Dear Madam,

Thank you for the wonderful cake that you sent me. Unfortunately, I was unable to eat it because I have the digestive system and temperament of a three-month-old baby.

Kind Regards,

 

 

That evening, my Mini pulls onto the forecourt in front of the old stone farmhouse. It’s a wild night. The sky is a startling purple shot through with red, and a strong wind buffets us, blowing the scent of salt from the sea into our faces. I turn and laugh as Asa unfolds himself from the car, looking like the Kraken from one of the old Ray Harryhausen films which Billy has a surprising fondness for. He shakes his head at me and then bends and lifts Stanley out. She promptly runs about madly, chasing smells.

“Fucking car,” he mutters under his breath. I stretch my arms, enjoying the impossibly hot look he gets when he sees the bare skin of my lower abdomen as my shirt rides up.

He looks around curiously. “I can hear the sea. How far away is it?”

“About one field over. There’s a footpath at the end of our land.”

I lift my head and sniff like a dog, feeling the familiar salty wind kiss my face. I open my eyes and still at the sight of him watching me as he rests against the car. “What?”

“You,” he says softly. “Look at your face. I don’t think I ever saw you this content in London.” He has an arrested expression on his face.

I open my mouth, but before I can speak the door of the farmhouse opens, spilling warm golden light onto the cobblestones, and the figure of my mother appears. “Jude, cariño, is that you?” she calls in her warm, accented English.

“Hi, Mama,” I say, and then laugh as she darts at me and hugs me tight.

“Missed you, my sweetie pie,” she murmurs, and then stills as she sees Asa.

“Mama, this is my Asa.” I straighten up and beckon him forward, holding out my hand for his as he nears me. My mum’s gaze sharpens as she watches him pull me close, and then she smiles, the deep fathomless smile which manages to captivate most men.

“Buenos nochas, Asa,” she says. She pauses and then says very carefully, “I am very, very pleased to meet you. Come give me a hug.”

He smiles a little nervously, his whole posture slightly stooped to accommodate their difference in height, and I laugh before I can help myself. He shakes his head at me and then looks down at her. “Thank you for having us here, Mrs Bailey.”

“It is Maria, Asa. And it is our pleasure.” She looks at me. “Where is the little boy?” she asks eagerly.

“Asleep in the car, Mama.” I smile at Asa as she immediately walks over to the car to peer in at the window. “She loves children,” I say softly. “Always on at me about settling down and having my own family.”

He looks at me with an arrested expression on his face. “Would you want children?”

I stare at him. “Of course.” I shrug. “I love family. It’s everything. How about you?”

He shakes his head in bemusement. “If anyone had told me six months ago I’d be discussing having more kids with Jude Bailey, the Calvin Klein model, I’d have laughed in their face.”

“Well, I am quite epic,” I say modestly, and he laughs. “And I do think the underwear might have played a part in your decision to be with me.”

“Your underwear certainly did.” He breaks off as my mother comes towards him.

“He is so gorgeous,” she says, clapping her hands. “This is going to be wonderful.”

“Mama,” I warn her. “I’ve just got him. Don’t frighten him off.”

She looks at Asa, and he shakes his head. “I don’t think you could.”

They stare at each other, and for a second I see blinding relief on her face which puzzles me, but then it’s gone and she smiles. “Dinner is ready. I have your old room ready for Billy, Jude. But if he’s a bit nervous I presume he’ll sleep in with you and Asa.”

“We’ll see, Mama,” I say softly, and turn to Asa. “Shall we wake Bill up?”

He nods and moves away, and my mother and I turn to watch him. “What a beautiful man,” she says softly. “And the way he looks at you, cariño.” She sighs happily. “It is the way I’ve always wanted a man to look at you.”

“How?”

“Like he really sees you,” she says crisply. “You’re much more than pretty looks, Jude, but you never let anyone see this before.” She nods happily. “I think I will like this man, yes. I like his face and his eyes. He has kind eyes.”

“Yes, Mama,” I say softly, and with Asa carrying a sleepy Billy we turn and walk into the farmhouse.

The house is warm and brightly lit, and smells just like my childhood, a mixture of lemon cleaning products and the honey candles my mother burns all the time. Asa stoops to come through the low door and looks around curiously, and I look at my house through his eyes.

