When his personal shopper is late again, Jason shoves down a swell of unease. He doesn’t need to have the jitters; he’s only waited for fifteen minutes. It’s ridiculous to feel like he’s been stood up. Still, he fishes out his phone and fires off a text to Andrew.

Remember my first date with Garry Hirons?

It’s a question no one else on the planet could answer, but Andrew pings back seconds later.

That wanker.

His next text is just as fast.

I’ll still help you hide his body.

The twenty-five years since getting stood up for the first time feel momentary right then. Andrew had been there for him even if Garry Hirons hadn’t, just like he’d put up with Garry being Jason’s on-and-off boyfriend for decades despite hating his guts. He smiles when more texts arrive in a flurry.

Wait

WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE

Someone stood you up again?

Next comes a shocked emoji coupled with a shovel.

Jason’s smile spreads into a grin. He’s still beaming when he spies Vanya, who stands on the far side of the street, his expression neutral instead of amused like it was the last time they saw each other. Shoppers and city traffic stream between them, and he loses sight for a few seconds until Vanya finally crosses.

“I’m wonder about British people,” he says instead of saying hello. His wide eyes are narrowed in a way Jason probably shouldn’t find half so appealing. “Why do you smile at nothing?”

“I wasn’t smiling at nothing.” His grin returns without permission. “I was reminiscing.”

“Reminiscing?” Vanya’s puzzled. “Show me the word.” He cranes his neck, but Jason stuffs his phone in his pocket. Explaining what reminisce means is easy enough, but explaining why he’s texting about getting stood up isn’t about to happen. “It just means remembering good times.” Not that pinning all his teenage hopes on the one other gay kid in his school had been fun, but recalling Andrew’s support is. He can admit that much now, at least. “I was texting with my brother.”

“One who might marry a bitch?”

Jason really, really hopes not. His quiet “Yeah” is heartfelt. “He might be.” He changes the subject rather than talk more about it, tapping the face of his watch. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Travel from a new place.” Vanya glances away before making eye contact again, shadows under his eyes as grey as the building behind him. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t waiting for long.” That lie slips out easily. The truth is just as slippery. “Are you okay? You look tired.”

Vanya blinks. Maybe it’s the constant bustle of passers-by that makes it seem like he sways for a moment. Then he blinks again and steadies. He tilts his head, eyes narrowed while returning Jason’s scrutiny. “I’m think it’s better to look tired than….” He tugs where hair straggles over Jason’s collar. “Messy.” The backs of his fingers graze the scruff at his jawline for a fleeting second. “Lazy.” He nods firmly as he makes each one-word judgement, then neatly summarises. “No point pay for personal shopper if still going to look ugly.”

Ugly.

Jason supposes it’s a good thing one of them is keeping it real instead of acting like this is a date instead of a paid arrangement.

Vanya drops his hand and lets out a small sound Jason can’t interpret “Ugly is wrong word?”

“No. No, I get it.” Vanya’s only being factual. Abrupt about it, perhaps, but that’s likely down to limited vocab than outright rudeness. “I know I’m no oil painting,” Jason tries to joke, but it’s hard to inject any humour into his statement.

There’s that small sound again. Vanya stands even closer. From this distance, Jason notices more evidence confirming his own first impression. The smudges under Vanya’s eyes are dark, his lips setting in a straight line after he repeats a quiet, “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. I’m paying you to be honest.” If anything, it’s a good reminder that Vanya’s a real professional. “You should tell me the truth.” He can’t guess why Vanya flinches for some reason or why his lips whiten, as if he struggles to keep another truth in. “Seriously,” Jason insists, “I’ll always want you to. Don’t keep anything from me. I know I’m a mess. That’s the whole reason for this. You saying so doesn’t offend me.”

“Was only mean hair. Hair is ugly, not….” His quick touch to Jason’s cheek is there and gone in a moment. “I’m think face looks….” He pauses for so long that Jason fills in for him.

