Author: Anna Martin
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/anna-martin/page,6,529683-the_lost_boy.html
Stan was slightly surprised that there were so many of them here. And expensive dresses too. His body didn’t suit some designers; he preferred strange shapes and off-kilter tailoring to more classic looks.
The labels on the dresses spoke of his past.
Alexander McQueen.
Roberto Cavalli.
Dior.
Jesus. He had thousands upon thousands of pounds’ worth of dresses here. Stan flicked through them, the designs immediately evoking a time and place. He remembered that Galliano gown, the event he’d worn it to, even the pomegranate martinis they’d served. The Oscar de la Renta mini dress that he’d worn with skyscraper heels. They’d destroyed his feet.
When he found the Elie Saab dress, Stan knew it was right.
Tight, black, moody and dramatic—no one at the Electric Ballroom would know who the designer was, but he’d definitely make an entrance. Stan still made entrances sometimes, but his job now didn’t call for the red carpet events or the big, industry socials he’d attended in London. He didn’t have any dresses at his apartment in New York. None at all.
There was a time when he’d wondered if all that was in his past. Stan had never made any move to get rid of those outfits, though, just kept them safe until he was ready to look at them again. Maybe, if he really pushed himself to think about it, he associated the dresses so closely with a time and place—and a person—that it hurt to think about being the guy who wore them. He hadn’t allowed himself to be that guy in a while.
It came back to him so, so easily.
Stan didn’t keep a lot of makeup in the flat, but he could make do with what he had. The dress was a lot, and he didn’t want to over-do the occasion, so a little understated on the makeup would be fine.
He didn’t have any foundation, so he used a heavier powder to cover up some of the variations in skin tone around his eyes. He’d always kept his brows perfectly shaped, so they just needed a slick of clear mascara to hold them in place.
Instead of shadow, Stan picked a thick, kohl eyeliner and smudged it carefully around his eyes, deliberately going for a mussed, heavy-handed look. There was no way he’d be the only guy in the Electric Ballroom wearing eyeliner tonight. It was practically part of their dress code.
Mascara, bronzer, highlighter, and he was done.
Stan worked some salt spray through his hair, wanting to go for textured and messy rather than sleek and straight. It was a risk; if it rained later, he’d turn into a massive frizz-ball, but Stan was okay with that.
He glanced at the clock and decided he needed to leave soon.
There wasn’t a handbag among all the dresses, so Stan grabbed his black leather backpack and loaded his phone, wallet, and keys into that instead, satisfied he could leave it all in the cloakroom. The last challenge was getting into the dress. The hidden zip made it a twisty, uncomfortable squeeze to get the damn thing done up, especially because Stan had put on weight and muscle definition since the last time he’d worn it. The dress was tight, but he could get the zip up and still breathe, so it would be fine.
For a moment he looked longingly at his flat shoes that he’d been wearing since New York. But they weren’t good enough for the Elie Saab. There was only one pair of shoes in his collection good enough, and Stan knew already they were going to destroy his feet.
Worth it, though.
He strapped himself into the Chloé ankle boots and found his centre of balance. A quick glance into the full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe door turned into a full double-take.
Stan surveyed himself, head to toe.
He looked good.
Something about a fantastic pair of shoes and a beautiful dress made him hold his head higher, tighten his core, put his shoulders back. He ached for a slick of red lipstick, but he didn’t have any with him. It didn’t matter, not really.
Stan ran his fingers down the sides of the dress, smoothing it into place, and stepped into this familiar, old persona. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and smiled.
Tone was leaning against a wall, smoking, when Stan arrived at the club. He gave Stan a good look up and down, then whistled between his teeth.
“Lookin’ good.”
Stan laughed. “Thank you.”
“Those legs, bubs. Jeez Louise.”
“Should we go inside?”
Tone offered his arm, which made Stan smile, and he took it.
It wasn’t particularly late when they stumbled back to the flat, the balmy London night sticking to Stan’s skin as he laughed because Tone was being crude, as usual.
Stan hadn’t had fun like that in a while. He’d had fun, just not this specific brand of fun. The sort of fun that happened on one of those anything can happen London nights.
He pinched one of Tone’s chips as they made their way up the stairs to the flat, shushing each other to be mindful of their neighbours.
“Keep your paws off my chips,” Tone grumbled.
Stan pinched another one.
“You let me pay for your drinks, you steal my food,” Tone said as Stan fumbled for his keys. “If this is a date, you could at least put out.”
Stan laughed again and turned to him. With his heels on, he didn’t even need to rise up onto his toes to press a kiss to Tone’s bearded cheek.
Tone blushed.
“Thank you for taking me out,” Stan said as he unlocked the door and let them inside. “Now, I need to get out of these shoes.”
Tone shoved the rest of the chips into his mouth and dumped the container in the bin, then waved absently behind himself as he made his way to the bathroom.
Stan collapsed onto the sofa, sticking his aching legs out in front of himself. He’d been right—the shoes were mayhem, but it had been good. And worth it.
He breathed slowly, the loud music still echoing in his ears in the quiet flat. He needed to make up the bed to get some sleep, because he was sure to wake early in the morning despite the lateness of his bedtime. But for a moment, Stan just breathed.
