I roll over and rest my chin on his chest.
“Morning.” He flashes me a tired smile and tosses his arm around me. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good, I think.”1 I nod. “Did I?”
Killian Tiller shrugs with both his shoulders and his mouth. “You didn’t smack the shit out of me when I got into bed last night, so that felt good for me.”
I smile up at him proudly and he sniffs a laugh as he stares back. Normal people don’t reflexively strike their boyfriends with their elbows when said American boyfriends climb into their beds late at night.
“What time do you want to head to the farmers’ markets?” I sit up, shifting into him more.
He pulls an uncomfortable smile. “I’ve gotta work—”
“It’s a Saturday!” I frown.
“I know.” He shrugs again. “Just a bit time-sensitive—”
“Tills.” My shoulders slump. “Is it about my brother?”
“Dais, you know that they took me off everything to do with him—”2 He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “Just think — without me there, you can spend as long as you want in the leafy green section…”
I give him a measured look. “You are very annoying in that section.”3
He sighs, steeling himself for the conversation we’ve already had 50 times. “A leaf is a leaf, Daisy—”
I shake my head. “It isn’t.”
“It is.” He nods his. “Just a bunch of leaves named by eccentric botanists—”
“A head of romaine looks and functions very differently — to say — kale.” I give him a look, and he shakes his head all stubborn, just to get a rise.4
“Will you be home for dinner?”
“Should be.”
He nods, then leans over, kisses me how I’ve always wanted him to for so many years, and then rolls out of bed to shower.
He has his own place, but really he lives here with me in my apartment in Kensington Garden Square.5
About a month into living by myself I came home one day to find my apartment broken into.
Door smashed in, lock broken, place tipped upside down — nothing missing, not that I could tell, anyway.
I called the police because apparently that’s what normal people6 do if something goes wrong — they don’t call their brother7 or his Lost Boys8, they just call the police9. So I called the police10.
And then Killian Tiller showed up.
He knocked on my broken-down door and it swung open slowly. I was there, perched up on a bench next to my neighbour, Jago,11 who eyed the man in the doorway suspiciously.
I jumped to my feet when I saw him and a funny prickle rolled through my body, some sort of relief and sadness all at once. I remember becoming acutely aware that I was in baggy old 501s and a black crop top. Mismatched socks and my hair all shoved up into a little ponytail, barely there because I cut my hair when I cut everyone out of my life.
“I heard it on the radio—” Tiller told me with a frown as he reached into his back pocket to pull out his badge, flashing it at Jago.
“This is Killian Tiller—” I nodded over at him. “He’s a…” I squinted at Tiller and his eyebrows arched in that old, playful way. “Sort of an old friend.”
Jago nodded, told me to call him later — that I could stay with him if I wanted to — and then he left.
Tiller glanced around. “Your housekeeping’s gone downhill.”
I rolled my eyes and he gave me a small smile. Happy to see me, I could tell.
“This how you found the place?” He started poking around with a pen as to not touch anything. “Did you move anything?”
I shook my head and he whipped out his phone, taking a few photos.
“Any ideas?” He looked down at me.
His jaw jutted. “You said it, not me.”
“No, it wasn’t Julian.” I glared over at him and he just nodded, walked around a bit.
“How have you been?” he asked, looking up at me from across the way. Arms folded over his chest, serious brows.
“I mean—” I glanced around my trashed living room. “I’ve been better.”
He squashed a smile. “Before this — how were you?”
“Good.” I pursed my lips. “I guess.”
“You heard from him?”
I shake my head. “Last I heard, he fled London14 because he’s wanted by Scotland Yard.” I gave him a dark look.
“Well…” His American shoulders shrugged. “He’s stolen a lot of art.”
“I know.”
“Evaded a lot of laws.”
“I know.” I nodded, impatient.
“Kidnapped some kids.”