“As rough as a welder’s bench? It’s okay, I know my mug is ugly.”

“Bench? Mug?” Vanya ignores another poor attempt at humour. He’s intent. “Think face shows life.” Vanya’s fingertip is fleeting at Jason’s temple where he knows his hair is greying, his touch light where fine lines feather his eyes. “Shows fun.” He skims Jason’s bruised cheekbone before briefly cupping his jawline with cool fingers. “Shows strength best.”

Shoppers surround them by the hundred, but Jason doesn’t notice.

All he sees is Vanya.

The smallest of smiles hovers at the corner of his mouth when he quietly insists, “Ugly was worst word.” His gaze dips a little. “Was rude. Forgive?”

Jason nods, and there it is, a real smile, small, but aimed directly at him.

Fuck, but he’s in trouble.

“Ready to look better?” Vanya must take Jason’s speechless exhale as agreement. He’s business-like when he says, “Time is money, yes? Should be shopping already. This way first.” He asks Jason questions as they walk. “What is best colour?”

Jason hasn’t ever really considered. “Um… anything dark?”

“Dark is not a colour.”

“Black, then.”

“No. What is real favourite? Which colour is very best?”

That’s much easier to answer. The kitchen at Riversmeet is painted a sunny shade that lifts his spirits every time he goes home. “I do like yellow.” He hopes Chantel hasn’t changed it.

Vanya stops dead despite the pavement being crowded, earning muttered complaints he ignores as he shakes his head. “Black and yellow are best colours? Want to look like….” Frustration is clear on his face until he makes a buzzing noise that’s easy to translate.

“A bee?”

“Yes.” He walks again, and Jason jogs to catch up to hear his grumble. “Need more than a personal shopper if black and yellow are first fashion choices.”

“Ah. You meant which colour for clothes.”

“Of course.”

Of course.

Why would Vanya want to know anything about him that didn’t relate to why they’re spending time together? He still feels a little silly when Vanya stops outside the kind of small boutique he would usually walk straight past.

“Will start here.”

Here has suspiciously few clothes in its window. Inside, an assistant eyes Jason before Vanya crosses to speak with him. Their conversation is fast paced and foreign. It’s strange to hear Vanya speak without stumbling, so confident and certain. He points at Jason and then at a small rack holding a few garments.

Jason busies himself while they have their discussion. He studies a belt that sits alone on a huge shelf under a colour-changing spotlight. The crystals that stud it catch the light, glittering and ostentatious as he fingers its buckle. He jumps when Vanya murmurs a warning in his ear. “Remember first rule of retail?”

“I’m not going to break it.” He isn’t going to buy it either. Another shelf holds a pair of glossy patent leather shoes that come to a sharp point at the toe. They look the opposite of practical. “I’m not sure this is my kind of place.” Even the electro background music makes him edgy. A couple of women in their early twenties enter, dressed expensively like the clothing dotting this shop’s sparse interior. One meets Jason’s eye for a second, instantly judging and finding wanting, he imagines, like Chantel will, most likely. It’s a dismissal he expects, more than enough to confirm he doesn’t belong here.

He turns to the exit.

Vanya’s hand on his wrist is an anchor.

“Stay,” he orders. “Want to make best impression on fiancée or not?”

If he wants to keep Andrew in his life, he has to. “Yes. I just….” He points at the belt. “That’s not going to do it.”

“Very best fashion,” Vanya recites as if from a manual, “has sparkle. Want to be fashion forward or not?”

Jason can’t even begin to answer. “How would I know? I’m the personal shopping novice here.”

“Novice?” Vanya explores the belt with careful fingers. “Explain.”

Jason finds it hard to answer while Vanya caresses each crystal along the belt’s length. “Uh,” he finally gets out. “A novice is someone doing something for the first time.”

“Hmm. Novice is a good word.” Vanya touches the belt one more time, his face lit by prisms—pink and blue and purple. “And what is best word for this?”

“Fucking marvellous” slides out, raw and honest.

