was one thing when I was—the patient, I suppose, and you were looking after me. But you have to let me have my pride.”
“I’m really quite—”
“Oh, stuff it,” Martin said. “I can’t watch you sleep on the floor like a dog. Either we take turns or we share the bed.” Martin knew that if he had a sliver of common sense he’d refuse to let Will into the bed with him. He wasn’t even entirely certain why he was pressing the matter. Maybe he wanted to prove to himself that mere proximity to Will wouldn’t transform him into a grotesquely rutting lecher—wouldn’t transform him into his father. Or maybe he just liked the idea of opening his eyes and knowing Will was there. “The fact is that when I see you over there, I feel guilty and ashamed, and I don’t need more of that in my life, thank you.”
Martin couldn’t quite make heads or tails of the look Will shot him, but it didn’t matter, because a quarter of an hour later they were side by side in the bed. Martin, accustomed to having the entire mattress to himself, awkwardly tossed and turned, all the while conscious that his tossing and turning was likely keeping Will awake. Eventually Will let out a low laugh. “Do you need a bedtime story?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Martin said, smiling into his pillow despite himself.
“It’s worked in the past,” Will reminded him, rolling onto his side so they were facing one another.
“I had half forgotten about that,” Martin admitted. Sometimes, when Martin had been deemed too sick to go outdoors, Will would sneak into his room late at night. He had charted secret paths through sculleries and back staircases and once even arrived through an open window. At the time, Martin had been furious that nobody at the Grange seemed in the least bit interested in whether children were asleep in their beds or roaming about the countryside risking life and limb. Will would sit by his bed and tell Martin stories in a whisper so quiet that Martin’s nurse wouldn’t be wakened, and then slip out once Martin was asleep. They carried on like this for the entire summer of their fourteenth year, until one morning Martin’s nurse found them both curled up together in bed. Will had fallen asleep in the middle of the story, that was all. But Martin’s father was always on the lookout for vice, and within a week he announced that he had secured a place for Will in the navy. Martin had been horrified: anybody ought to have been able to see that Will had no business in the navy. He was absentminded, flighty, and sensitive. But Mr. Sedgwick was glad to have at least one of his sons’ futures settled, and Will was dazzled by thoughts of adventure and faraway lands.
“You’re not even listening,” Will chided.
“I must be more tired than I thought,” Martin said, and then faked a yawn. He remained very still, and Will was asleep in minutes.
Martin woke to discover an arm flung across his middle. He must have gasped or made some other stupid noise because the arm was immediately retracted. The next time Martin woke, Will’s arm was once again around him. This time Will was pressed against Martin’s back. And, oh God, this had been a terrible idea. All Martin could think of was how lovely it felt to have Will so close, as if warmth and safety were seeping into his skin. If they stayed like that, Martin would start to believe that he was the sort of person who deserved this sort of thing, that it had to mean something that their bodies fit together so well and so comfortably. He told himself that this was probably how everybody was; perhaps people just touched one another all the time and it always felt good and they let themselves like it.
He next woke to full sunlight and the sound of the door being flung open. “William Sedgwick,” Mrs. Tanner bellowed. “I told you I would murder you myself if you so much as looked at Daisy.”
Will, his face buried in the back of Martin’s neck, hardly stirred at this intrusion. Martin extricated himself and rose to a sitting position, holding up a finger to his mouth. “Daisy asked Will to flirt with her to improve her standing with some lad who, you’ll be pleased to know, is not the ostler,” he hissed. “I assumed she had told you of