Author: Anna Martin
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/anna-martin/page,21,529683-the_lost_boy.html
KOKO was about a ten minute walk in the opposite direction of Stan’s flat, but he said he was okay to make it in his heels, and Ben believed him. He looped his arm around Stan’s waist and pressed his face to Stan’s hair and felt really, really fucking good.
“Oh my God. Are you Stan Novikov?”
Ben almost laughed.
Of course… of fucking course, the first time he got stopped in Camden wasn’t because some stalker fan had tracked him down, but because she recognised Stan.
“Hi,” Stan said. He stopped, so Ben did too, and tried to avoid eye contact with her. She was young, he could tell that much, with her dark hair braided into two thick braids like the teenagers did. Crop tops were back in fashion, so she was flashing a belly ring above ratty jeans and expensive trainers. He guessed she wasn’t even eighteen.
“I follow you on Instagram,” she enthused. “And when you write for Teen Vogue, and….”
Ben sensed the moment she clocked who he was.
“I love you guys,” she finished as her voice broke into a quiet whine.
Stan laughed. “Thank you,” he said, and sounded like he meant it.
She turned to Ben. “Honestly… your second album got me through some really tough times. I used to lock myself in my bedroom after I got done arguing with my stepdad and just listen to it on repeat. I… I guess I always wanted to tell you thank you for that.”
Ben swallowed. “You’re welcome.” His voice didn’t sound right. “I actually really needed to hear that right now. Thank you.”
“Do you want a picture?” Stan offered.
“Would that be okay? I don’t want you to feel like you have to or anything.”
Ben decided this was a precious angel who must be protected. “It’s fine by me. Here, give me your phone, I have longer arms than Stan.”
They crowded in together, Ben and Stan on either side of her so he could take the picture. It would be out soon enough that they’d been seen together, and who knew what would happen from there, but Ben didn’t care. For once, he was happy for people to write whatever they wanted about him.
“Are you alright getting wherever you’re going on your own?” Ben asked. “I can call a cab for you if you want.”
“I’m fine, thanks. I don’t live far from here.”
“Okay. Take care.”
“Thank you again,” she said, and rushed away.
“That was sweet,” Stan murmured, slipping his hand into Ben’s as they kept walking towards KOKO.
“She seemed nice.”
“Are you offended that she recognised me first?”
He was teasing, so Ben gently bumped his shoulder against Stan’s. Not too hard, so he didn’t topple off his heels.
“It’ll take a while for my infamous ego to recover, I’m sure.”
There was a queue outside KOKO, and they just got in it. Ben wasn’t going to push his way to the front, especially when they hadn’t called ahead to let them know he was coming. Besides, the line wasn’t long, and he got to wrap his arms around Stan as they inched forward.
“ID,” the doorman demanded when they reached the front.
Stan handed his over first. He had a proper UK Driver’s License now, even though he didn’t drive. When the doorman studied Ben’s card, he did a double take.
“You got security here tonight?” he demanded in a thick Scottish accent.
“No. Is that a problem?”
“You want it?”
“Not particularly.”
He nodded. “You alright with me telling the crew you’re here? Just in case?”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
“Have a good night.”
KOKO was a great venue, one they’d played at a couple of times. The building had been converted from an old theatre and inside, it still looked almost like it always had, just with the seats taken out. The boxes and tiers of the theatre were still in place, along with the stage and the red and gold décor. Ben liked it a lot.
They bypassed the bar in favour of going straight to the dance floor. Tone was right—Ben liked the DJ a lot. This was totally his type of thing: a great beat, bouncy melodies, and a dirty grind underneath it all that made it great to dance to.
Stan wrapped his arms around Ben’s neck and lost himself in the music, throwing his head back and swaying to the music.
They danced for almost an hour, until Stan started to make pouty faces and pointed at his feet. Ben pushed his sweaty hair back from his face and leaned in to kiss Stan properly—a solid smack on the lips. He’d never been into big public displays of affection and had always hated couples who thought it was okay to make out on a dancefloor, so they hadn’t done that. Instead Ben had just ogled how beautiful his boyfriend was and enjoyed watching him get all flushed and sweaty.
“I need a drink,” Stan yelled over the noise of the music.
Ben nodded. “Can you get upstairs? It’s always less crowded up there.”
“Yeah.”
Ben took his hand and led them through the weird, maze-like venue until they were on the very top tier with an incredible view of the stage. Because everyone was gathered downstairs, there were actually a few empty barstools up here and Stan found one near the edge of the balcony so he could keep watching the show.
“Two waters,” Ben yelled at the bartender, signalling for the bottled stuff.
Six quid. Fucking hell, London was expensive.
He set the drinks down on the ledge next to Stan and wrapped his arm around Stan’s sweaty shoulders.
“We should do this more often,” Stan said, not looking back at him.
“Yeah.”
It didn’t seem like such an impossibility any more. Nothing did.
Ben knew the others were coaxing him out of the house more and more, trying to get him to integrate back into society during daylight hours. It had been easy to hide away in LA, in their house with its iron gates, miles from anyone who wasn’t also a billionaire or Hollywood royalty.
