DeAnna Zankich
Series | Sequel is Kitten Bellies
Summary: Stuart and Vince move their relationship into deeper water-but it's still not time to be boyfriends. One thing at a time.
Warnings: None
Author Notes:
Spoilers: QAF1
The sound of his phone ringing woke Vince some time later. He was alone on the couch with the robe wrapped around him and he blinked, disoriented, trying to recall why he was sleeping naked on Stuart's couch in the middle of the day. His eye followed the sound of the bleating phone and he saw his clothes scattered around on the floor. Then it all came back to him. With his heart thudding sickly, Vince grabbed his trousers and pulled the phone out of the back pocket. The screen displayed the caller's name: Hazel.
"Hi, Mum," he said, then he cleared his throat.
"Hiya, luv. How are you?"
"Uh, fine. How are you?" Vince sat up, covering his naked lap with the robe and scrubbing at his disheveled hair with his fingers.
"Oh, we're fine here. Listen, luv, are you going `round the shops this afternoon?"
"Um . . . I'm not sure. What do you need?"
"Well, only if you go-don't make a special trip. If you go, would you mind picking me up some clear nail varnish? I have some tights that need mending."
"Sure," Vince said, smiling at the request. "No problem."
"What are you and that Irish bastard doing today?" Hazel asked, cheerily.
"Uh," Vince glanced around the flat not hearing or seeing anything that indicated Stuart was there. "I'm not sure. I've sort of lost track of him."
"What?"
"I mean . . . I haven't . . . he's not with me right now."
"Vince, love, are you all right?"
"Yeah, yeah. I didn't sleep very well. I guess I'm just a bit spacey. I'll come `round later, all right?"
Hazel paused. "Right. Why don't you and Stuart come for tea?"
"I'll see if he's free. See you later, then."
"Okay. Bye, love."
Vince hung up, then gathered the rest of his clothing from the floor and proceeded to get dressed. After getting his shoes back on, he crossed the large room and went for a piss in Stuart's slick, immaculate bathroom. When he went to wash his hands, Vince stopped. He looked down at his open palms then brought them to his face, smelling the skin. Yes, Stuart's scent was there. It had happened. It wasn't some crazy dream. Not wanting to wash away the trace, Vince left the bathroom and went to have a look around the flat.
"Stuart?" he called but there was no response. He looked for a note on the table or on the kitchen counters, but there was nothing. He was alone. Taking the phone out of his back pocket, he pressed the speed dial code for Stuart's mobile. Bringing the phone to his ear, he listened to the other line ring twice before it was answered.
"You're awake," Stuart said. The sound of the radio and rushing wind were in the background.
"Where are you?" Vince asked.
"I'm on my way back. I had an errand and I didn't want to wake you. Want to go out for dinner?"
"What time is it?" Vince looked at his watch and was completely shocked to see it was nearly 5:30. He'd slept almost the entire day.
"Half five. We could go some place posh, if you want."
"Actually," Vince said. "Hazel invited us to tea. If you want, that is."
"Sure," Stuart said. "I'll be back at the flat in about five minutes. Come down front, I'll pick you up." He hung up and Vince looked down at the phone in his hand for a moment, perplexed. A million thoughts swirled madly in his head now that he no longer had to stamp them down. They were free to have their way with him. And what thoughts they were. Some of them were so intense, they made Vince feel nauseous. He swallowed hard, actually turning briefly back toward the bathroom just in case he had to run in there and retch. But then the feeling passed and he felt a bit more calm.
After checking his reflection in the mirror, Vince grabbed his sunglasses and his keys and left Stuart's large, quiet flat.
He waited down in front of the building for less than two minutes before Stuart's jeep rounded the corner and pulled up to the curb. Vince crossed the street and got in the passenger seat.
"Hiya," he said.
Stuart smiled at him from behind his dark sunglasses. He wore a soft black turtleneck that hugged his lean upper body and loose dark denim jeans. His black leather jacket was tossed on the jeep's back seat along with several shopping bags. "Nice nap?" he asked, cheekily.
Vince blushed. "Nap? I slept all bloody day."
"Yeah. I woke up around three, myself. Figured I'd better do something with the day." He pulled away from the curb and turned the jeep around, heading back toward Hazel's side of town. "Do you want to pick up some wine or anything? What's she cooking?"
"Oh," Vince said, remembering. "Hazel asked me to get her some clear nail varnish."
"Why doesn't she just go for a manicure?"
