Page 81 of Crying in the Rain
“And you.” He watched her wander off towards the bar room, wondering how she knew his name when they hadn’t been introduced. He turned back to Shaunna. She was smiling at him.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m glad you came tonight, that’s all. And in answer to your question about whether Adele knows, no-one’s been told about you and Kris officially, but they’ll have figured it out.”
“Are you saying I look gay?” Ade asked with a pout.
Shaunna burst out laughing. “That’s so not what I meant. I asked Adele if she’d mind Kris bringing a plus-one that wasn’t me, and she’ll have spread it all round our friendship group. But now you come to mention it…”
Ade pretended to be outraged for a moment longer, but he couldn’t keep it up. He was flamboyant, and most straight people assumed that that, coupled with working in the performing arts, meant hehadto be gay. LGBTQ people were a little more discerning with their assumptions, but it was rare he didn’t ping their gaydar. He could hardly criticise when he could see those qualities in himself and had likewise recognised them in Kris…which also meant he was almost certain he had correctly identified the guy on his way over to them now, giving him about three seconds to prepare for the introductions.
27: New
Ade
“Hi, Shaunna.”
“Hi, George. How are you?”
“I’m…” George grinned. “Great.”
“I bet!” Shaunna laughed and gave him a hug. “George. This is Ade. He and Kris are together.”
“Oh, OK.” George smiled at Ade, who was still processing ‘are together’ but managed to smile back. “It’s good to meet you.”
“And you,” Ade said, shaking George’s hand. He seemed a nice guy, not dashingly handsome in the way Dan was, more of a rough diamond, but it was difficult meeting exes, and first boyfriends were no ordinary exes, either. Those inaugural relationships broke hearts irreparably, and from what Kris had said, it had been a difficult break-up.
Of course, Shaunna was also Kris’s ex, though it didn’t feel like it to Ade. The longer he spent in their house, the more he’d come to realise they weren’tex-anything. True, there was nothing romantic or sexual going on between them, but they were still together in every other sense, and Ade was unexpectedly fine with that.
“Where’s Josh?” Shaunna asked, and Ade realised he was still shaking George’s hand. He released it and blushed, no clue how long he’d been lost in thought, other than it was long enough to amuse George, who turned away and pointed across the atrium to a man standing, arms folded, against the adjacent wall.
He was a similar height and build to Ade, perhaps a little slimmer, with dark-blonde hair that covered his eyes untilhe shook it back and looked over, briefly meeting Ade’s gaze before shifting his attention to George. While Kris and Shaunna had mentioned Josh’s name, neither of them had told Ade that he and George were a couple, but there were probably satellites going haywire from the charge zipping between them. No, George was definitely not someone Ade need worry about.
Dan stepped in front of Josh, interrupting the current, and the two men moved off towards the bar room, reminding Ade that Kris had been ‘getting drinks’ for ages. He’d no doubt got caught up chatting to one of his and Shaunna’s many, many friends.
“So, Ade,” George said. “Have you been together long?”
“Oh, er…”A fortnight and a half? Twenty-one days?There was no work-around without it sounding convoluted. “Three weeks,” he confirmed quickly.
“Ahh! That’s what he’s been up to.”
Ade nodded, even though he and Kris hadn’t spoken or seen each other for two of those weeks. Sadly, he suspected Kris had spent them in a very bad place.
“How did you meet? Online?”
“At work. He was in a play I produced, and we hit it off.”
“Cool.” George smiled. He wasn’t expressive in the way Kris was, but Ade could tell he was genuinely pleased for them.
“Have you seen who’s over there?” Shaunna asked, nodding across the room to the woman she’d earlier identified as Jess.
“Where?” George turned to look. Jess and the woman with her were dancing on the spot, seemingly oblivious to everything else going on around them. “She looks happy enough,” he said.
“I didn’t think she’d come, did you?”
“She told Josh she and Andy had sorted stuff out, so it probably would’ve been worse if she’d stayed away.”
“Maybe.”
