Call Me Back Again

CHAPTER 20

"Smile!"

Feeling like a kid in a sweets shop, John aimed his phone at Paul, who was busy scrolling through his contacts. Sometime before midday - John had no idea how late exactly, just that it had been after ten and before twelve - he and Paul had hoisted their lazy arses up off the settee and caught a bus to the city. About half of the way there, John had been ribbing Paul about his domesticity, and the other half thinking how thoughtful it was that he'd popped John's clothes into the wash the night before. Personally, he wouldn't have minded walking around in Paul's clothes some more but at the same time, it was nice to slip into his own jeans which now smelt like Paul's fabric softener.

Once they'd gotten off the bus at Central, John had made a beeline for the O2 shop. He was sick and tired of not having a phone, especially since he had to pay his monthly plan, regardless of whether he actually used it or not. Thankfully, he was nearly due for a new device anyway, so he'd haggled a bit and had walked out of the shop with a renewed contract and a brand new phone. He and Paul had gone to a nearby Irish pub for lunch and of course, John had not put down his new toy since. So far, Paul had sent him the photos from their time together, and now John was adding the new contacts. He wanted a nice picture to go with Paul's card, but the fucker hadn't looked up yet. "Come on, Macca, give us a wink."

"Do you want these contacts or not?" Why wasn't there an option to send these things in bulk? It wasn't so bad to send one or two this way, but they'd met so many people at Pride, the process of AirDropping them one by one was getting tedious. And now John was behaving like a five-year-old again. Paul was still rolling his eyes at the nauseatingly sentimental ringtone John had selected for him. He used different ringtones for different people too, but seriously, wasn't 'Wild Thing' just a wee bit over the top? As in: embarrassingly so? Oh well, that was John, he supposed: the master of grand gestures. Speaking of gestures... John was still waving that phone about, waiting for Paul to strike a pose. It took some effort to school his face, but when John quickly tapped the shutter button, he captured Paul's best scowl, paired with both hands raised in identical two-fingered salutes.

"That's a good lad," John cackled. He was going to cherish that picture; it was infinitely funnier than anything he had expected. He was glad to see Paul in such a great mood after the rough night they'd just survived. John's mind wandered back to that heavy conversation, and the things he'd discovered. Somehow, he couldn't shake the thought that he had been a big part of why Paul had gotten so distraught. Maybe not because of something he actually did, but more due to him being who and what he was.

The parallels couldn't be denied. The resemblance between himself and Rory was superficial and fleeting, but it was there. They both had long faces and similar noses, both had an air of authority about them, and both had curly hair with a bit of red in it. Sure, Rory was mostly blond, and his eyes weren't remotely like John's: round and deep blue, making him look years younger than he was. His facial structure was rather different too, with those high cheekbones that could cut glass. Plus, he was much taller and much more athletically built than him.

But none of that was what haunted John. He'd recognised something else in Rory: there was an alarming possessiveness hidden in that charming, handsome exterior. The contrast between Rory's casual arrogance and the uncharacteristic way Paul made sheep's eyes at him in that picture was a source of worry for John.

There was a time when he had been in a relationship with a similar dynamic. A little over a year after his mum died, John had gotten a flat with his then-boyfriend Tom: a moderately successful artist who worked at the little studio at the back of the art supply shop where John had started working several months earlier. Despite the nine-year age gap, they'd gotten along like a house on fire. At first, neither had seen the signs of trouble but the longer they lived together, the more obvious it had become that John's fear of abandonment was causing him to strangle the life out of the relationship.