“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.” Martin buried his face in his hands and groaned. “Fine,” he said, throwing up his hands. “What do you suggest, then?”
Will twisted his hand in the sheet and took a deep breath. Martin was right. This fight was premature. Will had just been surprised to discover how angry he got at the idea of being separated from Martin. He didn’t usually let himself feel anger or resentment, afraid that if he started down that road there’d be no coming back. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m going to keep loving you and just occasionally be cross and dramatic about it, all right? Is that acceptable?”
Martin stared at him.
“What did you think I was going to do? Leave you?” Will asked. “Idiot.” He passed a hand over his jaw. “It would probably be better if we could go back to the way things were, but we can’t, so here we are.”
“Here we are,” Martin agreed, not meeting his eyes.
Martin knew he should never have told Will about his aunt’s plans. Martin himself was able to forget them for days at a stretch, and instead believe in a fantasy where he lingered forever in the country, feeding pigs and doing the wash. The alternative seemed very distant, contingent on a future in which he stayed healthy enough to be a reasonable candidate as bridegroom. It was just the sort of arrangement Will would find distasteful—an exchange of money for looks and breeding. It had more than a whiff of the marketplace. He hadn’t expected Will to actually object, though, at least not beyond a few minor aesthetic quibbles about marrying without love. If Martin thought about it at all, which he tried resolutely not to, he would have imagined that Will would be glad to see Martin set up in a household with ready access to things like money and food.
But Will loved him and would be jealous, two things that would make Martin almost ecstatic with delight if not for how miserable they seemed to make Will, and how very trying it was to watch Will stumble into a realization that had been the central fact of Martin’s existence for more years than he cared to acknowledge. For Will, loving Martin was fresh and new, probably easily undone; for Martin, loving Will was as basic a premise as gravity and just as easily reversed.
He hadn’t expected Will to love him, not in that way. He had told himself that Will would be able to part with Martin as amicably as he had parted with the former lover who had visited him weeks ago—they would still be friends, but no longer lovers. He had told himself that all the fondness and care Will showed him was nothing more than what he’d give to anyone. Which, really, would have been the sensible thing for Will to have felt. It figured Will had to go making things as dramatic as possible. Martin ought to have known the minute he read that play that Will would need to indulge himself.
He was dimly aware that he wasn’t being quite fair. But still. This could have gone on quite nicely, with Martin bearing the brunt of any emotional complications. But since that evidently was no longer possible, he had to decide what to do. He supposed they could carry on, which was what Will had suggested. “I’m going to keep loving you,” he had said, as if it were a threat, and just the memory sent a warm thrill through Martin’s body. They could carry on, and then at some point stop carrying on, and Martin would go to his aunt and proceed with her plan. If Will were halfway sensible, he wouldn’t let Martin’s marriage—and lord did that phrase sound impossible, like Martin’s elephant, or Martin’s summer house on the moon—change things between them. Will’s parents hadn’t even been married, for heaven’s sake. Will’s father had been married to another woman, and all three adults had been perfectly aware and content.
It was not, he feared, a good sign when he looked at the Sedgwick ménage as a model of common sense.
But Will was not going to be sensible. If they carried on, this spring would become the beginning of a tragedy. Will wouldn’t quickly get over it. And the last thing Will needed was more tragedy in his life.