Chapter 1

“You coming down the pub tonight?” Nathan asks as he puts down his pint, hitting the beer mat dead centre without even looking.

His eyes are glued to the Saturday lunchtime footie on the telly in the corner, though why anyone would want to watch Stoke City hang on grimly to a one-nil lead for eighty-seven mind-numbing minutes is beyond me. He’s a good mate, though, Nathan. Solid. Character-wise, I mean, although the poor sod does act like he’s got a fair bit of bone between the ears, too, sometimes. Straight, but it’s not like he can help it so I try not to hold it against him.

So to speak.

“We’re at the pub now, Nate,” I remind him.

“So?” he asks, like that’s got nothing at all to do with the price of fish.

“So,” I tell him patiently, “maybe I want a night off, once in a while. Don’t want people thinking I’m permanently legless, do I?”

“Nah, s’pose not,” he mutters, still watching the most boring game of football ever played, let alone televised. Then it hits him and he spills his pint, laughing. “You wanker!”

“Takes one to know one, Nate,” I tell him. “Listen, I’ll see you around, all right?” I wheel my chair out around the table and through the pub, shouting, “Coming through!” to wake up a few other buggers who’ve only got eyes for the telly and get them out of my way. I give Cheryl at the bar a wave, and she blows me a kiss with her man-eater red lips, Lycra sleeves straining round her biceps as she pulls another pint.

I’d have stayed a bit longer, but I need a piss, and there’s no way I’m getting this chair through two sets of doors to get to the Gents. And anyway, that football match really was bad. Premiership, my shrapnel-scarred arse.

* * * *

There’s a reason I’m not going down the pub tonight, and it’s got me whistling as I peer into the bathroom mirror and try to decide if I’d look better with or without the two-day stubble. The gay scene round here isn’t up to much, this being Hertfordshire and not bloody San Francisco, but such as it is, I’ve been missing it. I haven’t been to any of the bars since I got out of hospital last time. So when I woke up this morning, hard-on the size of a Chieftain tank, I decided tonight’s the night. And then I had a bloody good wank, remembering the last time I went clubbing.

It was just before we got shipped out to Afghanistan. Weird now, thinking of it. Like I was a different person then. S’pose I was, really.

I was a fair bit taller, for one thing.

Taller than the bloke I hooked up with that night, anyhow. Pretty little thing, he was. Too pretty for me. I mean, come on. I haven’t got hang-ups, but I know what I look like, right? Nice body; shame about the face. ‘Course, these days that first bit’s only two-thirds right. So when he came dancing up to me, I didn’t take a lot of notice. Thought he’d be moving on to someone behind me any minute.

Okay, that’s a lie. I took notice, all right. He was fucking gorgeous, wasn’t he? Cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself and pouty red lips that looked like they’d already gone ten rounds with some lucky bastard’s cock before he even got here. Soft brown hair and eyes to match. I could feel my jeans getting tighter just watching him wiggle those cute little hips to the Scissor Sisters.

Then the music changed, and it was something slow. Can’t remember what. And he just looked up at me. Didn’t say anything. Just looked and held out a hand.

To me.

So I took it—I mean fuck, I’m not stupid. And we danced together, pressed up against each other, our cocks rubbing together through our clothes and his hands in the back pockets of my jeans as he dropped whisky-scented kisses on my neck. Every time I hear “The Time of My Life” or have a glass of scotch now I think of him.

Then the music changed, and he looked at me again and licked those full lips of his, and smiled. And I let him lead me to the Gents and I fucked him in the stall, all with barely a word spoken. God, he was gorgeous.

He surprised me afterward. “You’re a squaddie, aren’t you?” he asked, as I straightened myself up.

“What, did someone tattoo my name, rank and number on my cock when I wasn’t looking?”

He smiled. “No, it’s just—something in the way you move, I think. Confidence. The way you look at people, too, like you’re sizing them up.” He looked down then, his hair falling over his eyes like loose silk. “My dad was army. My sister, too. Think I was a bit of a disappointment.”

Well, that explained what he was doing with me. On top of the alcohol, of course. I might not have yet reached thirty back then, but I could easily have passed for ten years older. At least, so my mates always used to tell me. Tossers.