Author: Anna Martin
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/anna-martin/page,11,529683-the_lost_boy.html
When they got home to Camden, it was late and the area around the lock was buzzing with people who had stayed out after work, getting caught in the long summer evenings.
Ben took Stan’s hand as they walked up to the block of flats, then tugged him around the corner before they got to the door.
“I don’t want to kiss you good night in front of Tone,” he said, keeping his voice low.
Stan smiled, his grey eyes sparkling. Ben reached up and tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind Stan’s ear.
Stan put his hands on Ben’s shoulders and leaned up—he was wearing trainers, which put him a little shorter than Ben—and kissed Ben softly. Ben rested his hands on Stan’s hips and swayed into the kiss, closing his eyes and leading them to something sweet and familiar.
“I really like kissing you,” Stan said with a laugh.
“Then we should do more of it.”
That made him laugh again. Ben knew they should move before someone stumbled across them, but he couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and kissed the laughter off Stan’s lips.
Chapter Thirteen
The balmy early summer had come to an abrupt end when they got stuck into July, and now the sweet sunshine had given way to stormy skies and persistent, drizzling rain. It had driven Tone to stay in the flat more, highlighting how little space there was for three men to be living there together.
It was fine. Stan was coping.
Sort of.
With Ben’s recovery still in such early stages, Tone wasn’t ready to leave him yet, even if that did mean them all living on top of each other. Stan couldn’t blame Tone for that—Tone had been the one consistent supporter in Ben’s life for years, and now he needed him more than ever. They’d created a tiny microclimate in this little corner of London where Ben was making slow and steady improvements. That was the most important thing.
The box of clothes he’d begged his New York roommate to send over had arrived, and she hadn’t let him down. It turned out to be three fairly large boxes, containing his day-to-day staple wardrobe, with some fun things thrown in there too. And his shoes. And his designer bags.
With few other options, Stan unpacked the clothes into the closet in Tone’s room, and refused again Tone’s offer to swap beds. Stan had a feeling they weren’t going to last much longer, the three of them crowded into the flat together anyway. There was no need to cause a fuss for the sake of it.
Because Tone was a goddamned godsend.
“Gonna go get something from the market for lunch.”
Tone hauled himself up off the sofa, scratching at his beard. Like the others, he’d lost weight over the past few years. Except in Tone’s case, it wasn’t really a weight loss, more of a redistribution. His beer belly had almost gone, but he was barrel-chested and broad and still rather adorable. Stan had come to terms with his teeny tiny little crush on Tone a long time ago. It was harmless, after all. He definitely wasn’t going to do anything about it.
“Want anything?” he asked.
“Depends,” Stan said. “What are you going to get?”
“Dunno.” Tone patted his pockets, confirmed to himself that his phone and wallet were in them, and nodded. “I don’t mind going somewhere particular if you want something, though.”
“I want one of those Hawaiian poke bowls,” Ben said.
Both Tone and Stan turned to him, surprised. Ben hardly ever expressed an interest or an opinion on food.
“Any particular pokey bowl?” Tone asked.
“No, I don’t mind. I like it all. Oh, and Bang Bang Chicken. Get some of that too.”
“Okay. Stan love?”
“Poke bowls sound good to me. Nothing with red meat, but chicken or fish is fine.”
“Got it.”
Tone blinked at Ben again, then turned and left.
“I have an appointment again this afternoon,” Ben said. When Stan looked over, he was chewing on his bottom lip. “With Dr Freiberg.”
“Okay,” Stan said. “Do you want me to walk down there with you, or…?”
“No. I just wanted you to know.”
Trying to get through these conversations was often excruciating, but Stan tried to push on anyway.
“I don’t know if anyone else is telling you this, but I think you’re doing so well. I’m really proud of you.”
Ben wrinkled his nose and ducked his head. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
“If you need anything you know you can ask me, right?”
“You might have noticed, Stan, but I’m not the best at asking for help.”
Stan grinned. “I had noticed, now you mention it.”
He didn’t want to push Ben any more, not when Ben seemed to be doing so well with actually expressing his feelings, so Stan got up and unloaded the dishwasher so they had clean plates to eat from, if they wanted to.
They were close enough to the market that it only took a few minutes for Tone to get back. Only he wasn’t alone.
“Sherrie,” Stan exclaimed.
She made a very high-pitched noise and all but danced over to pull him into a hug.
Sherrie was Geordie’s mum, who had adopted all of the band as her surrogate children and even went as far as buying them a house to live in. A really nice house, in Belsize Park, because she was loaded. Not that anyone could ever guess that. Today she was wearing tight jeans and a nice black sweater with a leather jacket over the top. When Stan had first met her, Sherrie’s style had leaned towards the gaudy. He’d worked with her, though. Now there wasn’t a single gold hoop earring in sight.
“I haven’t seen you in forever,” she exclaimed, hugging Stan close, then holding him at arm’s length by the shoulders so she could look at him properly. “You’re looking so well.”
“Thank you,” Stan said with a grin that he wasn’t sure was entirely convincing.