“I know, Killian,” I sort of yelled and then my voice went soft. “We don’t talk anymore.”15
He nodded once, eyes dropping from mine. “Sorry.” And he was, I could see it on him. “You need a new lock,” he told me, pointing at it.
I pursed my lips together, nodding. “So, do I just call a locksmith then?”
“I’ll do it—” he said, quickly. His eyes met mine and held steady.
I shook my head at him, flashing him a thankful smile. “That’s not really in your job description.”16
His mouth pulled, like he was amused. “Yeah, but neither is this though, so—” He gestured to my apartment.
“Just in the neighbourhood, then?” I asked, eyebrows up.
“Yeah—” He nodded coolly. “Something like that.”17
That moment to me, still to this day, were I to put it to pictures: it’s a tiny sapling breaking through the dirt.
That night I stayed at Jack’s18 — Tiller drove me there, and then late the next afternoon, he turned up to my apartment with a new lock and a tool box.
As soon as he arrived, Jack, who had been with me all day,19, 20 his eyes went wide and he mouthed across the room, ‘Oh my fuck, he’s so hot.’
‘Shut. Up.’ I mouthed back.
Jack made a circle with his index finger and his thumb, then plunged his other index finger into it repeatedly.21
“Get out—” I pointed to the door and my best friend cackled as he glided over to me, kissing my cheek. “Call me.”
“We’re fighting,” I called after him.
“What are you fighting about?” Tiller asked, looking up at me from his tool box.
I flashed him a quick smile. “Nothing.”
I wandered over and stood by the door he was fixing because — us and doorways, you know? My heart was fucked. I missed my brother, I missed Christian. I was alone and I was afraid, and Tiller was on his knees in my apartment fixing a thing he didn’t break.
He knew what he was doing. Which — I mean — of course he did, he offered to do it, but I’d never really watched a man fix something before.
The drilling, the chiselling, the screwing — oh my God — it was torture. I bit down on my thumb because without something to bite on, I would have just been staring at him, mouth fallen open in a permanent way because Tiller was just — he’s Tiller, you know? He’s heaven with that blonde hair and those blue eyes and those shoulders, with that accent. I’ve been a puddle around him since I was about sixteen and I was melting all over again there in my own kitchen.
His eyes flicked up to me.
“So—” He coughed, super casually. “You seeing anyone?”
“No.” I cracked my back as I stretched my hands up over my head. A bit because my back was sore, a bit because all of the rest of me was sore in a way I couldn’t fix alone. I hated being alone. I spent my whole life desperate to be alone and there I was, all alone just how I’d hoped to be and I didn’t know what to do with it.
“What about you?” I asked lightly. “Anyone?”
Tiller stared over at me a fraction longer than he probably should have and then shook his head. “Nope.”
“Oh.” I nodded once. Cleared my throat. “Hey, do you want a drink?” I launched myself off the wall towards the fridge, not waiting for an answer. Tiller glanced back at me with his little serious face that was so sexy to me22 — his eyes flicked from me to the fridge then back to me. Nodded once, then focused way too intensely on the door.
I poured us two well-oversized glasses of wine and I could tell that he knew I’d done it because our eyes caught when I handed him his and it looked like he was bracing himself — like he was on the edge of a cliff, talking himself into jumping off.
Tiller took a big sip then handed it back to me, kept on fiddling with the lock, and I remember so clearly finding his sublime lack of attention on me to be so hot and so sexy, and then I began to wonder whether he was doing it on purpose? The not looking at me. The brows so low with focus he was practically smouldering at the door…
After a little while, he stood. Locked the door and unlocked it again.
“All fixed—” He flashed me a quick smile. He looked flustered. Cute.
I reached past him and locked the door and the sound of the deadbolt echoed around us and cracked open that old pit inside of me.
“Thank you,” I said, quietly.
Tiller’s eyes held mine. “You’re welcome.”
Then he nodded once, knelt back down on the ground and began packing up his tools.