"It's not for her, it's for her stockings. They need mending." Vince said this and then he actually heard the words and started laughing. Stuart laughed, too, then he made another direction change and headed for the city center.
* * *
Their conversation remained light and superficial while they stopped at the off-license for some libations. Then they went on to the chemist for Hazel's nail varnish and while they were standing in front of the wall-length display of women's cosmetics, Stuart put up an argument about just buying Hazel some new stockings. Vince assured him she wouldn't accept them.
"Dunno why she won't take gifts from me," he said, frowning.
"She does. For her birthday or at Christmas time. You always get her lovely presents and she goes on and on about them."
"Yeah, but she won't let me give her anything she needs. I could be looking after her instead of you getting overdrawn every other month like you do."
"She's my mother," Vince said. "I'm meant to look after her."
"But you can't afford to," Stuart insisted. "If she would just let me . . ."
Vince looked at his friend, closely, wondering why this topic had suddenly come up so strongly. "Stuart, what's wrong?"
He shrugged and looked away, but his smooth brow was still knit unhappily. "She should let me pay off her mortgage. She knows I can and she knows I want to."
Vince shook his head, soberly. "She'd never."
"That's what I mean!" he exclaimed. "I just don't know why. I would do anything for that woman but she won't let me."
Vince started to speak but Stuart's mobile rang and he waited quietly while his friend took the call.
"Yeah? Oh, hiya. We were just talking about you." Stuart looked at Vince when he said this, indicating that the caller was Hazel. "Yeah, I'm coming for tea. Vince said you invited me. We're at Boots getting your nail varnish. Hazel, you should just let me buy you some new stockings. I'll buy you anything you want, you know that." Stuart paused and his expression darkened considerably. Vince gathered his mother had said something characteristically blunt and off color because his best friend had gone into his instinctive defense mode. "Hazel, that's not-wait a minute, now. I don't know-wait-" Stuart looked down at his phone with complete surprise and then he snapped it shut. "Your mother hung up on me," he said.
"Why? What was she on about?"
He dropped the phone back into the pocket of his leather jacket, offering Vince a vexed scowl. "You told her, didn't you? About this morning."
Vince's eyes widened. "Stuart, I swear I said nothing! I haven't even sorted it out for meself yet-let alone have I gone off and told anyone else." He was instantly enraged at the accusation and he felt his cheeks catch fire. "You must be mad thinking that."
Stuart watched his friend carefully, assessing the expressions on his face and weighing the authenticity of his words. When he didn't seem convinced, Vince went on.
"Stuart! What do you think-"
"I don't care," Stuart said suddenly. "I mean, I know it upset you-all that this morning. I don't mind if you talk with Hazel about it. I just don't want her havin' a go at me like she just did."
Vince sighed, calming slightly. "I just want to make it clear that I said nothing to her about it. I don't like that look you were giving me-like I'm lying to you."
Stuart looked down, his features softening into an expression of near sadness. "I don't think that," he said, quietly.
Vince frowned like a wounded child. "That's how you looked," he said.
Suddenly, Stuart stepped forward and took Vince's face in his hands, pulling him close. Stuart kissed him softly-once, twice, then he kissed the smooth skin between Vince's eyebrows. The kisses weren't sexual, they were purely affectionate. "I'm a bastard," he said. "I'm sorry."
Vince blinked, his heart pounding, his senses coming alive again at Stuart's nearness. He couldn't recall ever hearing Stuart Jones apologize for anything for as long as he'd known him. "It's all right," he said, even though it really wasn't. Saying it was all right was something of a habit of his where Stuart was concerned. He smiled a little. "But you are a bastard."
Stuart smiled, knowing he was forgiven. "So, if you didn't say anything to Hazel, why the hell was she all over me just then. She fuckin' hung up on me!" "
What did she say?"
"I answered the call-you heard-we talked about the stockings for a second and then she said 'Stuart, I know you've done something horrible to Vince and I just want you to know that if you've hurt him, I'll have your balls for earrings.' Then she hung up."
Vince was laughing before he could think better of it and he shook his head, slightly embarrassed. "Hazel. What's she like? I'm sure she didn't mean it."
"She hung up on me, Vince," Stuart said again. "She's never done that. Mind you, she has a go every chance she gets, but she's never done that."
