“I was forty when I met your mum. You think I’d no life before?”
“Well, no, but… I guessed you'd say something about that.”
“Why? Was all over and done with. Nothing to hide, nothing to speak about either.”
“You got divorced?”
He nodded, looking back at Dalton. “Didn’t work out. Got married at twenty one, thought she would be the one forever, but life changes, people change. I was thirty nine when I got my divorce papers. I thought I was too old to start over. Then I met your mum about a year later. Everything changed when I met her.” He smiled softly, his eyes blurring slightly as he looked off into the distance. “Younger woman, never married, so different from anyone I’d ever known. I thought I was making a big fool out of myself asking her out for that first date. Turns out to be the best thing I ever did.” He looked back to Dalton, holding his hand tighter. “Got me you too.”
“Yeah…” Dalton rubbed his eyes and then looked at his dad. “So…”
“If it’s not working, then do something to make it work, or let it go. I'm not saying you two shouldn’t try to work things out, but from here, I think you’ve both been trying to do that for a while now. You're still young, lad. There's still time.”
“It’s my fault.” Dalton looked at his trainers. He’d been running through his time with Liam two days ago and been reviewing his whole life up until that happened, trying to see what he’d been missing, trying to see if he had some hidden secret which he’d been so afraid of he couldn’t even think about it.
“It’s no one’s fault, Dalton. Whatever’s happening right now is a build-up of all the years passed and all the years to come. A person gets to a precipice and looks back because it’s too hard to look forward. The future is unsure and unknown, the past is comfortable and easy, but we can't live there, son. No point trying to. What’s happened has happened and that’s that. Take what you’ve got now and go there.” He pointed forwards. “I want you happy. I don’t care how, I just want to die knowing you're going to try.”
“I’ll try, Dad. I promise.”
“So, where’s Kelly?”
Dalton cleared his throat. “She moved into her parents’ house a couple of weeks ago. She’s found someone else. Someone she’s in love with.”
His dad laid still, just watching Dalton sit beside him for a long moment. “She mess around on you?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is she fell in love with someone else and she’s gone. Now I'm in the house and starting again.”
“It’s hard, I know how hard, lad, but it gets better. I promise it does. Don’t think this is it. There's someone out there for you.”
“Dad…” Dalton paused. They didn’t really talk about personal stuff like this, but it seemed at the end, his dad didn’t care about his reserved nature, but perhaps asking if that new person should be another man would be too much. “I love you.”
He got a smile back in response. “Aye, I know and I won't ever forget it either.”
~ ~ ~
It was three hours later when Dalton got back to his empty house that he slumped onto the sofa and just stared into space. From what the doctors told him, his dad didn’t have long left. All they could do was keep him comfortable and pain free. Dalton lost his mum three years ago, now it was his dad. He had no brothers or sisters. There could be kids from his first marriage, but his dad didn’t seem to be the kind of person to just up and leave his children no matter what happened with the wife.
Dalton had a few cousins and aunts on his mother’s side, but they weren’t what you'd call close. The last time he’d seen any of them were at his mum’s funeral, and before that years must have passed since they last met up.
Dalton had never felt so alone. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for himself. And why shouldn’t he? His dad was dying and all he could do was sit and wait for it to happen. He felt like he should be still at the hospital, but they made him go at seven when visiting times were up. They said his dad was being moved into a private room in the morning and Dalton could sit with him for longer, but he still wanted to jump in the car and be with him. He felt like every second was being wasted, but then he’d left his dad asleep, worn out from their chats.
Despite everything, his dad wanted to see Kelly before things got too bad and Dalton called her up, not knowing if he could keep calm and actually say the words. “Hi.” He cleared his voice.
Kelly must have heard the pain in his voice because she was on edge immediately. “What’s happened? Are you okay?”
“I'm fine.” A lie if there ever was one. “It’s my dad, he's… he had a heart attack. It’s still touch and go, they don’t know how long he has left.”