“I literally just ran into Tone. It’s Emily’s birthday coming up, and I wanted to get her something she saw at the market, and—”
She broke off when she noticed Ben in the corner, who was doing a very good impression of someone who was trying to disappear into a sofa.
“Ben.”
“Hey, Sherrie.”
Sherrie held her arms out to him, leaving Ben no option but to go and be hugged by her.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured, gathering him close. After a second of hesitation, Ben returned her hug like he was starving for it. “It’s so good to see you. I missed you so much.”
Tone had deposited his bag of food on the kitchen counter and was eyeing it like a sad puppy.
“Do you want to stay for lunch, Sherrie?” Stan asked. “I’m sure there will be enough to go round.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I need to skedaddle in a bit anyway. I just wanted to come and say hello. You carry on, though. Tone looks hungry.”
“Tone always looks hungry,” Ben mumbled. That made her laugh.
“The others are still in LA, I take it?” Sherrie asked. She leaned against a counter and seemed content enough to watch them eat. “I’d like to think Geordie would tell me if he was coming home, but you never know with that boy.”
“Yeah.” Tone didn’t offer any other explanation, and Sherrie didn’t dig. Stan guessed she might go home and call Geordie. That would be an entirely different conversation, Stan was sure.
“Are you all living here?”
Stan nodded. “This is my place.”
Sherrie stared at them all for a moment. “Why didn’t you go back to the house?”
“What house?” Tone asked.
“Your house.” Sherrie rolled her eyes. “Up the road.”
Tone shrugged. He was far more interested in his double portion of whatever it was he’d ordered.
“It’s still there, if you want to move back in,” Sherrie said.
Stan had a good idea where this was going, and he was more than a little conflicted. The Belsize Park house was where they’d been living when everything fell apart. Stan had packed his things an
d moved out of there and into this flat, after staying with one of his friends for a few weeks. It held a lot of memories, and not all of them good.
He also really didn’t want to disrupt Ben too much. Not when things were going so well.
“We could do that,” Ben murmured.
“Why don’t we talk about it later,” Stan said, aiming for diplomacy. “We need to figure it out, I think. Thank you though, Sherrie. That’s really nice of you.”
She smacked him on the arm. “No need to talk to me like I’m a bloody stranger. I change the security alarm codes all the time, but I’ll text you when I get home and let you know what they are. Just let me know if you do move back in, and I’ll get the cleaner to go round more often.”
“More often?”
“It’s not a fucking museum, Stan. Geordie and Summer stay there when they’re back home. I don’t know about anyone else.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I best be going.”
Stan showed her to the door and gave her another hug.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she said quietly, so the others didn’t overhear. “I know it’s been a while, love, but you can always call me. Okay?”
“Thank you,” Stan said. He carefully closed the door behind her.
Tone was finishing off Ben’s leftovers when Stan got back to the kitchen. Ben was back on the sofa, looking weary.
“What do you think?” Stan asked. “About the house.”
“Thought I might talk about it with Dr Greg,” Ben said. “See what he thinks.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“I don’t want to impose on you.” Ben picked at a stray thread on his jumper and didn’t meet Stan’s eyes.
“You’re not imposing,” Stan said quickly. “Honestly. I like having you here.”
Tone burped loudly and went about clearing the food cartons away. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t anything left over.
“You should have your place back,” Tone called from the kitchen. “We’ll only be up the road, anyway.”
“Talk to Dr Greg,” Stan said to Ben.
“Okay.”
Tone surprised Stan by deciding to move back into the house, taking Ben with him. Stan had an inkling that Tone could see what was not going on between Ben and Stan, and wanted to get out of the way before anything did.
While Ben slept late, Stan walked with Tone the twenty or so minutes it took to get from his flat to the house. Tone wasn’t moving all his stuff yet. This was a reconnaissance mission, to pick up house keys and check alarm codes and for Stan to have a peek back inside the house he’d left almost four years ago. He’d never expected to go back.
Tone had seemed happier the past few days. Whether that was because he knew he was escaping the flat or because there was good news coming from the others in LA, Stan wasn’t sure. Or maybe it was the same thing that was lifting Stan and Ben’s moods both—being back in London, in the beating heart of the city that had driven them to be the people they were today.
Either way, Stan was happy to walk in contented silence next to Tone as he chuffed on a vape that smelled like candy floss.
“I think,” Tone said as they walked up the front path, “if I tell the others we’re back here, they’ll come back to London.”
“Yeah?” Stan was surprised. He didn’t think any of the rest of the band looked like they wanted to leave LA. But that added a layer of reasoning to Tone’s decision to move that Stan hadn’t considered yet.
“Yeah. Especially if I’m moving back in. Geordie will hate it. He’s used to having this place on his own.”
“Why don’t you move back into your own flat?”
“My cousin is living there,” Tone said. He quickly disabled the alarms and stepped aside to let Stan in to the hallway. “She’s starting at uni soon, and I said she could stay there instead of moving into halls.”
“That’s nice of you,” Stan said.
Tone shrugged. “She needs it more than I do.”
