Dirty Angel-BarbaraElsborg (40 page)

“I had a month to learn about love, to believe in it, feel it, offer it. A
month to earn respect and be the man I could be.”

“The alternative being you went to hell.”
Jesus, listen to me!

“I didn’t want you to love me. I thought after a month I’d be gone and that wouldn’t be fair. But I couldn’t leave. I was frightened of what Matt might do.”

“So I was your opportunity to get into heaven.” Brody felt he had no choice but to go along with this though he didn’t believe a word. “You let me knock you down knowing I couldn’t kill you. You made me think you were walking away, but that was never your intention. You’d baited the hook and I swallowed it. Do you care for me at all? This is some fucked up elaborate charade!” Brody knew he was shouting but he couldn’t help it. He sat up and glared at Aden. “Tell me the fucking truth.”

“I have.” Aden exhaled. “The irony of that hasn’t escaped me. I lie all my life and get away with it, now I’m telling the truth you don’t believe me. I didn’t set out to ensnare someone into loving me. That wasn’t going to show I was a better man. I felt…adrift when I came back. Like they’d put me in a lifeboat but given me nothing to survive with. I’d got off a train in Caterham the night I met you. I begged food from the supermarket and I walked out of the town. I had no idea where I was going.”

“You were in the middle of the road.”

“I was confused, depressed. I didn’t know whether I’d dreamt it all up, but two feathers in my pocket that I couldn’t throw away told me I hadn’t. And when you hit me, I got up and walked off and yet I knew I’d died.”

Brody’s heart was hurting. How could Aden expect him to believe any of this?

“I…I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you,” Aden whispered. “Is it love? I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to carry on without you. I feel a better person when I’m with you. I’m happy with you by my side. What I’ve realised is the only thing that matters is loving someone and being loved in return. But it’s something you have to work for, something you have to deserve.” He exhaled. “Maybe I don’t deserve it. Maybe letting me tell you the truth is what will drive us apart. I wish I’d not told you but now I have. You know everything. All my secrets.”

“Except one. Why are you here now? Why did they let you come back? Why would they do that?”
Not that you were ever anywhere other than here.

Aden opened his mouth but didn’t answer.

Brody stood up. “I wish you hadn’t told me.”

Aden threw his arm over his eyes.

Brody went into the bathroom and closed the door. He slumped onto the floor. He felt as if all the lights in the world had just been turned off. The same feeling he’d had when he thought Aden was dead.

He couldn’t do this. Matt had gone a long way toward wrecking his life. Brody wasn’t strong enough to go through it again with another mentally unstable person. Unless…could heaven and hell, angels and demons, possibly be true? It’d explain why Aden seemed impervious to death…right? Explain those miracles? What if Aden was telling the truth?

Aden slipped out of bed, quickly pulled on his clothes and went into the hallway to get his coat and boots. He needed air. All that had been his fault. Why had he opened his stupid mouth? How could he have expected Brody to be anything but angry and confused? He closed the front door and heaved a sigh of frustration. He wasn’t sure there was any way to mend what he’d broken.

The snow hadn’t melted but the sky was dull and grey, a monochrome world yet things weren’t black and white. He hoped Brody would be able to think things through and accept them but if not, maybe it would be better if he left. He’d give Brody time to think. Maybe he’d make that leap into the unknown.

Aden headed to the stable. He picked up a carrot from by the door and Captain snaffled it from his palm, then bit his shoulder.

“You need to unlearn that bad habit.” Aden stroked the horse’s neck.

He had a sudden urge to get on his back and ride away but this wasn’t a film. It was real life and he had no money to feed a horse, no place to shelter it. Plus he’d never been on Captain’s back. But even more important, he wanted Brody to come and tell him he believed him.

“See you later,” he whispered and left the stable.

He’d not said the words to Brody that bubbled in his heart. Why not? What was he afraid of? That it wouldn’t have made any difference to the way Brody felt about him?