“Dalton, I'm so sorry, love. What can I do?”
“He just… He wanted to say goodbye to you I think. I told him about us, well, he guessed, but he still wants to see you. I don’t know if you'd want to…”
“Of course I do. I love your dad. You know I do. How are you? Are you alone?”
“I'm okay.”
“You’re not. How long have we known each other and you still try to lie to me?” She huffed. “I'm getting in the car now. Give me twenty minutes.”
“You don’t have to.”
“You're right, I don’t, but I want to, okay.”
Dalton smiled through his sadness. “Okay.”
“See you soon.”
God, how pathetically sad the only person he felt close enough to grieve with was the woman who he’d fucked everything up with. Despite everything, she was a good person. Things just didn’t work out, and those reasons were still running through his head at a million miles an hour.
He’d just changed into some joggers and a t-shirt when Kelly knocked at the front door. He opened it, looking at the door key in her hand. “It’s still your house. Use the key if you need to. I've got nothing to hide.”
Nothing to hide? Why’d I say that?
Kelly enveloped him in a big hug, rocking him while she asked a thousand questions about his dad and his condition. By the time they’d gotten comfortable in sitting room, he’d gone through everything and was cradling a cup of tea as they talked about his dad’s first marriage. She was just as shocked as him, and said he should look into other kids. Dalton didn’t know how he felt about meeting half siblings, but then he’d have to go through life not knowing them if they did exist and that seemed the worst option.
Kelly sat beside him, holding his hand and trying to comfort him. Nothing seemed to work, and by then Dalton felt on edge and unsettled. It wasn’t that he wanted to be alone, he just didn’t want to be with her and he didn’t know why. He felt like he was holding back and it was killing him to keep quiet. He wanted to ask her questions but those question related to what she thought about his sexuality and that would lead to why he was questioning it.
The pressure Dalton felt about confronting how he’d kissed Liam, more than kissed, it built up and up until he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Someone knocking on the front door startled him from his thoughts, but Kelly placed a hand on his shoulder and stood.
“I’ll get it. Just drink that sweet tea.”
Chapter 16
Liam clock-watched as the seconds ticked by. It was Monday. He’d actually checked three times to make sure, but it was still Monday. It was nine when Aspire closed, and half past had come and gone as Liam read some paperwork then sat lost in his thoughts about Troy for half an hour. It was nine thirty and no Dee.
Liam spent Sunday afternoon at home, and Troy went to Living Ink and hidden there. Between them, nothing passed between them apart from grunts. Liam wanted everything Derrick said to them both to just go away, but it seemed it wasn’t going to happen overnight.
Spending all day at work took his mind off his personal problems, but then five o’clock rolled around and when Kathy asked him what he was up to after work, he remembered his plans with Dalton. Thursday, when they’d last talked, Monday seemed like ages away, but the day had come and Liam wasn’t prepared for it. Despite not being ready, he wanted to see Dalton. He may have his own problems, but he was sure as shit Dalton had bigger ones.
He remembered how it was as a teenager when he first experienced anything remotely sexual with someone. He’d been with a boy his own age in some park all the kids in the area ended up in. They’d been flirting around each other for months but not brave enough to do anything about it, and then one evening, it just happened. They kissed and it quickly led on to other things. Each time they’d meet up on, they’d go a little further. It was slow and they were both experiencing everything for the first time.
Dalton was thirty and only just experiencing it. Liam didn’t want to push, more than anything, he wanted to help. Be a friend, someone who he could trust.
He’d referred to Dalton as special and that wasn’t a lie. He was special in the way Liam didn’t see him as a one night stand or a quick fuck, he was someone who he wanted to get to know, experience everything with and enjoy it. He had selfish reasons, he wouldn’t lie to himself and say being the first man to be with Dalton didn’t excite him and spur him on to try harder, but he would never let those feelings take over.