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“And it seems I have no capability to be anything other with you. I was not intend to tell you any of this.”
“That you’re dumping me over some futuristic scenario that will probably never happen? For my own good? I could fall down the stairs and be left disabled. I could develop a terminal disease. How would you feel if I told you to get lost because of it?”
“I want the best for you,” he said. “I want you to have a successful life, to be happy and fulfilled.”
“And being with someone who wants those things for me isn’t the best? Aleks, I’m at my happiest when we’re together. Even when we fight. I’m so alive.” My hands ran up and down his body, touching legs, abdomen, chest. “You are the best. Absolutely the—” I stopped, recalling the opposing statement I’d made about him earlier in the great hall, and everything else that had happened. “Oh well. You’ll get your wish. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“No, angel, this is not how it is. Not in any way. It is the thought that I could take from you, or even harm you…” He leant up on an elbow. “But, this thing, here with these ones downstairs? The power is all yours. They need you. They are to offer you more money, behave like they are the great forgiving ones, and hope you settle back down.”
“It’s not about money.”
“I know. Let me think a minute.” He got out of bed and walked over to the three small windows. He marched back. “You see, if this was just an affair, something that would fizzle away naturally, it would not matter.” He headed to the window again and looked out a moment, hands on either side of the curved stone surround. “We could enjoy our time together with no worries.” He approached the bed.
“Aleks, you should put some clothes on. It’s so cold.”
He stared at me. “It’s so unfair. Because it is more, because it is love, nothing is simple.”
“Part of it’s my age again, isn’t it?”
He frowned.
“And that’s unfair. It’s not like a correction in class. I can’t work on what year I was born. But you’re prioritising the details. You are. It’s like…” I tried to clarify my thoughts. “The people you love, and the things you love to do. They’re what really matter. Then there are the details, like where you live and work, your age and your health. It’s wrong to base big decisions on the details when they’re unknown or imagined circumstances from the future.”
He nodded. “Give me some minutes.” He stayed by the window so long that I was tempted to force warm-up garments on him but, not wanting to interrupt his thought process, I sat in the bed, breathing, trying to stay calm and centred about everything. Him. Me. This place. The situation here. The situation with us. There was a lot going on. And – he was right about one thing – none of it was simple.
He eventually joined me in the bed again, and I pressed myself to his chilled form.
“I hate this,” I said. “It feels like you’re deciding everything, and I have no say.”
“No decision. Suggestion only. In the end, you have all the power with me too.”
I lowered my head and listened to the steady beat of his heart as he spoke.
“Tomorrow, in the meeting, you ask for all that you want. If they do not offer you a good enough deal, I suggest you leave.”
My chest constricted.
“I will come with you,” he added. “If you are still having me.”
I tipped my head back to examine his face and found only straightforward honesty there.
“We could live in the flat in London,” he said. “You like it there.” He touched my nose with his lips. “I can finish your training. You are wrong in thinking I didn’t want this. It has been very bad for me to realise that Colin is an idiot boy. I had hoped he would be a good teacher.”
“But, your job here. You love it. You’ve been spending all your time at it.”
“I have been try to use as a distraction, but then I spend all day thinking about you anyway.” He kissed me, his excitement about the plan growing. “There are other jobs. We can both work from one base. You dance. I teach.” He paused. “There are two spare rooms in the flat; Justin could stay also if you are liking. One we will keep for days when I have been stupid. You can storm off to your own space before returning to our bed later. This is how we are, no?”
I stepped out of bed, out of his reach. “No.”
“No?” His brightness vanished.
“You’re being unrealistic. It won’t last. Something will upset you. You’ll find more faults in me or go all quiet and distant. And what about the meeting tomorrow? There’s lots I have to say, all sorts of things you don’t know.”
“All the badness of me?”
“Not you, no.”
“If we stay here, we must learn to separate our working lives from our relationship. Is really a teacup storm, this thing today. Nothing that is said will rock us.”