It’s a warm, slightly shabby home, but my mother has a flair about her decorating that makes the worn quality of everything look like a picture in a home decorating magazine.

A whirring comes and I turn, a smile filling my face. “Pa!” I exclaim, darting forward as the wheelchair comes to a stop. I lean over to hug him tight, pushing my face into his hair and smiling.

He pats my hair chuckling. “Let me look at you,” he says in his deep Devon burr. I lean back and he smiles. “There’s my boy.”

I look him over carefully, the old anxiousness playing in the pit of my stomach from too many years when my mother and I would examine him subtly, looking for the signs of pain or depression he would never tell us about. However, he looks good. His complexion is clear and tanned, and his blue eyes are bright. He’s a big man with a mane of dark hair, liberally shot through with grey.

“You look good, Pa,” I say. “And you’ve been outside.”

He laughs. “It’s September and ploughing. Of course I have.”

I recoil. “Ploughing. Don’t tell me you’ve been doing too much, Pa.”

My mother laughs. “He has been doing too much telling of people what to do.”

My dad grins and stretches. “It was good to be out there in the cold air.” He pats the wheelchair. “This is amazing, Jude, but I’ve been attending the physio religiously, and they reckon if I carry on, I might be able to use the sticks eventually.”

“That’s good, Pa.” He’d fallen into a pit of depression after the accident, and for a long while he’d refused to believe he’d ever do anything out of a wheelchair.

He looks at me hard. “Yes, it is. Your mother and I have been talking about everything.”

“Everything?”

He shakes his head, and then looks beyond me and smiles. “And who is this?”

I turn to see Asa holding a just waking Billy, who is rubbing his eyes like a little owl. “Oh, Pa, this is my Asa,” I say proudly. “And his son Billy.”

I hold out my hands for Billy so Asa can greet my dad, and he slides him into my arms. Billy promptly winds his arms around my neck and yawns loudly into my ear. I kiss the side of his head, and look up to see my mum watching me with a soft expression on her face.

“Billy, do you want to meet my mama?” For a second he clings onto me, sleepiness and shyness making him reticent, but when my mum comes forward he looks at her curiously.

“Are you really Jude’s mummy?”

“I am, bebé. Come, I shall tell you all about how naughty he was when he was little.”

Billy immediately wriggles to get down. “Can you tell me lots and lots?” he asks her, and she laughs, smiling down at him, and I watch as another boy falls under my mother’s spell.

“Billy and I will go and set the table,” she says. “Dinner will be ready in half an hour. It’s paella, yes?”

I groan. “Thank you, Mama. I’m so hungry.”

She shrugs. “It is your favourite. Take Asa upstairs when your father has finished talking, and get settled.” She takes Billy’s hand and walks away towards the kitchen. Stanley, already obviously sensing the chance of food, patters along beside them.

I turn to see Asa talking to my dad. Rather than looming over him, or doing the opposite and crouching down to talk to him like he’s a child, Asa has perched his backside on the arm of a chair and is chatting away happily, with a look of great interest on his face. My father is waving his arms about enthusiastically. I smile at two of my favourite people in the world, and as if sensing my regard, they look up.

“Jude!” my father exclaims. “I was just telling Asa about the new William Marshal book I’m reading.”

My interest sharpens. “You mentioned that on the phone the other day. I’ll have a look at it after dinner.”

As I get close to Asa, he reaches out his arm, but then looks hesitantly at my dad to see if he objects. He’s looking in the wrong place for that. My mother and father have always been incredibly supportive of my being gay. My dad once punched someone in the face in the local pub for calling me a faggot. He was immensely proud of himself for weeks afterwards for blacking the man’s eye. So instead of hesitating, I slide under his arm and lean against him.

“Shall we bring the bags in?” I ask, and Asa smiles.

“Of course.”

“I’ll help you,” my dad says, and I shrug.

“Of course you can. In that thing, we can load you up like a pack horse.”

Asa’s mouth hangs open in horror, which eases when my dad and I burst into laughter. He shakes his head, smiling, and stands up. “Let’s get the bags.”

Half an hour later, after unpacking Billy’s stuff in my old room, I stroll into the guest room which Asa and I will be using. I stand for a second watching him as he leans against the open window staring out into the velvety darkness. Dressed in old worn jeans that cling to his arse like a lover, a thick brown jumper and with his hair falling out of his top knot, he looks tired and yet somehow totally content. It’s a look that suits him.

