I’ve never actually stuck my cock in a bottle of milk,” Fen said.
“Good because I was going to ask if you used it in someone’s tea afterwards.”
“Ugh. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve stuck your cock in?”
“How old are you?”