"I spoke to her right before you picked me up, but I said nothing. We just chatted and she asked what we were doing today and then invited us to tea. I'm trying to remember if I said anything . . . that might have . . ." Vince racked his brain, going over the brief conversation he had with his mother but he couldn't think of one thing he said that would have made her suspicious. He knew he'd been a little out of it when they spoke, but he was absolutely sure he'd said nothing to tip her off. "I don't know, Stuart. I can't guess what she's on about."
Stuart's phone chirped again and he flipped it open, squinting at the display screen. Frowning, he brought the device to his ear. "You hung up on me." He stood there a moment listening to whatever Hazel was saying, his expression remaining stony and irritated. "I don't know what you're talking about, Hazel. Of course not. Fine. Fine." He flipped the phone closed and pocketed it again. "She's mad, your mother."
"That's news? What did she say? Did she apologize?"
"Nope. She said she was going to have me when I got to the house. I said fine. Let's get her bloody nail varnish and go."
Vince scanned the row of brightly colored packages of cosmetics and found the display of nail colors. He grabbed a small bottle of Revlon Clear and then followed Stuart to the counter. While they were standing in the short cue, Vince's phone rang. He took it out of his back pocket and answered without looking at the screen. He knew it was her.
"Hi," he said.
"Did you get the nail varnish?" Hazel asked, as though there was nothing at all unusual going on.
"Yeah, we're buying it right now. Mum, what the `ell is going on with you and Stuart?"
"Nothing. I'm having him when he gets here, is all. I know he's done something he needs a good flogging for."
"What do you mean?"
"Vince," she said, skeptically. "I can hear it in your voice."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"He shagged you, did he?"
"No!" Vince shouted, his cheeks turning pink. He wasn't lying-it hadn't been a shag.
"Well, he's done something," she said. "I'll find out. I always do. That Stuart loves to be caught."
"He hasn't done anything, Mum. Really."
"Vince, I can hear it in your voice. No use denying it. See you when you get here." Hazel hung up, merrily.
Vince shook his head, pocketing his phone again. They stepped up to the counter and he paid the young woman at the register for the nail varnish.
"What did she say?" Stuart asked.
"She thinks you shagged me."
The young women's surprised eyes flitted from one to the other of them but she said nothing. She just put the small bottle in a sack with Vince's receipt and handed him his change.
Stuart nudged his best friend playfully with his whole body, shoving him toward the shop doors. "You wouldn't let me shag you, even if I wanted to."
"But you don't want to," they stepped back out into the cooling evening and started up the street toward the jeep. Vince glanced at Stuart, waiting for a reply to his last comment but the brunet did not appear in any hurry to offer one. They got in the car and Vince buckled up, the blank spot in the conversation suddenly feeling like a pregnant pause. Before turning on the engine, Stuart turned to Vince in the front seat. "Did you like it? This morning. Did you like doing that with me?"
"Of course, yeah," Vince said, as casually as he could. "I thought it was quite nice. Did you like it?"
Stuart's lips pulled back into one of his customary, seductive grins. His dark blue eyes flashed. "I think it's obvious that I did. Told you as much."
Vince blushed, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. "That's good. I mean, I'm glad. I wanted you to . . ." he shook his head, wishing he could learn to make himself shut up before he put his foot in his mouth. "I'm glad you liked it," he concluded, lamely.
Stuart was still smiling. "Do you feel different? With me, I mean."
Vince looked at his friend closely, and actually thought about the question. He didn't really feel different with Stuart, but he felt different inside himself. Like something had crossed over. "Not with you," he said honestly. "I mean, it feels a bit weird knowing we did that-since we never have before-but it doesn't . . . you know, it's not bad or anything." He lowered his chin and regarded the other man, plaintively. "What about you?"
Stuart fiddled with his keys thoughtfully, glancing out the window at a woman and a young girl crossing the street in front of the jeep. "It feels all right," he said, and then he nodded to confirm it. "Yeah, it's good. I liked the sleeping bit. I didn't even think I was tired until you pulled the robe over us. Then I was all comfortable and warm and I just crashed."
Vince wished he'd stayed awake so he could have experienced Stuart sleeping beside him. He would have loved to just lie there stroking those dark curls and feeling the press of Stuart's relaxed body against his own.
"It felt like we . . ." Stuart trailed off, trying to find the word-or choosing not to finish at all.
"Connected?" Vince offered than wished like hell he could take it back. He sounded like a lovesick twat.
Thankfully, Stuart's smile broadened. "Yeah." He looked at Vince for a long moment, holding the gaze. "Felt nice. Makes me want to do it again."