“I can see you, you know,” he says wryly, and I smile.

“Well, of course you can. My presence does somehow fill a room.”

“As does your ego,” he says dryly.

“It’s a healthy ego,” I smile, walking over to him and leaning into his warmth.

He gives a throaty mumble and nuzzles his mouth into my neck sending chills down my spine. “Mmm,” he says. “You smell so fucking good. Like a slice of lime.” I tilt my head back, gasping as he licks a wet strip over my Adam’s apple up to my jawline, where he licks and bites gently, the small pain a dark, thrumming pleasure in my blood.

He sighs dreamily, his face flushed and his eyes heavy lidded. “Want you so bad,” he murmurs. “Want to live inside you so you feel my cock all the time.”

I shiver voluptuously. “God, Yes. I need you in me again.”

He opens his mouth to say I don’t know what, but a brief blast of noise blares out and he jumps about a foot in the air. I laugh. “Not now though. Dinner’s ready.”

“That’s the dinner bell,” he says faintly. “It’s not like ‘Downton Abbey’ here, is it?”

I laugh. “My mum used to just shout, but the farmhouse is big and my dad gets very carried away in his study reading, so now she uses a foghorn.”

He shakes his head. “Your dad’s amazing, and nothing like I expected.”

I grin at him. “Stereotyping again, Asa Jacobs. I suppose you were expecting some Worzel Gummidge lookalike, who talked all the time about crop rotation and harvesting.”

“I’ll crop your rotation in a minute,” he says darkly, shoving me as I laugh.

“Later,” I say breathily, and he shudders, palming his erection.

“Thanks, wanker.”

Dinner is loud and chaotic as we’re joined by Alan, the farm manager, and two of the local lads who are helping with the farm. We talk politics, local news and farm matters. At first the men are slightly wary of someone they’ve seen on the screen, eating with them at the table, but he casts his usual spell and they’re laughing in minutes.

My mum has made one of her huge paellas, using the massive paella pan her mother sent over from Mallorca. Seasoned and old, it’s maintained meticulously. We wash the paella down with hearty red wine and milk for Billy, and dessert is a crème caramel, silky and delicious. Billy has two helpings of this, eating happily and sneaking bits of food to Stanley at his feet.

Eventually the evening winds to a close and the men say their goodbyes, heading back to one of the converted barns where they’ll bunk down for the night, and Alan to his cottage on the farm. Asa gathers Billy onto his lap, kissing his head and sliding his hand over my leg companionably. “That was a beautiful meal,” he says to my mum. “I haven’t tasted a paella so delicious.”

She smiles and pours him some more wine. “Gracias. It is Jude’s favourite. Always has been.”

“He ate a lot of it in Mallorca,” he says, eyeing me sideways and I laugh.

“I can’t help it. It’s delicious.”

My mum looks at him. “You have a house in Mallorca, yes?”

He nods. “It’s my piece of heaven. I bought it years ago and I use it a lot.” He smiles at her. “You and Caleb will have to use it whenever you like. I know you have family on the island.”

She smiles hesitantly at him. “Oh no, there’s no need.”

He shakes his head. “I would like you to. It makes me happy for it to be used.” He pauses. “This thing between Jude and I is very serious.” I swallow hard as he grabs my hand. “It means you are important to me too, because Jude loves you both very much.”

She smiles at him, but then my father clears his throat. “I think it makes you family, Asa, and as a family we all need to have a discussion.”

I look up immediately. “Everything okay, Pa? Do you or Mama need anything?”

Pa instantly reaches his hand out to me and grabs the back of my neck gently, his face alive with love and what looks like sadness. “Jude, that’s everything I love most about you, and the root of the problem.”

“What problem?” I ask stiffening.

Asa raises my hand to his lips and kisses it gently. “Listen,” he says, and I have a sudden feeling he’s guessed what this is about.

My father looks at Asa and my hands, and smiles. Then he looks at my face, examining it intently. “I’m sorry, lad.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For everything. For the fact I reacted so badly to the accident. Sorry, you and your mother had to take care of everything during that time. I’m sorry you had to leave the place and career you loved, and because the idiot you thought you loved, left you.” He pauses and grimaces. “Actually, I’m not sorry about the last bit. He was a bit of a tit.” I smile, but it falters as he leans forward. “Most of all, Jude, I’m sorry because this farm and your own parents have been millstones around your neck for so long.”

