He was over Jonah, with those strong arms around him, and his face buried in Jonah’s chest. He smelled of himself, of sweat and spunk, of something Ben thought might be sandalwood, an unfamiliar scent. He was gripping Ben’s shoulders, thighs moving apart as if to accommodate the man on top of him, and Ben gasped and opened his eyes.
Jonah was looking up at him, bruised face unreadable in the moon shadows. Ben stared down. There was a long, impossible moment, when neither of them knew what to do, and then Jonah gave Ben a gentle push.
“Up you get. Come on, up. I won’t let you fall.” Ben made it to his feet, and Jonah gripped his hand once more. He didn’t resist. “This row meets another, so it’s just a stroll now. On we go.”
Ben would not have called it a stroll, slipping and sliding over the roofs of house after house, not looking down, feet cramping with the awkward angle, clambering over attic windows and around chimneys, but at last Jonah stopped. “Up here.” He tugged at Ben’s hand, and something shoved under his feet. They clambered up, and Ben found himself sitting on a rounded roof ridge, back to a chimneystack, as firmly lodged as it was possible to be on a roof three stories up.
“There.” Jonah crouched to sit on the ridge tiles a little further along, and winced as he lowered himself. “Ow.”
Shame, staining pitch-dark shame, washed over Ben in waves of heat. “Are you—are you hurt?”
“Well, I’m going to know about it tomorrow,” Jonah said. “It’s fine.”
“I…” Was he sorry? No, he couldn’t be. Jonah had deserved it, and worse. He’d betrayed him.
Betrayed him, and saved him.
“I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it. How did you—why—”
“Ssh.” Jonah shifted closer, tapped Ben on the arm, pointed. “Look.”
Ben looked, not sure what he was indicating, and saw London.
The roofscape stretched out in front of him for a mile at least, swards and hills of brick and tile and slate, jaggedly topped by slanting rooflines, pierced by spires and chimneys. The dome of St. Paul’s rose molehill-like in the distance. A dark city, huge beyond imagination, made stark and silver by the moon.
“Just look at it a moment,” Jonah said softly. “Not many people see this.”
They sat, looking out over London in silence. Ben knew he should be shouting, accusing, pushing the bastard off the roof, but that earlier burst of violence had left him feeling hollow and limp, and he was trapped in this suspended moment above the city, not yet ready to break the quiet and the spell.
Nothing had changed, nothing to remedy his pain and anger and hate. Jonah was a thief, a liar, an accessory to murder. But he had said “Score me a try”, and the words had stabbed Ben’s heart with sweetness.
Chapter Three
Last April
“Oh God, I have to get up,” Ben muttered, looking blearily at the daylight through the heavy brown curtains. “It’s past nine already.”
“Why…oh, rugby.” Jonah rolled onto his side, running a hand over the sparse hairs of Ben’s chest. He was much hairier, surprisingly so, with a thick wiry tangle of black over his pectoral muscles, his forearms and calves. It gave Ben an odd thrill that he couldn’t quite identify. He liked being the bigger man of the two, even though it wasn’t by much, he liked the way his solid rugby player’s build matched and countered Jonah’s athletic strength. But there was something about Jonah’s body hair, that incontrovertible evidence of his masculinity, that made Ben feel…not that he was less manly, precisely, but that Jonah was more so. That probably made no sense, he reflected sleepily, and didn’t care.
“Rugby,” he mumbled, because Jonah’s exploring hand was making him think of other games to play. “Get off, Jay. Got to get up.”
“Can I come?”
Ben blinked at that. It was not that Jonah was a secret, exactly. Ben had introduced him in the pub, casually, his pal sharing the expenses. It wasn’t an unusual arrangement, and to be secretive would attract more attention than openness. Still, to have Jonah come and watch him, in public…
“Not if you don’t want.” Jonah had read his expression. “I just thought…” There was a little disappointment on his face, perhaps a little hurt, but it was washed away almost at once by the smile. “I just thought I’d like to see you in shorts. Clutching all those big thighs.”
“I don’t do anything of the sort.”
“You play scrum half,” Jonah said. “I know what that is. All hugging each other and putting your head between their legs. I’m jealous.”
“You’re a menace,” Ben told him, and grabbed his shoulders, rolling him over on top of his own body for a kiss. Jonah came easily at the pull—it was astonishing how light he felt, sometimes, almost weightless—and settled comfortably over Ben, tongue warm and mobile in his mouth, hands exploring.
“Mph,” Ben muttered at last. “Got to go.”
“I know.” Jonah kissed his nose. “I’ll wait.”