Page 37 of A Shore Thing

“Enjoy,” said Kit, and stalked off.

He’d reached the top of the stairs before Ponsonby caught up to him.

“Griff, wait.”

“Why?” He stopped, looking down the precipitous flight. “You can carry on without me.”

“Stay for cards? I’ll get a game going.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re not tired. You’re narked, I can tell. Out with it. What have I done?”

“I am bloody tired.” Kit scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “It’s what you didn’t do.”

“Didn’t do? What should I have done? Barked at that chappie back there because he made a salty pun? Griff, if that’s what you think, maybe you don’t understand about chappies.”

Now Kit laughed, the sound harsh. “Maybe I don’t.” He started down the stairs.

“Griff.”

He twisted, at his own peril. Ponsonby was silhouetted above him.

“This is what you wanted.” Ponsonby gripped the walls, leaning forward. “To be, you know, one of us. But chappies act like chappies. Around chappies, that is. So if you’re with us, as a chappie—”

“Enlightening.” Kit cut him off. “Don’t get too sozzled. Chappie or no, these steps can break your neck.”

He resumed his descent.

—

It was raining too hard to bicycle home, not without fortification. Kit slouched into the Smack, feeling fouler than the night.

This is what you wanted.

Ponsonby’s words rattled in his skull. He shed his dripping hat and coat and shouldered to the bar, ordered a whiskey, then another. The liquor burned down his throat.

This is what you wanted.

He ordered a third whiskey and sipped it, his eyes roaming the dim room. Fishermen in sou’westers and oilskins drank six-penny ale at the small, sticky tables. No women here either. A few slumming tourists were inspecting the paintings on the walls, gifts to the landlord from artist patrons. Gifts, or in some cases, attempts at payment.

The whiskey sent his mind roaming too.

He was four or five, lying in the grass alongside his nursemaid in Regent’s Park, the two of them watching the young gallants ride by, so big and splendid on their stallions. His nursemaid was sighing. What lovely, lovely gents. And the gallant on the bay tossed them a wink as he passed. Kit had felt his own heart thunder with the hooves. There was nothing complicated about that moment. He’d twinkled with recognition, knowing he’d glimpsed his future self. He didn’t wonder how he’d grow up to cut such a figure. Or what it would mean.

By the time he realized that his moody stare had settled on one of the tourists, the tourist was staring back.

The man’s glossy hair was blacker than his suit, and gleams of light traversed its waves when he tilted his head to smile. His teeth were very white.

Kit looked away, perhaps too late to avoid misunderstanding. When he’d first slipped out of his parents’ house at fifteen, in clothing filched from his middle brother’s wardrobe, he’d anticipated ecstatic freedom from men’s gazes. On the street, in the Burlington Arcade, everywhere, he was shocked to discover more clinging eyes. He soon learned that he was seen not as a boyish girl but as a girlish boy, one of the mary-anns who worked in the alleys and lavatories, and in certain hotels. Thus began his education in the ways of the other West End, which had always existed, invisibly, all around him.

He was older now, and rougher, with calloused hands and broader shoulders, arms and legs thickened by years of training with shot-loaded dumbbells. Less appealing to men who sought effeminate lovers. More appealing to many others.

He tried to let his male admirers down gently.

He hoped tonight it wouldn’t be necessary.

His fingers tightened on the tumbler in front of him. The rim sported a smudge he couldn’t associate with his own mouth. He pushed it away and dropped his head into his hands.