“You want?” Vanya asks seriously while rainbows dance across skin. “Can have if you want.”

Jason nods—he wants, all right—but then he shakes his head very quickly. “No. No, I don’t want the belt.” Especially not when he sees the price tag. Smartening up so Chantel can’t look down at him is one thing, taking out a second mortgage is quite another. “I don’t think I’ll want anything for sale here.”

Vanya hums instead of pressing for a reason. “Maybe should try on outfit before making decision.” He turns to the counter again to utter a couple more sentences to the assistant before Jason can answer. “Come,” Vanya instructs. He gathers items and heads for a spacious, curtained changing area. Vanya places his selection on hooks and then stops, crossing his arms tightly after Jason pulls the curtain closed behind him. “I’m think you can try on your own.” He raises a hand as if about to pull the curtain open.

“No.” Jason grasps the fabric while toeing out of his shoes, his belt and jeans already unfastened. “There’s no way I’m trying any of this on and then parading around out there where everyone can see me.” His jeans drop heavily to the floor, weighed down by his cell phone and wallet. If he’s got to look like mutton dressed like lamb, he’ll only make a fool of himself in private.

The back wall is lined with mirrors.

It’s impossible not to notice Vanya’s tension.

“Uh, unless you usually wait outside for clients?” Jason asks while pulling his T-shirt overhead. “Like I said. Novice here. It’s up to you to tell me what’s usual.” Another thought makes him pause with his arms still raised and his face covered. People reacting like this in changing rooms had been common at school, right after he was stood up on that first date. In hindsight, Garry outing him had been an act of pure deflection, but the way some of his school friends had responded—frozen like Vanya is right now—had been pretty awful.

It’s the second time he’s been transported back twenty-five years in the last thirty minutes.

He slowly pulls his shirt back down, tugging the fabric over his chest and belly and yanking up his jeans before addressing it head on.

“Listen, just because I’m queer doesn’t mean you’ve got anything to worry about. I didn’t set this whole shopping trip up to jump you. I just want to get this over with, and I’m not going out there wearing anything that sparkles.” He glances up again when Vanya’s silent. “You know what ‘queer’ means?”

Vanya’s nod is fast. He speaks just as quickly, his voice carefully lowered. “Need to check—‘jump’ means…?”

“Well, it could mean getting someone alone to have sex.” He adds more clarification. “Only I’m gay, not desperate.” He searches through the pockets of his jeans for his phone. “Here.” He opens an app with a masked icon. “If a quick fuck in a changing room floated my boat, all I have to do is—”

“No!” Vanya covers the screen with his hand, his face blanching. “N-no.” He swallows again and lets go, suddenly sitting down on the bench. “Is very bad idea. Worst.”

“Having sex in a clothes shop?” Jason tries to lighten a moment that’s turned strangely heavy. “I dunno. It might be more fun than trying on these clothes.” He quits joking when Vanya’s silent. “I was kidding.”

“Is normal here to tell strangers?”

“No.” Jason shrugs as he removes his T-shirt for the second time. He takes one of the shirts Vanya selected from its hanger. “I assumed you guessed from our first conversation, but if we’re going to be up close and personal like this, it’s better to be up front.” Jason was already over getting judged before Vanya could have been born. He glances sideways where a mirror reflects his troubled expression. “Or we can call this quits.” He’s abrupt. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m not paying anyone who has a problem with it.”

Vanya’s nod is quick.

When he eventually speaks, Jason hears weariness rather than the judgement he half expected. “Is very different at home. Very, very different.” He takes the shirt from Jason. Under the changing room lights, his eyes shimmer brighter than the diamanté buttons he unfastens. “Couldn’t ever tell.”

Oh.

“That you’re gay too?”

When Vanya nods, Jason finally relaxes.

* * *

They reconvene in a nearby coffee shop where Vanya hesitates in front of trays of cakes and pastries. Jason prompts him to choose whatever he wants. Then he orders coffees and makes his own selection.

