How to phrase this?
Alastair brushed his thumb along the edge of his phone, looking down at the empty message window. The evening’s traffic had slowed almost to a standstill. It seemed as if the whole world had stopped for him to make this decision. An unproductive and irritating week had taken its time to pass, and he’d made it through to Friday against all odds. Rain had started up around lunchtime, continuing in droves ever since. Something about its sound, mixed with the bright lights of London in the darkness, had brought a possibility drifting through his mind.
Relaxation, he supposed, listening to the rain drumming against the window. Memories stirred: Jay gently sucking the bite he’d just left at the crook of Alastair’s neck, hands stroking over Alastair’s stomach, his voice as soft as smoke, murmuring, “Do you like slow?”
The low, delighted chuckle at Alastair’s eager response.
“Mm. Good. Me too.”
Hands fisting in the sheets, hips arching to meet each lazy roll.
Falling apart as Jay took it slow.
The memories hadn’t faded. Alastair had worried that they might, but they’d stayed clear and urgent in his mind. He wanted it again, all of it. He wanted other things, too.
He’d spent this week explaining the simplest of concepts to people who still hadn’t listened, and next week would entail much of the same. There was nothing he needed more in this moment than for someone to make him gasp and beg.
Help each other out, Jay had said.
Alastair wasn’t sure how much explanation was required—how much honesty was too much.
“I’ve had a long week. I was wondering if maybe you’d like to…”
“Can I see you?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you. Are you busy?”
The traffic continued to crawl.
Alastair shifted in the back of the car, longing to loosen his tie just a little. He wanted strong fingers to pull it off for him. He wanted to see it discarded without the slightest care over a lamp, over a chair, onto the floor.
But how to ask?
It was Friday evening. The chances of Jay receiving a better offer were surely increasing by the minute. While Alastair was not a blunt man, nor a reckless one, it wasn’t often that he craved something for himself so powerfully. He’d never really longed for company before. His usual weekend comforts comprised a glass of wine and a book—but then, he’d never been offered company so openly, so generously. He didn’t want to miss the chance, even if accepting it made him nervous.
Subtly, he thought. Lead into it. Casual.
He woke his phone with a short press of his thumbprint on the scanner, returned to the message window, and typed.
[AH – 18:54] Has your week been as intolerable as mine?
Determined not to monitor the message like a pining teenage girl, he locked the phone and put it away inside his coat.
The car had advanced all of ten feet when his phone began to vibrate.
Alastair retrieved it, keeping his expression cool. Incoming call from Jay Fieldhouse.
With a sweep of his tongue across his teeth, Alastair answered. He took a breath and pressed the phone against his ear.
“Hello,” he said, his heart thumping.
Jay’s voice curled with a smile. “Hi.”
Jay Fieldhouse knows all about sacrifice, too. Brought to London for his own safety by witness protection, Jay’s grassroots charity works day and night to save vulnerable kids from a life of crime. But getting close to other people is tough when no one really knows who you are.
When he meets Alastair one night at a charity event, Jay is intrigued by his glimpse of a gentle soul beneath the commissioner’s uniform. The two men decide to run their lonely paths side by side for a while—after all, life is short and good sex is hard to come by.
Then the shadows of the past begin to stir, and the words which go unsaid might be Jay and Alastair’s undoing.
The Sheltering Tree is J.R. Lawrie’s first full length novel, following her beloved debut anthology, Let Your Heart Be Light.
J. R. Lawrie graduated from the University of Leeds in 2011 and now lives in York, UK, writing LGBTQ fiction.