"Yeah?" Vince said, trying not to show his glee outwardly.
Still holding the gaze, Stuart leaned forward and gave Vince a soft kiss. Sitting back in the driver's seat, he put the key in the ignition and started the jeep. "Dunno if I can be anyone's boyfriend, though," he said.
"God," Vince laughed. "You'd make a dreadful boyfriend!"
Stuart giggled and pulled away from the curb.
Part Three.
Hazel was standing in the kitchen talking on the phone when the boys arrived at the house. She kissed her son, then wiped her lipstick off his cheek. He smiled at her, sweetly. Just by looking at him, she could tell something was up. True, he didn't seem upset or unhappy, but there was something . . . Something shifted, like the way a familiar room feels when you move the furniture around.
Stuart was holding a huge bouquet of fresh flowers that he offered her with his most charming and most naughty little Irish smile. Hazel had often wondered what it would be like to shag that boy, just out of curiosity. She doubted anyone could actually be as great a lay as he proclaimed to be. But she did love to look at him-to watch him move and listen to him speak. Stuart Alan Jones. Such an infuriating and welcome nuisance, him.
She concluded her phone call to her friend across town then hung up, turning on Stuart with her hands planted firmly on her hips. "Don't you try to butter me up, you bastard. I want you to tell me what you've done."
He lowered his chin even more and actually batted his eyes in such a perfectly genuine way that it didn't look at all put-on. If she didn't know him, she might even have thought he was a sweet lad. He was cranking up the charm so high that even she couldn't resist him.
"Christ," she sighed. "Give me those." She grabbed the flowers and let him kiss her cheek, reaching around behind him to smack his tight bottom once. "You're still going to tell me what you've done."
"I haven't done anything!" he said, spreading his hands out. "What the hell are you talking about? I think you've finally gone `round the bend, woman!"
She looked at Vince again who was standing in the corner of the kitchen where the counters intersected. He always stood there-ever since he was a kid-even though she felt certain he wasn't aware of it. With his back to the cupboards and the counter flanking him on both sides, Vince was only vulnerable from the front.
"What did he do?" she asked her son. "Tell me."
"Mum, he didn't do anything. We had a very quiet day, actually."
Hazel looked back at Stuart who had found her corkscrew and was setting about opening the wine. She shifted her gaze from one to the other of them while she unwrapped the bundle of sweet smelling flowers over the sink.
"Did you sleep together?" she blurted, thinking she might gain an advantage if she surprised them.
"Well," Vince said, stammering slightly.
"Does it count that we fell asleep together on my couch?" Stuart interjected. He walked over to the sink and reached above her head to open the cupboard there. Taking out three wine glasses, he gave her a cheeky smirk. "Well? Does it? `Cos we did. We slept almost the whole bloody day."
Hazel looked at Vince who's lovely, wide open blue eyes confirmed this information.
"You're telling me you just slept. You fell asleep and that was all?"
The boys looked at each other then and she saw the distinct evidence of a cover up in their visual exchange. She'd been seeing that look pass between them for sixteen years.
"You're lying and I know it. I've always known when you two lie to me. You lie badly because you want me to find you out."
"Oh, yeah. That's it." Stuart poured the wine and handed them each a glass. "To lying badly," he said and they all clinked their glasses together.
"What's for tea?" Vince asked, trying to congenially divert the subject.
"I made Stuart's favorite," Hazel said. "I'll bet it's been ages since you've had homemade lasagna. At least my homemade lasagna."
"Ooh," he purred, pressing against her side and kissing her on top of the head. "I'm starving. That sounds wonderful." He walked over to a chair that faced the kitchen and sat down in it, grabbing the newspaper from the small end table to his left. He set his glass down and opened the paper in his lap.
Hazel figured she wasn't going to get any more information out of either of them until after she fed them, so she contented herself with arranging the flowers and chattering away about safe, superficial things-for the time being.
After they ate, Stuart went out onto the small front porch to return some calls he'd let go to voice mail during dinner. Hazel and Vince were attending to the washing up in his absence. Just like when he was a kid, she was washing and he was drying and stacking. Hazel had always enjoyed those after tea moments with her son, even though she never actually said as much. She figured making him aware of how much she liked it would somehow make it an obligation for him-rather than something he just did naturally.
"So, did you shag?" she pressed, keeping her voice low. She watched her son's face closely as she soaped a dinner plate in the full sink.
"No, Mum." Vince smiled at her, patiently.