“Is that everything?” the barista asks as he slides a flapjack onto a plate, but when Jason looks over his shoulder, Vanya has wandered over to a chiller full of sandwiches and wraps. He seems no closer to making a decision when Jason gives up waiting. “I might be a minute,” he warns the barista.

Vanya jumps when Jason stands behind him to say, “I thought personal shoppers were meant to be decisive.”

“Only about clothes.”

“So I see.” He watches Vanya examine the display of food, his lips moving slightly.

Perhaps written English is a hurdle.

“Can I help you out with something?”

“No.” Vanya still seems torn between an amply filled baguette and a more meagre sandwich. Jason decides for him, scooping up a couple of the baguettes just as a rush of customers converges. His quick step out of their way leaves him crowding Vanya, whose exhale is a surprised puff. It’s a moment of unintentional intimacy that lingers until Jason asks, “Are you trying to save me money by choosing the smallest sandwich? I thought you were meant to help me spend it.”

Vanya’s chin tilts, his hair the softest brush against Jason’s bruised cheek. “I’m think I would buy my own.”

“Next time,” Jason promises. “Now stop shilly-shallying.” He pulls a couple of twenties from his wallet and pays.

Vanya follows him to a table. “Shilly-shally is not a real word,” he says when they sit. He tips three sugars into his coffee and pockets several extra sachets. “For later.” He shrugs and then touches the edge of the chipped enamel plate Jason’s flapjack rests on. “Business that charges five pounds for cake on hipster tin plate can spare sugar.”

It’s another indicator that Vanya’s not exactly stupid. After all, he’s not the one who just blew close to thirty pounds on food for someone he’s already paying by the minute. It’s hard to feel churlish about that when Vanya takes his first bite and lets out a sound that’s pornographic. Mayonnaise smears his lips that he wipes with the tip of a finger, sucking it carefully clean like he doesn’t want to waste a single speck of flavour.

Jason startles at a sudden kick to his ankle.

“Eat,” Vanya orders like he’s the one calling the shots in this business transaction. His tongue flicks out to catch another stray, creamy drip, curling the same way Jason imagines it wraps around brand-new words in English. “Stop shilly-shally,” Vanya tries out slowly, a lone eyebrow lifting. “Or is time not money today?”

Jason would pay a lot right now to take the rest of the day off. He’d empty his whole wallet and buy the contents of the chiller if that meant sitting here for longer. But there’s nothing good that can come from staring like some weirdo each time Vanya takes a mouthful. He’s clearly got no clue that, even with his cheeks bulging like a well-fed hamster, he’s by far the best sight in this city.

Jason should focus on the reason for this meeting, but it’s hard to find clothes motivating while Vanya eyes his flapjack with such transparent longing.

Some people go for twinks, Jason knows. He’s never been one of them, but Vanya’s more than an air-brushed mental image. It’s not only the way he enjoys his food that’s totally consuming. Jason clears his throat instead of suggesting they continue shopping and pushes his plate across the table as a delaying tactic. Vanya hardly hesitates, any restraint a faint pretence before he eats with gusto, half the sticky slab of flapjack gone in two quick bites before his chews slow. He nods when Jason finally asks, “So… did you plan to take me to another boutique like that last one?”

“Yes, but might be big mistake,” Vanya’s eyes slant upwards over the rim of the coffee cup that masks his smile. “Next place has more sparkles.”

“More? I’m not sure that can be possible. Besides, I’m not sure Moreton-in-Marsh is ready for me in glitter.”

“Moreton-in-Marsh?” Vanya chases crumbs around the plate before licking his finger again. “This is a real place?”

“Yes. In the Cotswolds.”

Vanya just blinks.

“It’s a town a few hours west on the train. Our house is way out in the sticks, deep in the countryside, so I’m not sure it’s the right place for crystal-studded anything, to be honest.”

“Countryside is where you will wear new clothes?”