It was around that point in the evening that I began to wonder whether all the sexual tension I thought I was feeling was entirely in my head. Was his drilling really just drilling? Was the want I thought I felt between us all just one sided? I don’t know why, but then rippled through me this old feeling I’d get sometimes when my parents first died, that I was a small, helpless girl, all alone in all the world. I only really felt like that for a few months after it happened that day on the beach but I’d have a dream most nights, sometimes I still do: me on the sand, them still dying, but Julian’s dying with them and it’s just me there — alive — but I really am an orphan and I really am alone. I’m all the things my brother said I am.
That’s how I felt when my brother walked out of that hospital room and that’s how I started to feel again watching Tiller pack up his tools there in front of me, so as soon as I felt it, I wanted him to leave — needed him to. I didn’t want him to see my face, see that I was sad — see that I hadn’t changed at all, that I’d sleep with him on the spot as much as I would Jago or the barista across the street, that I’d use their bodies as a plywood board to lay over the pit so I wouldn’t fall back into it.
I knelt down next to him to help him pack up faster, picked up a drill and blew the sawdust off it it when—
“Ow! Shit!” My hand flew to my eye.
“Are you okay?” Tiller frowned, concerned.
I stood up precariously, felt my way over to the guest bathroom and he rushed over, and I remember seeing with my good eye that he was more concerned than a speck of sawdust called for.
Splashed some water in my eye, tried my best to flush it out. And then a hand on my waist spun me around.
“Let me see.” He took my face in both his hands and carefully, with his thumb, dragged my closed eye open.
Our faces were close enough for me to feel the residual warmth of his body.
When I think back to that night, that’s the part I remember best. He made me feel warm.
“I think you got it—” he said but it came out a little croaky.
His eyes flickered down me, pressed his tongue into his bottom lip, eyes glued to mine and then he leant in… slowly… it was such a measured lean in.23 Him just watching me the whole time to make sure I didn’t change my mind.
Like I ever would, that face coming towards me finally how I always wanted it to.
I slipped my hands around his waist and tugged him in towards me, our mouths brushed and then all his measures were cast to the wayside.
Here’s the truth: I had daydreamed about sleeping with Killian Tiller an innumerable number of times since I was about 16. So that — there and then — had years of expectations riding on it and Tills did not disappoint.
It never slowed down, it never lulled — he didn’t miss a beat. He picked me up on his waist and we did it on my bathroom sink under incredibly terrible lights — the kind that show every flaw you have and I couldn’t see a single one on him.
Then afterwards, he sat back against the wall of my tiny bathroom staring up at the ceiling, looking all pensive, back to worried.
“Fuck—” He shook his head.
“What?” I sat up, pulling my shirt back on over my head.
“Sorry—” He started frowning. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?”
He pointed a finger vaguely at me.
“Me?” I blinked.
He nodded quickly, running his hands over his face, stressed. He tugged his t-shirt back on, standing up. “I didn’t mean to like, take advantage of you—”
I looked over at him confused. “Tiller, I poured the equivalent of about three wines into your one glass because I wanted this to happen…”
He flashed me an unimpressed look.
“Been trying to bed you for years, Tills—” I told him, trying to keep it light. I didn’t like how strained he looked.
“Tiller!” I laughed, because he was being so cute. “It was just sex.”
And then I remember how he eyed me all suspicious, like I was full of it. “There’s no such thing.”
“Yes, there is!” I shook my head, laughing again. “Of course there is! We just did it!”
He breathed out like he’d been holding it in. “I swear to God, I really did just come here to fix your lock.”
I gave him a tiny smile. “I believe you.”
He left not long after that, and later on texted me saying he was sorry and if I needed any help with anything else, just to text him.
And would you believe it? A few days later, my drain clogged.
That’s how we started. First the lock, then the clogged drain. Then my fridge started leaking and I needed a new one. Then my car ran out of petrol… on purpose.