Meeting the girl the other night had been good for him. She’d posted the pictures on Instagram, of course, with a really sweet account of having met them. To her credit, she didn’t mention anything about them being “together” as a couple, though plenty of other people made the connection and the speculation had really picked up pace.
Stan said he didn’t mind, so Ben didn’t either, and he’d emailed Melissa to give her a heads up in case she had to field any nosiness from TMZ.
Tone dragged him onto the underground for the first time during the day in forever, and though Ben had worked himself into a right panic by the time they got to the station, no one looked at them. No one noticed.
The familiar rocking of the train, plus all the people with their heads down, ignoring the world around them, was strangely reassuring. Things hadn’t changed, not really. There were still things Ben could rely on to be just as he’d always remembered.
They took the tube down to Old Street then walked around the corner to a pub that Tone liked. Ben found a table in a quieter corner while Tone ordered pints and chips, because the pub did good chips. Tone would know.
Ben could feel a shift in the air. It had happened a few times before, and he was always pretty good at sensing it coming. With the album almost done, Stan back in his life, and his dependency on drugs something he was actively working on, his perspective on life was changing. For the first time in a long time he saw a future for himself.
“Here you go,” Tone said, passing him a pint before settling into one of the very comfortable armchairs. Ben loved pubs like this.
He nodded his thanks. “Cheers.”
“You doing alright?”
“Yeah.” He could leave it there. With Tone, there wasn’t ever any pressure for him to talk or share or discuss anything he didn’t want to. Their easy friendship had survived a lot. Tone really was one of the kindest souls Ben had ever met.
Ben took a deep breath. “I need to apologise to you.”
“N
ah,” Tone said, waving it off.
“No, I do. You’ve put up with more than anyone else. Shit, Tone, half of my family don’t speak to me anymore, and you’re still around, putting up with my bullshit.”
“You called your mum.”
“Yeah. I did.”
“That’s good.” Tone nodded and sipped his cider, then leaned back in his seat, content.
“Can I tell you about some stuff?”
“Course.”
Ben felt sick. Apart from Greg, no one else knew about what had happened to him. Not even Stan. Ben wasn’t keeping it from him on purpose, but he wasn’t ready to talk about it with him yet.
“That last time you came and got me,” he said slowly, staring very intently at the bubbles on the top of his Guinness. “From that place out in Pasadena.”
“Yeah.”
“Did someone call you?”
Tone gave him a strange look. “You called me, mate. Asked me to come out and get you.”
“Oh.” Ben didn’t remember that. “It was pretty bad.”
“Yeah. I was going to take you to the hospital to get checked out, but you begged me not to. Then I was going to call the doctor when we got home.” He shrugged. “But you settled down in the car and went to sleep, and I guessed you were okay.”
Ben licked his lips. “Some people. They, uh, hurt me. In a way I didn’t want them to. Forced me to do... stuff….” He couldn’t finish it.
He waited for Tone to get it. It didn’t take long. “Holy shit, Ben.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck. I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged. “Lots of reasons, I guess. Look, I told Dr Greg, and it’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but we’re working on it. I just….” Ben sighed and pressed his fingertips to his eyes, then sat back quickly when the waitress came over with two big bowls of chips.
“You want anything with that, love?”
“Ketchup and mayo,” Tone said immediately. “And salt and vinegar.”
“No problem.”
Ben didn’t say anything else while they waited for her to get back, just nibbled on one of the chips. They were good. Tone was right, as he could be counted on to be when food was involved.
“Stan doesn’t know,” Ben continued when the waitress dropped off their condiments and left them in peace. “I’m going to tell him, but not yet.”
“This is going to sound well dramatic, but I’ve got to ask. Were you trying to off yourself?”
“Not intentionally.” He considered that. “I was trying to forget it happened. I’m sorry to chuck this at you. You shouldn’t have to deal with even more of my bullshit, but—”
“Fuck that,” Tone said emphatically. He dredged a chip through the ketchup and bit into it. “Seriously, fuck that. If you want to talk about stuff, then you can. I’m just sorry I didn’t tear those fuckers limb from fucking limb.”
“I’m not sure that would have helped.”
“Would have made me feel fucking better.”
“Actually, me too, probably.”
They fell into companionable silence as they worked through their lunch. Ben wondered if there was anything else to say.
“I know it doesn’t excuse what I did, or how I acted,” he said after a while. “And I know I still have to do a lot of apologising to everyone else. But when it happened, I thought that was it. I hated myself so fucking much.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tone said quickly.
“I know. I know. That’s uh….” He didn’t want to put it into words, not really, but he wanted Tone to know. “That’s why I couldn’t talk for a few days. My throat was—”
He almost said fucked. Well. Yeah.
“I thought I was finally broken in a way that wasn’t possible to be fixed.”
“I guess I saw that,” Tone said. “When I brought you home and got you to bed, after that was when I contacted Stan.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Tone nodded. “I figured things couldn’t get much worse.”
“No,” Ben said. His voice came out all wrong. Still broken. “They probably couldn’t. You saved my life, Tone. Honest to God. If you didn’t bring me back here, then I wouldn’t be around anymore.”