It makes sense that he needs to know these details. “Yes. I was thinking I’d go down on Friday to see Chantel.”

“At end of this week? Is not long.” Vanya would look stern if milky foam didn’t dot the bow of his lip, highlighting a moue of disappointment once his cup is empty.

There’s no justification for Jason to sit here any longer. He lingers instead and it takes a moment to process Vanya’s next question.

“Mama would like fiancée?”

“I….” It’s almost impossible to answer. Regret that he can’t ask his foster mum himself sneaks up, a sudden slap of loss he thought he was well and truly over. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“Why not?”

It’s a simple question that provokes an honest answer. “I have no idea what sort of person she is.”

“Must be hard,” Vanya muses. “Marrying a man when his brother hates you.”

“I don’t hate her.” How could he? He’d struggle to pick her out from a crowd of strangers. “I don’t know her, that’s all.”

“How long they date for?”

“I’m not sure.” Jason rubs his temple, fingertips grazing the aching edge of his brow. It throbs when he says, “I went skiing in February, and when I got back, it was too late. She’d already moved in.”

“Too late for what? To give house-warm present?”

Too late to save Andrew from another shitty decision.

Too late to protect the home they’d grown up in from someone who might try to claim it in a third divorce settlement.

“Too late to get my brother to think about what might happen. He can barely know her, and his office is based in the city, so it’s not as if he’s down there at all during the week. He can’t have any idea what she’s doing with the place when he’s not there.”

“He has place in town too?”

“Yes. He’s here Monday through Friday.”

“This is why you worry? She is in your house alone?”

“I’m not worried.”

Vanya lets out a small snort of disbelief. “Sound very worried.” His tone shifts to gently mocking. “Lots to worry about for brother. Has good job and two homes. Marrying pretty girl who might not be a bitch.” He’s contemplative. “Has health and wealth and maybe soon some babies—”

“No.” Jason’s aware his dismissal sounds abrupt. “You don’t know what it was like. He almost had to sell our place to pay off his last wife. She seemed nice at the start too.”

“Married before?”

“Twice. I still don’t understand why he wants to go there again. He’s better off on his own, like me.”

Vanya smooths out his crumpled napkin and says absolutely nothing.

Jason fills the awkward silence. “He was a wreck for ages.”

“Bad break up is good reason to be lonely?”

This time it’s Jason who doesn’t answer; he’s thought about Garry too many times today already.

Vanya quietly adds. “So, need one new outfit very soon. Not fancy with crystals. Not dirty like work clothes. Something that says you respect fiancée, but only a little?”

“Yeah.” That sounds about perfect.

“Should have talked like this before.” Vanya cups his chin in his hand. “I’m think first clothes shop was worst choice. I’m waste your time.”

“No. Not at all. I didn’t know what I wanted either. It’s been good to talk it over. Get a bit of perspective, you know? And even if we only found one shirt to buy there, it was good that you got to talk too.” That had seemed like a big deal back in the confines of the changing room. “Listening to you wasn’t a waste of my time at all.”

And there’s that rare smile—bright and warm and natural—but it shuts down all too quickly when Vanya admits, “Still have to charge.”

“Of course.” Compared to the prices he saw online, Vanya’s time is a steal. Jason slides crisp bank notes across the table, and this time Vanya takes them. He’s still staring at the neat roll in his fist when Jason asks, “So what about finding the perfect outfit for me?” He nudges the bag holding the one item he agreed to purchase, despite its eye-watering price tag. “I need a complete outfit by Friday.”

Vanya opens the bag, staring inside like he’s seeing its contents through new eyes. “Is a good shirt. Best for dinner at fancy restaurant but,” he eventually agrees, “maybe not best for first meeting in country.”

“Do you know another place to shop that’s more my style?”

“Maybe. Will have to research.” Vanya stands, slowly, like he’s just as reluctant to end this meeting, hesitant when he offers, “I’m think we could meet again tomorrow. If you still want?”

If Jason still wants?

There’s no question about it.