I start. “You are not millstones,” I say loudly, looking wildly at my mum who is watching me with tears in her eyes while she clasps my father’s hand.

“Yes, we are,” he says steadily. “The situation was so dire, we relied too much on you, and I’m very angry with myself for letting it happen.”

“I never minded,” I say fiercely. “I love you both. I would do anything for you and this was nothing.”

“It was everything,” my mum says, and smiles wateringly. “But it is finished.”

I sit back. “What do you mean?”

My dad smiles. “The farm is doing better. I am better now. I’m attending physio regularly and seeing small improvements.” He takes a deep breath. “I feel better.” He looks at me sternly. “Time to give up modelling and go back to university, Jude. Time to finish what you started. Time to live again.” I open my mouth and he shakes his head. “You weren’t living, and your mum and I finally realised it. We love you very, very much, son, and we can never repay what you did for us. But we’ve talked and agreed it has to stop.”

“What made you realise?” I say through a throat clogged with tears.

“Asa,” my mum says, and he jerks. She smiles. “It was in your voice when you talked about him, along with this tone of hopelessness I suddenly realised was always there.” She looks at me fiercely. “No more, bebé.” In Spanish she says, “Enjoy your man, my love. Live in the now and live well.”

I stare at her unable to speak, and Billy looks up from where he’s been feeding Stanley crème caramel, a fact I feel we’ll regret later on. “That’s a different language, isn’t it?”

She nods at him. “It is Spanish, bebé.”

He smiles, snuggling into Asa. “I’d like to speak a different language. Hugo at school can say bugger in three languages.” He smiles happily. “He says it a lot because Mrs Clark only speaks English.”

As everyone starts laughing, Asa throws his arm around me and hugs me close, and looking up, I catch and hold my father’s gaze which is happy and full of tears. I purse my lips and blow him a kiss which he pretends to catch, and for just a second, it feels like I’m a child again.

***

We spend a week on the farm, completely ignoring the outside world. We take Billy to the beach and for walks on Dartmoor with Stanley, but mostly he rotates between my mother and father, particularly my father with whom he has developed an intense fascination. Coincidentally, it seems to have been after my dad gave him a ride in his motorised wheelchair, doing wheelies and making crashing noises.

Asa and I have grown closer and closer, walking out together every night, talking and laughing and later lying entwined in bed.

On the day before we go back, I take Billy tramping around the farm with Stanley, showing him my hiding places and good spots to play. It’s starting to rain by the time we return and so when we let ourselves into the farmhouse we’re wet and windswept. I pull his parka off him and hang it up, then help him take off his wellies. Smiling at his chatter, I look up and still. “What are you talking about?”

Asa and my parents are sitting around the kitchen table, and the atmosphere has that sudden truncated pause which happens when you’ve interrupted a serious chat.

Asa stands up and swings Billy into his arms. “Just a chat,” he says blandly. He looks at me. “Can I steal you away for a few hours?”

“Sounds interesting.” I grin at him. “Are we taking Billy?”

“No,” he says and my mum smiles.

“Leave Billy here.”

“He won’t be under your feet?” he asks cautiously, and my dad laughs.

“Well, he won’t be under mine,” he says cheerfully. “Not unless he gets too close to the wheels.”

“Dad!” I exclaim utterly scandalized, but Asa throws his head back and gives a great booming laugh that creases his eyes and always makes me feel like I’ve won something precious.

My mum smiles at him and squeezes his arm as he walks past. She and my dad have really taken to him. “Good luck,” she murmurs.

“Good luck with what?” I ask curiously, but he just shakes his head, grabs both our coats and ushers me out of the house.

When we’re in the car, I look at him curiously. “Where are we going?”

“Not far,” he says enigmatically, and I huff.

“Okay, be mysterious. Just so you know, it doesn’t make you sexy.” He looks at me and I shake my head. “Not at all.”

“Yeah right,” he scoffs.

I stare at him as he drives us down the winding country road that leads back to the village and then on to the seafront. “Are we going for a meal?”