"You did something," she said. "I can tell. I can see it on you."
Vince sighed, opening the cupboard over his head to put away the clean water glasses. "It was nothing," he began. "I mean-it's not nothing, of course, but it wasn't such a big thing. We just . . . we kind of . . ." he sighed again, reluctantly. Leaning against the counter, he looked at his mother with his pretty blue eyes full of love and confusion. "He drives me mad, that Stuart. I dunno what he's thinking half the time. I came by this morning `cos we were meant to have breakfast and then just hang about the rest of the day. I brought pastries and coffee and he, of course, had someone there. They were finished, at least, and the bloke was just leaving when I arrived. Stuart was in the shower so I just went on in and sat on the couch to wait for him."
Hazel shook her head. "Does he really cop off every single night?"
"Seems to do. I don't know for sure. There are nights when I don't see him, after all."
"Not many," she said, stepping back to glance down the hall at the porch. She could still see Stuart standing there chattering into his mobile so she figured they were safe for a few more minutes. "He cops off every night he's with you, though. Like he's rubbin' your nose it in."
"Mostly, yeah," Vince said. "He's just . . . he likes . . ."
"He's a bloody slut," Hazel finished. "Always has been. Christ, he's compulsive, that Stuart."
Vince shrugged, taking a wet plate out of his mother's hand and drying it. "He's very popular, I'll give him that."
"So, you're waiting for him on the couch in that flat of his where I know for sure you can see him in the shower from there." She winked at him. "You were being a bit of a voyeur, weren't you?"
"I couldn't see him from the couch," Vince said, stacking the dry plate in the cupboard. "Just from the kitchen."
Hazel laughed along with him, poking him lovingly with her elbow. "Cheeky. So, then what? Hurry up and get to the good bit, he'll be back soon."
"Well, we were sitting there eating and drinking coffee and just chatting when we started talking about this boy he picked up on Thursday."
"Thursday?" Hazel said, her voice lifting in surprise. "The night the baby was born?"
"Yeah," Vince said. "He'd copped off with this really young bloke just as we were leaving for the night and Stuart ended up bringing him to the hospital after Lisa rang him. It was kind of . . . a muddle. Hard to explain. But, anyway, we were talking about what he did with the boy-his name is Nathan, this young bloke. Stuart was telling me . . . well, he was describing details about what he did."
"Does he always do that?" she asked, suddenly horrified at the potential cruelty to her son. "Tell you the details of his shags?"
"No, no. Practically never, in fact. It only came up this morning because I asked him how he did it. How he . . . what he said and stuff, you know, to the men he picks up. He started telling me about Nathan and how he was a virgin and all and what it was like and we-"
"This boy was a virgin?" Hazel's eyes bugged slightly and she whispered the last word in shocked surprise. "What on earth would Stuart Alan Jones want with a bloody virgin?!"
"He said he was trying to do something nice," Vince said, smiling at her lamely.
"Good lord," Hazel exclaimed. "Daft bastard. Manchester's Champion Shagger! Probably ruined that lad to anyone else for the rest of his life."
"That's sort of what I thought," Vince muttered. "But, Stuart thought it would be a good thing-in some way. Dunno. Like I said, I don't know what he's thinking most of the time."
"I don't want to know," she said. "But I'm getting the picture. He was talking about sex and probably half naked and rubbing himself all over you like a cat in heat-like he does. You probably had a wank together and then fell asleep. Right?"
Vince shrugged, smiling to himself. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."
Hazel scrutinized her son, then leaned in to whisper to him. "Was that it?"
He winked at her, that secret smile still lighting his handsome face. "Not quite, but I can't tell you everything, can I?"
"Why not?" Stuart said, startling them both from where he stood in the kitchen door way. "You've already told her the worst bit. That I had a virgin and ruined him to anyone else for the rest of his life." He was smiling when he said this-that proud, brazen smile of his. "I made sure I didn't give Nathan my best fuck, Hazel, I was being considerate to all his future partners. But he had a good time. And yeah, that was my motivation. That and my own pleasure. As far as Vince and me this morning, that was about something else."
"And what, pray tell, would that have been?" she asked.
Stuart looked at his friend and they exchanged a secret message of some kind. "This morning was about Vince's pleasure," he said, softly. "And I think I did all right. Yeah?"
Vince blushed and looked down. "I reckon you can stay if you want."
"Oh, bloody hell!" Hazel said. "The two of you."
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