From down the hall, he heard the toilet flush and the sound of Tone’s door closing.
Stan sighed and reached down to undo the straps that bound the torture shoes around his poor feet. They fell to the floor in two distinct thuds, and Stan all but groaned. His feet throbbed, and he was sure there was a blister forming on his big toe.
That’s what happens when you wear heels after six months of abstinence, he reminded himself.
With the cool, fake-wood floors soothing his soles, Stan padded down to the bathroom. Before he could get there, Ben’s door opened.
He was wearing a creased T-shirt and his boxers, with his bed-hair rumpled and eyes adorably perplexed. When Stan smiled at him, he blinked the fog from his eyes.
“Hi,” Stan said. “Sorry if we woke you.”
“No, it’s fine.” Ben’s voice was rough. He’d been sleeping a lot since he came back. Apparently he’d been spending a lot of time in bed over the past few months, according to Tone. It had something to do with the insomnia. He couldn’t sleep, so he was exhausted all the time.
“Do you want to use the bathroom?”
Ben ignored Stan’s question and took a step closer, looking Stan up and down like he was confused.
“I like your dress,” he said instead.
“Thanks.” Stan grinned.
“You don’t dress up any more.”
“Not as much as I used to. Tone asked me if I wanted to go out, so….”
“You went to the Electric Ballroom?”
“Yes.”
“Looking like that?”
“Yes,” Stan said again. “Is that a problem?”
Ben blinked slowly. “You look amazing.”
Something fizzy rolled down Stan’s spine. “Thanks,” he murmured.
Neither of them seemed to want to move, the moment growing thicker between them. Stan thought any sharp motions would kill it. So he just breathed, as quietly as he dared.
He had been afraid of this.
If they did what they were supposed to do and Ben got better, what if, at the core of him, there was still the man Stan had loved? What would he do then? Could he walk away again?
“Sorry,” Ben said, his voice low.
“What for?”
“You hate it when people stare at you.”
Stan laughed softly. “I hate it when strangers look at me like I’m a freak. I never minded when….”
“Hmm?”
“When it was you,” Stan finished.
Of course it was still there. Stan was a fool for pretending it wasn’t, for hoping Ben still didn’t have the power to completely destroy him. Again. If Stan’s heart had been broken all this time, then now it was delicately cradled in Ben’s hands, just waiting to be pieced back together.
“Oh.”
Stan turned away, hating how vulnerable he was right here, barefoot and exposed and caught in Ben’s aura.
“Hey,” Ben said, catching Stan’s fingertips with his own.
“Goodnight, Ben,” Stan said.
Ben traced his thumb over the inside of Stan’s wrist, whisper soft. “Goodnight,” he said.
This time when Stan turned away, Ben didn’t stop him, and their hands fell apart.
Chapter Eight
Something had changed.
Well, everything had changed.
Ben wasn’t prepared for that—emotionally or practically or in any other way.
Being this close to Stan again was messing with his head, though not necessarily in a bad way. Stan’s presence had always been enough to push Ben to be a better person. He’d worked hard in the early days of their relationship to be the type of guy who made an effort for his partner.
Whether it was conscious or not, he was doing that again now.
It wasn’t exactly a revolution to discover that he still carried a torch for Stan. It had taken a few months for Ben to really come to terms with the fact that Stan was really gone and wasn’t coming back. He’d buried the pain of that realisation under a haze of drugs, and his friends had quickly learned to stop mentioning Stan’s name when Ben was around.
He knew he needed to call the others in LA and at least tell them he was okay, and it took a few days to identify the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach as shame. He wasn’t ready to face them yet. Not when he wasn’t sure what sort of reaction he would get.
Stan was out of the flat, disappearing well before Ben rolled out of bed. He had meetings or something. Ben guessed he’d put his career—his life—on hold to drag Ben back to London so he could sort himself out.
If Stan had done that for him, it felt like Ben should at least make an effort.
He spent most of the morning lying on his back, staring at the ceiling and thinking about how awful the idea of doing anything was. In the back of his head, he was able to identify this as depression—a deep, dark, sucking thing that took all the last wisps of his personality and left a really fucking dull creature behind. That didn’t make dealing with it any easier.
The twin-power protests of his stomach and his bladder finally got him out of bed, and he made himself take a shower without anyone else telling him to do so. The effort of that almost floored him, but he still had a growling stomach to deal with, so he dressed in whatever he found on the floor and went to the kitchen to make tea.
When that was done, Ben collapsed on the sofa and sipped it while watching terrible British daytime TV, because Stan was the last person alive who didn’t have Netflix. Ben did, but his laptop was in his bedroom, and he was taking today one thing at a time.
When the tea was finished, he set the kettle to boil to make another one, put two pieces of bread in the toaster, and went to collect his laptop. The restorative power of tea and toast gave him enough energy to pull up Google and search for a stupid fucking therapist in London.
The search results were overwhelming. How the hell was he supposed to pick one person to spill his guts to out of literally thousands of therapists who worked in the city?