He hums and haws. “Not exactly.” He shifts in his seat as if nervous, and I stare at him.

Once out of the village, the road rises, running alongside the sea so my whole view is the steel grey mass of water. Then he clicks the indicator and turns the car left and parks neatly on a gravelled forecourt in front of an old detached Victorian house. Three storeys with big bay windows, it stands proudly looking down onto the windswept beach.

“Dylan and Gabe’s house is about ten minutes’ walk that way,” he says, and I shoot a look at him, puzzled by that non-sequitur.

“Ah, yes. Dylan’s Christmas present. Gabe has certainly never heard of giving a tub of Quality Street and a Boots gift voucher.”

“Hmm,” he says almost nervously, and I narrow my eyes. When he catches my glance, he straightens up and looks deliberately careless. I hope he acts better on set. “Out we get,” he says in a cheerfully manic way, and mystified, I get out, joining him by the side of the car where he’s looking fixedly at the sea.

“Are we visiting someone?” I ask, and he shakes his head briskly.

“No.” He waves his hand at the beach. “Nice view, isn’t it? Big windows that look down on the sea.”

“Yes.” I draw out the word. “Big windows. Asa, have you got a fever?”

“No,” he says briskly, and marches past me up the steps to the front door, where he draws out a key, and to my amazement opens the door.

“What the fuck? It’s like sleeping with fucking Doctor Who.”

“Exterminate,” he growls, and I shake my head.

“Goodness, I hope our future doesn’t rest on your acting abilities, or I see starvation on the horizon.”

He grabs me round the neck and ruffles my hair. “Inside,” he grumbles.

I follow him in, looking around curiously. We’re in a large airy hallway with a staircase rising up. I turn to see Asa disappearing into a room on the right and hastily leg it after him.

“Lounge,” he says, waving his hand at the large high-ceilinged room with its big window seeming to jut out into the air over the sea. He points at the window. “Window seat for reading.”

“What on earth?” I say faintly, and then dash after him as he moves into another room.

“Study,” he says briefly and then we’re off again. I follow him through a dining room, a games room and a massive kitchen which looks down on a wild garden. Then I traipse after him to see the five bedrooms on the first floor, and a very large attic on the top floor which he declares would be an excellent suite.

“Lovely,” I say, as he pauses in one of the big bedrooms. “This is like a very polite home invasion.” I stare at him, swinging his hands about and talking very quickly about double glazing and room for bookcases, and suddenly realise he’s extremely nervous.

“Why are we here?” I say abruptly, breaking into a soliloquy on the rail service to London. “What’s going on?”

He takes in a deep breath and half smiles at me. “I want to buy it.”

“What?” I shout, and then moderate my voice to a less ear-splitting decibel. “Sorry, I thought you said you wanted to buy this.” I start to laugh, and stop when he speaks.

“I did,” he says calmly.

“Is it because Gabe bought Dylan a house here? Because I really would be happy with a tub of Quality Street.” I pause. “Although, make mine a Waterstones voucher. I’ll get more use out of it.” He doesn’t smile and I realise he’s serious. “Why do you want to buy this? Is it for when we visit, babe? Because there’s no need. We can stay at the farm.” I pause. “Oh, unless you want your privacy.”

“No,” he interrupts. “I want us all to live here.”

I stare at him in stunned surprise and the silence lengthens. “What?” I say slowly.

He lowers himself to sit cross legged on the wooden floorboards and pats the space beside him. I lower myself too and I’m instantly tugged into his side, a characteristic of Asa I’ve learned. He can’t be near me without touching me in some way.

“Did you say live here?”

He nods, blowing out a breath nervously. “Yes. You, me and Billy. This would be our home. Do you like it?” he asks anxiously.

I nod, biting my lip. “It’s beautiful, Asa, but your life’s in London. The theatres and galleries and restaurants. All your friends. Everything’s there.”

“My life is with you,” he says quietly. “The rest doesn’t really matter.”

“But I’m there too,” I say, mystified.

He smiles and runs his fingertips down my face. “Not really,” he says with a smile. “I’ve watched you this week, Jude, and your heart is here in the wild countryside, with the wind in your face and salt on your lips. I’ve never seen you as content as you are here.”

“That’s because of you.” I turn to him. “You make me happy.”