“I’m glad you are,” Tone said. “You’re hard work, but I fucking love you.”
“Well, I’m working on being someone else’s problem for a while.”
“Be good to him.” Tone was serious now, Ben could tell. “I fucking mean it.”
“I will.”
Tone seemed to believe him. Since he was done with his chips, Ben pushed them over to Tone, knowing Tone would happily finish them off.
“You left all the crunchy ones at the bottom.”
“Sorry,” Ben said with a laugh.
“Don’t be. Now I get them. So what are you going to do next?”
Ben leaned back in his chair, pleased with how ridiculously comfy it was. The whole atmosphere of the pub was comfy, like someone had picked up an old country pub and transported it to the middle of the city.
“Not sure. I need to find somewhere to live.”
“Yeah. Not that I mind you sleeping in my bed, but it does mean I can’t bring anyone home.”
“If you want to bring someone home, you should,” Ben said very seriously. “I won’t cock-block you.”
“I have a girlfriend.”
Ben sat up straight. “You have a what?”
“A girlfriend.” Tone looked embarrassed.
“Are you fucking kidding me? How did I not know about this?”
Tone shrugged. “I only met her when we got back to London. She was at a gig, and we got talking…. She’s nice.”
“What’s her name?”
“Amy. I want her to meet you guys, but she’s kind of shy. I might bring her to meet you and Stan first.”
“Yeah, of course mate. What’s she like?”
Tone was blushing. Ben made a mental note to relentlessly take the piss at every opportunity, and to write down all his favourite stories of the stupid shit the two of them had done over the years to embarrass him further in front of his girlfriend. Tone hadn’t ever brought a girl home before. They all knew he hooked up, but he hadn’t had a serious relationship in years, as far as Ben knew.
“She’s pretty. She’s really into music, but she’s not… I don’t know. She’s not like into a scene or anything. I think she’s like the sort of person I would have wanted to be my girlfriend even if I wasn’t in Ares.”
That sounded like hell of a confession.
“I want to meet her,” Ben said. “When she’s ready and everything.”
“Okay. I’ll tell her that. So, when are you moving out?”
“Soon, I think,” Ben admitted. “I know I need to.”
“Have you started looking for somewhere? You sold the flat, right?”
“Yeah. I guess I don’t want to look for somewhere without talking to Stan.”
Tone drained his pint. “Then you should talk to him.”
“You always give the best advice.”
Though it was framed as a joke, they both knew he wasn’t joking. Ben’s reliance on Tone was almost legend at this point.
Chapter Twenty Three
Though officially Ben had moved out of the flat, in reality, he spent more nights at Stan’s place than he did at the house. Stan thought there were probably multiple reasons for this, not just because he wanted to be with Stan all the time, and didn’t push too hard for an explanation.
From what Stan could tell, Ben’s relationship with Summer, Jez, and Geordie was still a little rocky. And selfishly, Stan wanted him around too.
He didn’t mind that he was constantly washing Ben’s boxers with his own, or that Ben always left his teabags in the sink, or that Ben had a toothbrush that now lived in the bathroom permanently. He actually kind of liked all of that.
The nightmares, though… those he could do without.
“Ben. Ben.”
Stan had tried shaking him awake before and almost got clocked in the jaw, so that was out. It broke his heart to see Ben so twisted up in pain like this—it wasn’t just a nightmare; it looked like he was being tortured.
“Ben!”
Ben sat upright with a heaving gasp.
“It’s okay. You’re alright,” Stan said quietly, still careful not to touch him. “You’re okay.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Ben covered his face with his hands and shuddered.
When he didn’t stop shaking, Stan wondered if this was a panic attack. Still worried to touch him, he decided to try and talk him through it.
“You’re okay. You’re with me. You’re in London. Breathe, baby. Deep breaths.”
Ben dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and let out a noise that might have been a sob.
He’d sweated through the T-shirt he’d worn to bed, so Stan got up and found a clean one and clean boxers, then went to the bathroom and got him a glass of water. When he got back to the bedroom Ben hadn’t changed.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
Stan helped him put the clean clothes on, lifting the T-shirt up until Ben raised his arms and let Stan tug it the rest of the way off, then helping him into the new one.
“Put these on too,” Stan said, handing him the boxers.
Ben did as he was told, then gulped the water.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Do you want to get up?”
Ben shook his head, so Stan got back into bed too and held his arm out for Ben to rest his head on Stan’s chest.
“I thought I was getting better,” Ben mumbled. Stan brushed his fingers through Ben’s hair, separating the damp strands and gently smoothing them back into place. Ben always liked having his hair played with.
“You are,” Stan said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t even remember.” Ben pressed his face against Stan’s T-shirt and used it to wipe his eyes. Stan didn’t even mind. “My chest still feels all tight.”
Stan moved his hand down to the middle of Ben’s back and rubbed circles there instead. He wanted to press, to try and get some more information out of Ben now because experience had already told him that Ben wouldn’t talk about it in the morning. But it seemed almost predatory, when Ben was so vulnerable like this.