The field next to the paddock was covered in undisturbed snow and Aden began sliding through it. He stamped out I LOVE YOU in big letters, made two little snowmen standing side by side next to the U, then brushed the snow from his gloves. When he turned to leave the field, Brody was leaning against the gate watching him.

“What are you up to?” Brody asked.

“Leaving a message for passing aircraft.”

Brody climbed up the five bar gate and stood on the bar next to the top to look into the field.

“Oh yeah, and a message for you,” Aden added.

When Brody had climbed down, Aden levered himself over the gate and jumped down next to him.

“Aren’t you going to say it?” Brody asked.

Aden opened his mouth and closed it again. He seemed to be doing that a lot. “Is there any point?” he finally asked.

“We had our first fight. Now we have to make up.”

“Is there any point?” Aden repeated, his heart beating a frantic tattoo.

“Yes, because you were right and I was wrong. What you told me sounded so incredible I slid straight into disbelief. But I have no explanation for so much of what’s happened. Why should I assume you’re lying because what you’ve said is outside the realm of my knowledge? I don’t know how the universe was made, but I know it’s there. I saw those scars on your back. I felt them under my fingers and now they’ve gone. You did miraculous things. Healed those animals. Made Odin well. Cured Leah. You got up and walked away from things that should have killed you. And maybe the biggest miracle of all is that you love me.” He glanced into the field. “Well, me or the next plane that passes.”

Aden dragged a laugh from somewhere. “I do love you. You don’t have to say it back. I find I’m happy to love someone without asking for anything in return.”

“Fleeting happiness.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you too.” Brody took his hand. “And I’m going to show you how much.”

“I was counting on that.”

They walked back to the cottage hand in hand.

“Can I have triple cooked chips for lunch?” Aden asked.

“If you’re very bad.”

“I can be as bad as you like.”

Brody turned to him and smiled.

Brody leaned against the wall at the back of the club and took a swig from his beer. He was as nervous as if he’d been going to sing. The last year had been the best of Brody’s life and he hoped he thought that every time another year passed. Henrik had offered him and another of the vets a partnership in the business and Brody had borrowed the money to buy in. He and Henrik had done some pioneering surgery, advanced techniques that had saved animals’ lives and given others a new lease of life. They were doing a third TV series and getting more and more referrals from vets who didn’t have the skill to handle the difficult cases. Brody loved his job.

He loved his life. He’d never been happier.

Once Aden had fully recovered, he’d begun helping Des again. His ability to cure animals and people had gone and that was a mixed blessing. It had taken a while before the press had left him alone. Faced with silence from Aden’s friends, coupled with the emergence of another big story meant they’d finally moved on. Aden had built up a rep for being good at sorting out mechanical issues with farming equipment and had earned enough to buy a used car to get him around the county. But Brody had known Aden needed more. He’d tried to convince him to go to college, but Aden resisted. But when Brody had bought him a guitar for his birthday, it had been as if a door had opened.

Aden had written songs, sung them for Brody and Brody had known the guy had something special. Aden had paled when Brody had told him he’d booked him to sing at an open mic night in this London club. In a couple of minutes, he’d be on the stage.

A couple of guys came to stand next to Brody as Aden walked into the spotlight.

“This one looks as though he’s going to piss his pants,” one guy said to the other.

Aden looked out over the audience to where Brody had said he’d stand. He did look scared, but when Brody lifted his bottle, Aden smiled and his face filled with confidence. It was Brody’s heart that was racing. He was desperate for Aden to do well, to enjoy this, maybe to decide that music was what he wanted to do. Aden strummed the first chord, started to sing and within seconds people started to listen.

Oh fuck, he’s so good.
Brody stopped worrying and began smiling. Aden was his and always would be, no matter what happened. The message Aden stamped in the snow lasted long after the snow had melted. Brody grinned when he thought of the way the grass hadn’t grown in the same way over the words. How they’d thought that it probably
could
be seen by passing aircraft coming in to land at Gatwick. Aden didn’t know that every now and again, Brody snuck out and made sure it could be.

Aden’s voice rang out as he sang of sorrow, of torment, but most of all about love.

He had the voice of an angel.

My angel.