He kisses me then, taking my lips with a small happy moan before pulling back. “You make me very happy too,” he says solemnly. “More than I’ve ever felt in my life.” He smiles. “Don’t get me wrong, we’ll keep the London house. I’ll never get rid of it, and in my mind, I can see us splitting our time between here and there and Mallorca in the summer. Billy can have the type of childhood you and Dylan had - free and outdoors.” He smiles happily. “Fuck. I never thought I could share my life like this. It’s amazing. Years and years ahead with the best friend I’ll ever have.”

I grab his hand and kiss it quickly, and then look at him. “I’ll love that too, but it worries me, Asa, because it’s you sharing so much with me.” I stare at him worriedly. “What do I bring to this relationship?”

“Everything,” he says passionately. “If you’re with me I have everything.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and squeeze his hand tightly. By mutual accord a small silence falls, and I stare around the high-ceilinged room in which the sound of the sea echoes. “Gabe will never let us live this down,” I say glumly. “He’ll be going on about being a trendsetter for the rest of our lives.”

“I think he’ll see the benefits when he doesn’t have to separate you and Dylan for too long. That would be more painful than splitting up the Chuckle Brothers.” I laugh but it dies as I watch him take a deep breath. “I have to tell you something else.”

“What have you done?” I say slowly.

“I paid off the mortgage on the farm. Your mum and dad have accepted my help, but they insist on paying me back. It’s better for them though, because there won’t be the crippling interest which was the root of their problems.” He pauses, and then says very quickly as if he wants to get the words out as soon as possible. “I’ve also paid off your overdraft. I want you to pack in modelling and go back to university, and I’m going to pay the fees while you’re there.”

For a second I’m struck dumb, and then rage fills me. “You’ve done what?” I exclaim, and jump to my feet, pacing away from him. “You can’t do that, Asa, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yes, I bloody well can,” he says firmly, jumping to his feet and grabbing my arm to still me. “I am the man who loves you utterly and madly. It gives me certain rights, one of which is to take some of your burdens and make them mine.”

“Ours,” I say distractedly. “Our burdens. You don’t take them all on yourself.”

Asa smiles gloriously as I gape at him in astonishment. “Ours,” he repeats softly. He takes my face between his big palms and stares into my eyes. “Let me have your worries, Jude. Give them to me, and I promise I can make it better.”

I twist away. “And then what? I’m a fucking millstone and it’s all uneven. You give me everything, and get what in return? Money and family problems.”

“That’s fucking life!” he exclaims. “Nothing in life is perfect. Sure, I could find another man with no baggage, but guess what? He wouldn’t be you. He wouldn’t have your smile and your laugh which fills me up with so much happiness and peace when I’m near you. He wouldn’t have your kindness or warmth that draws people close and keeps them there. He wouldn’t be fiercely loyal and clever and stimulate every fucking inch of me.” His voice lowers. “He wouldn’t make me feel like I’ve finally found a home when I lie in bed wrapped around him, or see him holding my child and loving him and keeping him safe.” Silence falls, and then he stirs. “With all this, I want to share your life, Jude. So tell me why the hell I shouldn’t share your burdens.”

“Exactly, burdens,” I say in disgust.

He shrugs. “What you see as burdens, I actually see as blessings. I have no real family apart from you and Billy and Peggy and Amos. I left my other family years ago and nobody really misses me. What you have here with all the chaos and laughter, and love and bumps in the road, well, that just says family to me, and it’s what I want, and it’s what I want Billy to have.”

I stare at him. “You really want that?”

He sighs helplessly and holds out his arms to me. “I want everything you have to give me, Jude, good and bad. Everything, because I want a life with you.”

I stare at him, this kind, gentle giant with the tired eyes who holds my heart in his hands so carefully, and something snaps and settles inside me. I suddenly know this man I can trust unreservedly. This man is the one for me, and always will be. I walk into his arms and feel them surround me, the way they will down the years, offering me love, loyalty, laughter and a fierce and unconditional acceptance of who I am.

I hear his sigh of relief and feel tears in my throat. “I love you,” I say fiercely. “Completely and utterly. You’ll never be rid of me, so I hope you’re okay with that.”

His answer is to lower his head and kiss me, and we sway together in the empty room of this house he’s given to me, but I vow I will make it into a home for him.