And that was Tone all over, putting someone else before himself, just because he could.
“You don’t want to get somewhere else?”
“I will, eventually,” he said, turning the vape off and sticking it back in his pocket. “If we end up deciding to stay in London again. I just haven’t gotten round to it yet.”
Stan automatically took his shoes off as he stepped into the house, leaving them next to the front door. They’d all gotten into the habit at Summer’s insistence while they were living together. Back in the day, there had been an enormous pile of shoes next to the door at all times. Not anymore.
Even though this house was a similar size to the Los Angeles mansion, the feel of the place was night and day. This house had always been a home, full of light and laughter and warmth. Walking around with no one else here wasn’t even strange. Stan had spent plenty of time here on his own too.
He’d never done this before—gone back to a home he’d once lived in years after he’d left. Stan had lived in plenty of places since he left Russia as a teenager, so he’d never placed any particular sentimental value on a building. This, though, was very strange.
Tone had headed straight to the back of the house, where the band’s recording studio was set up behind the kitchen. Stan decided not to follow him and instead took the stairs to the left of the front door.
The bedroom he’d shared with Ben was in the attic of the house, on the third floor. At the time they’d moved in, it was the biggest bedroom, and Ben had managed to nab it partly because no one else wanted to traipse up all those stairs every day, and partly because Stan still needed his own space at that point. However much he loved the others, and he did, very much, they were a lot to deal with. So having some quiet space was precious.
It really was like stepping back in time. Stan could all but feel the years melting away, leaving him twenty-three years old again with the feeling that the whole world was at his feet.
He took a deep breath before pushing open the door to his old room.
It looked almost exactly the same as the last time he was here.
Stan stepped in cautiously, just in case some old memory came and smacked him between the eyes.
They’d painted the walls dark navy blue, which should have made the room feel small but with the skylights in the roof, it was never gloomy. The sofa in the corner was still angled towards the TV with the blanket Stan had bought at the market draped over the back of it.
The room was a little neater than when they were living here; a lot of their stuff had gone, after all.
Stan turned in a slow circle, breathing it in.
Then he caught sight of the black bunny rabbit stuffed toy on the nightstand.
“Hades,” Stan murmured, and his heart clenched.
He’d bought the bunny for Ben before he left on the first tour Ares had been signed up for, a little remember me token. Not only had Ben kept it, he kept it on his nightstand. Even now.
Stan went and sat on the bed, not sure if it was even okay for him to do that much. How many nights had he slept here, Ben curled around him? How many times had they made love, right here?
A lot.
There had always been a lot of love between them.
Stan picked up Hades, held him close to his chest, and for the first time in a long time, wept for what he’d lost.
That was how Tone found him, half an hour later.
Stan felt paralysed with fear—if he moved, something would change, and everything was so fucked up and so wrong, whatever he did next would inevitably make everything so much worse.
A tiny voice in the back of his mind told him this was an anxiety attack, and he needed to calm down.
But fuck that voice.
“Stan?”
Stan could barely blink, let alone respond.
Tone came over and sat down next to him on the bed, carefully reaching out to touch Stan’s arm, then when he didn’t startle, rubbed gentle, soothing circles on Stan’s back.
“Come on, let’s go sit on the sofa, hmm?”
“Can’t,” Stan gasped.
Tone seemed to size him up, then in one smooth move, lifted Stan up and carried him to the sofa. That was certainly one way of being moved, but didn’t do much to combat the deep embarrassment and humiliation of being caught in this situation.
Of course, Tone didn’t care.
He wrapped a blanket around Stan’s shoulders, then pulled Stan’s feet across his lap so he could gently rub them.
Moment by moment, Stan found himself starting to relax. Then he started to cry again.
“It’s alright,” Tone murmured in his soft, Bristolian drawl. “It’s okay, my love.”
A little while later—Stan wasn’t very good at getting his sense of time and space to work properly when he was feeling like this—he heard the front door slam and someone run up the stairs.
Ben appeared in the doorway, breathless.
“You okay?” he demanded.
Stan slowly turned his head to face Tone. “You called him.”
“Texted,” Tone said, and shrugged.
“What’s going on.” Ben came and knelt next to the sofa.
He’d left the flat. On his own. And come here. Because Tone had texted him and asked him to.
“I’m gonna let you talk in peace,” Tone said and quietly left the room.
Stan tapped his chest with his knuckles. “Anxiety.”
He’d had a few anxiety attacks around Ben, but not many. Stan had never suffered panic attacks, the breathless, gasping, eye-watering version. Instead he got the type where it felt like he was frozen, drowning, unable to move.
Afterwards, his muscles would ache for days from how hard he’d been clenching them, and he’d be left with the mother of all headaches.
Ben took over the position Tone had been in, but instead of just gently rubbing Stan’s feet, he shuffled in close and held out his arm for Stan to curl under.
And oh God, Stan couldn’t decide if that was better or worse. Now it really was like no time at all had passed, because moments like this, with them holding each other on the sofa, had filled Stan’s life for a long time.