Rory wasn’t much enjoying sitting on the bench, listening to Barry bang on about how David might not be the kind of role model Rory wanted for his kids. He was talking out of his arse, cos David was bloody fantastic with the kids, and as for being a role model, well, they could do a lot worse than a bloke who dressed smart and used all them big words. Expanding their vocabulary, he was. Rory’s too, if he was honest. And teaching them a bit of French on the side.
Trouble was, Barry didn’t seem to want to let Rory get a word in edgewise to explain all that. So when Lucy ran over and asked him to push her on the roundabout, he ignored Barry’s complaint that she was old enough to do it herself and jumped straight up. It was fun, anyhow. You could get that roundabout going a fair old whack if you ran fast, and it was big enough for Rory to jump on for a ride as well. Lucy loved it.
After a while—a long while—she decided she wanted to go on the slide. Probably cos Leo was over there on his tod, having given up his swing to Kelly. Barry was standing by the side of the swings yelling stuff like, “Put your legs out—no, not now, when you’re going forward. Jesus, don’t they teach you anything at school these days?”
Rory caught David’s eye, and they went to sit on a free bench, Rory still breathing hard and waiting for the park to stop spinning. “All right? Sorry if it’s a bit boring for you.”
“No, no. It’s a whole new world. I’ve never had children before. Actually the roundabout looked like fun.”
“Yeah? Next time they want a go on it, it’s all yours. Any more of that and my lunch’ll be making a reappearance.”
They both watched Barry for a mo. He’d given up on getting through to Kelly with words alone and was now running backwards and forwards alongside the poor kid’s swing, making hand gestures. “You can’t say he doesn’t put the effort in,” Rory said at last.
“Mm. So, you and Barry: bosom chums forever?” David sounded . . . not exactly sarcastic, but a bit on the sharp side, maybe.
“It’s not . . .” Rory stopped and tried to get his thoughts in order, cos David didn’t get it, and he had to make him see he was wrong. “I owe him. Like, a lot. You know when Evie left me?”
“It must have been a rough time.”
“Yeah . . .” He screwed his eyes shut, cos he couldn’t look at his kids and say this. “It nearly killed me. Her saying she’d found someone else, and she was gonna take the kids and live with him. It was like . . . remember that bit in the Indiana Jones film where the priest bloke rips some poor bastard’s beating heart right out of his chest? It was like that. Only she took me lungs too, and me liver, and all them other bits nobody knows what they do.”
David nodded. “I’ve often wondered why we really need a gall bladder. Isn’t the world full of enough bile? Or is that the pancreas? But I’m rambling on. Just ignore me.”
Rory managed a weak smile. “Never, mate. But it was bad. I’m not saying I’d’ve . . . done nothing stupid, topped meself or what have you, but, well . . . Oof.” All the air rushed out of his lungs as David clamped himself around Rory’s chest. He patted David’s back breathlessly. “Oi, mate, ’s okay, yeah? I’m good now. But if it hadn’t been for Barry . . .”
David nodded and gave a loud sniff. What was it with him and Jenni, getting all teary when Rory talked about emotions and stuff? Huh. Rory blinked his own eyes—must be dust or something. He cleared his throat. “So what I’m saying is, I owe him, and if he needs a shoulder to cry on cos he’s got his knickers in a twist over the wife’s latest health fad, or he wants someone to rant at about the world going to the dogs and then some, I’m gonna be there for him.”
“That’s so sweet.” David sniffed again.
Rory offered him a hanky. Then he glanced over to where the kids were and saw Barry standing stock still, staring at them with a weird look in his eye.
As if, say, he’d just seen his best mate getting a cuddle from the gay bloke who was living with him.
Well, crap.
Barry was in a right mood the rest of the time they were at the park. Kept brushing off Rory’s attempts to talk to him. At first, Rory felt bad about it, and he wanted to explain stuff, but the longer it went on, the more he stopped feeling guilty and started feeling angry.
It wasn’t like David and him had done anything wrong, was it? And even if it had been wrong—which it hadn’t—it’d only happened cos Rory was trying to get David to like Barry, the ungrateful git.
So why should he be all in a hurry to tell Barry there hadn’t been anything gay going on? What if there had been? It wasn’t against the law. Maybe it had been, yeah, decades ago, but that’d been a stupid law. Cos what was so flippin’ wrong with two blokes having a cuddle in public? Or doing other stuff, for that matter. Although maybe best not to do that in public.
Rory ran his finger round his collar. He’d thought he’d cooled off from all that roundabout pushing, but he was definitely feeling a bit hot and bothered now.
David was off with Leo again when Barry finally came over to talk to Rory.
“Right, then,” he said heartily. “Me and the kids are off. See ya.”
Rory frowned. “Oi, hang on, we’ll walk back up with you.” That was what they always did, wasn’t it? Why did Barry have to go changing things now?
“Nah. No need to drag the kids off the slide.” Barry stomped off, trailing a kid by each hand. Sam and Kelly didn’t look too happy about having to leave while Lucy and Leo were still playing, either.
Rory was staring after them when David left off larking about with Leo on the slide and came over to join him. He wasn’t smiling, and it was strange, but it was the first time Rory had noticed how good-looking he was. Like a picture in a magazine, or . . . or a painting, or something. Not like someone real, someone Rory knew.
It made Rory feel funny inside, and he didn’t like it. He wanted David to go back to being real, being the bloke he was mates with. Except . . . in a weird sort of way, that wasn’t right either.
“Is everything all right?” David asked.
Rory definitely didn’t like to see David looking worried, so he forced a smile. “Barry got the hump about something. Daft git. He’ll get over it.”
David bit his lip. “Will he? I mean, it was my fault, wasn’t it? I think he saw me getting handsy with you, although not in the sense he must have thought.”
Bloody Barry. “You didn’t do nothing wrong, and if he don’t get over it, he’s just a stupid great . . . twat-muffin.”
David gave a startled laugh. “Twat-muffin?”
“Yep. You heard me.”
“I hope the children didn’t.”
“Yeah. Lucy’d give me that disapproving face she gets from her mum. Course, Leo would probably think it was what we were having for tea.”
“Twat-muffins and honey. Hm. I’m afraid I’ve never been that fond of—” David caught himself as Lucy ran up to join them, Leo trailing after her “—muffins.”
She gave him a withering look. “That’s silly. Everyone likes muffins.”
“One man’s muffin is another man’s poison.”
Lucy stared at him. Then she turned pointedly to Rory. “Are we going home soon, Daddy? Leo needs a wee and I want a drink.”
“Right, love. Not left anything behind, have we? Then let’s get home.”
Getting the kids home and sorted out with drinks and the loo and making sure they washed their hands took up all Rory’s attention, which he wasn’t sorry about. What with Barry, and David . . . Nah, he could do with a break from thinking about all that, ta very much.