With his head pounding, Ben opened a text document and started on a list of criteria.
Needed to be a bloke. Ben wasn’t sure he could talk about all the things he probably should be talking about with a woman, no matter how nice she was. Scratch that—if she was nice, it would be a hundred times worse.
Someone with experience dealing with addicts. Someone who didn’t work too far from Camden.
Ben used the new list to narrow down his search, then got up again to grab the phone from the kitchen and dialled the first person he’d found.
“Are you taking new clients?” Ben growled when a bubbly female voice answered.
“With which practitioner, please?”
“Dr Harris.”
“His next available appointment is in October.”
“Are you shitting me? It’s June.”
“Dr Harris is very busy, I’m afraid—”
Ben hung up before she could say anything else.
The next two people on his list had similar answers, and he was starting to remember just why he liked having people who made his every fucking dentist and pedicurist appointment for him. This shit was exhausting.
He vowed to himself to call one more, and if it didn’t work out, he’d have a break and watch more shit TV, then try again later.
But a soft male voice answered this time, and he didn’t sound like a massive arsehole.
“Can I book an appointment with Dr Freiberg at some point within the next century? Please?”
The man chuckled. “I’m sure we can arrange that. Are there any days or times that work better for you?”
“As soon as fucking possible,” Ben muttered.
“I can fit you in tomorrow morning? At, say, eleven?”
Ben blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, that would work.”
“Great. What’s your name?”
“Ben Easton,” he said automatically.
“Okay, Ben. Do you have a phone number I could take?”
“No… not right now. Can you see this number I’m calling from? I… lost my phone.”
“I’ll find it,” he said.
Ben had a strange sensation. “Are you Dr Freiberg?”
“Most people call me Greg. But yes.”
“Why do you answer your own phone?” Ben asked, suddenly suspicious. “And why do you have an appointment tomorrow morning? Everyone else I spoke to is booked up until kingdom fucking come.”
“I run my own practice,” Dr “Call-Me-Greg” Freiberg said. “If the phone rings and I can answer it, I do. If not, the answerphone gets it. And I have appointments free because I don’t cram my schedule full. I like to treat people like people, not like they’re part of the therapy sausage machine.”
“Huh.” Ben remembered reading that on Dr Greg’s website. It was part of the reason he made the shortlist.
“Do you have a pen? I can give you the address.”
“It’s on your website. I have a laptop, just not a phone.”
“Okay. Well, then, I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven, and I’ll look forward to meeting you, Ben.”
“Yeah,” Ben said, then hung up. He stared at the phone for a long minute.
He’d picked his own therapist. A man, who wasn’t a massive arsehole, who dealt with addicts and people who had been sexually abused and worked in Holloway.
Ben carefully set the phone down on the arm of the sofa and curled up into a ball. Stan had been sleeping on this sofa, and it smelled of him, like his shampoo and whatever cologne he was wearing these days and of Stan.
He closed his eyes and slept.
For a long time, Ben had been of the opinion that therapy was bullshit. He’d been thrown at therapists and addiction counsellors and people who had all sorts of fucking opinions on what he should do with his life. Group therapy wasn’t just bullshit, it was “seventh circle of hell” bullshit. Circle of fucking truth. Fuck that. One of Ben’s “circle of truth” buddies had sold him out to the fucking tabloids.
Bastard
.
Ben hoped he’d got a really virulent case of genital herpes. And crabs. And a UTI, to top it all off.
Dr Greg wasn’t as bad as the others. He was still a bullshit therapist, but Ben had come to the conclusion that just waiting for his brain to rewire itself and stop being addicted to drugs probably wasn’t working, and he should maybe get professional help to speed up the process.
Dr Greg was younger than Ben had thought—probably in his early forties. He had a beard and wore a plaid shirt and jeans and ran his practice in the conservatory of his ground-floor flat. And he was German. He didn’t have much of an accent at all, but when Ben had asked, he said he’d moved when he was a teenager.
Then they’d spent almost an hour talking about moving to London from other places when they were teenagers.
Ben had set up a direct payment with his card and agreed to another appointment on Thursday, in two days’ time.
He wasn’t sure what exactly his money was paying for. They hadn’t talked about anything that Ben thought he was supposed to be talking about. But he had someone to talk to now.
He picked up food on his way back to Stan’s flat and left it in the fridge, not ready to eat it even though he was starving. And went back to bed.
“Ben.”
He rolled over in bed and cracked an eye open. Stan was backlit by the light spilling through the hallway, making him look like he was glowing. That would be about right. Stan had always glowed.
“Are you okay?”
Ben nodded. “What time is it?”
“Almost four. You’ve slept for a long time.”
“Okay. I’m getting up now.”
Stan smiled and shut the door behind himself.
Like usual, it took forever for Ben to get himself out of bed, to the bathroom, and into the kitchen. He didn’t feel raw in the way other therapy sessions had left him in the past. He hadn’t been forced to relive painful memories or explore just why he had such a deep, prevailing love for painkillers and cocaine.
But he still felt scraped. Like he’d been pushed. His wariness of the entire experience was as exhausting as the sessions themselves.