And then I started doing things like shaking a lightbulb til the tungsten filament broke and then reinstalling the bulb, pretending I didn’t know how to change one.
“You know you can just ask me to come over for sex, right?” he told me that night, as he tugged on my hair playfully. Which I did, for about a week. Because when I stopped, I missed… him.24 And it was a great week. Tiller would come over most nights after work, ‘bang one out’ as Julian would say. And it was working for me, because I had school and no friends besides Jack25 and I was single and alone and being alone reminded me that I was, actually, really, very alone. No family, two friends and a bodyguard who won’t quit.26
And then there was a knock on my door one night unannounced.
“What are you doing here?” I blinked up at Tiller unceremoniously, glancing at the wine and flowers in his hands.
“It’s Valentine’s Day.” He shrugged.
I shrugged back. “I know.”
“I want to take you on a date,” he told me, stepping around me to get inside.
I closed the door. “What?”
“What?” He sniffed, amused. “This can’t be a huge shock to you — we’ve slept together most nights the last… two weeks.”
“I know.” I rolled my eyes. “But all that’s — just, sort of perfunctory, is it not?”
Some hurt rolled over his cute face. “Not to me.”
“Tills—” I sighed. “I’ve always… With you, you know I27—” I gestured towards him and swallowed because he’s so handsome. “You know I have, but I’m still not really like, past—” I couldn’t say his name, I still can’t. It always stops short in my mouth like saying it out loud might mean I’m letting some part of him leave me,28 so I waved vaguely towards the ghost of Christian Hemmes that follows me everywhere.
And then Tiller tilted his head, gave me a quarter smile. “I’m not asking you to marry me, Dais. It’s just a date.”
So we went out. And then the weirdest thing happened — I had a really, genuinely wonderful, happy time. It was the most fun I’d had in months. And we didn’t do anything special — we got Nando’s because every restaurant in London was booked and he didn’t think to book it, because he didn’t think I’d actually say yes, so we had Nando’s29 and then we went for a walk and we listened to country music, which back then in February I thought was shit and I teased him for how much he loved it but now it’s nearly November and I can sing you the lyrics to every Thomas Rhett song and don’t even get me started on Dan + Shay…
That night he came back to my house and we watched The Sixth Sense — I picked a sort of scary one, because I hoped it meant he’d stay, and when we were watching it he put his arm around me and he looked nervous when he did it — he wouldn’t look at me, just at the screen, and then he did stay.
Tiller falls asleep easily, I’ve worked that out by now — I think it’s because he is so innately good, he has no worries, he’s sort of the human personification of Hakuna Matata — he’s just relaxed at all times, and to get a rise I tell him I think that’s because he’d spend his summers with his grandfather in Venice and he smoked too much weed and he says to stop saying that so loudly all the time and that he only told me that under duress and I said it was hardly duress and he said handcuffs were involved, so technically… and that’s as much of the story as you need to know. Tiller sleeps easy, that’s my point.
And on that Valentine’s night, as I stared over at him — him, who is arguably one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen at any point of my whole, entire life — then and there, I made myself a deal: I would be done with Christian Hemmes. Done as I could be and I won’t ever be fully, I don’t think, but Christian was in the corner there, this towering statue like some alter I built of him or for him in my living room and he was always there — casting a shadow on everything, discolouring all the ways I might potentially be happy without him — because I don’t want to be without him, I want to be with him. I did before, I still do now, of course I still do, but I can’t be. We want different things. He wants to be there and amongst it and I… well, I miss it, actually, if I’m being honest. But that’s because it’s all entangled with my brother and probably, really, I think I miss it mostly in a Stockholm Syndrome kind of way where it’s all I’ve ever known and I’m scared without it and so it doesn’t count. And so it doesn’t matter that I love Christian, which I do,30 because love isn’t enough and it’s not all you need and we are the proof of that.
So I decided then, that night on Valentine’s Day, that I was going to pack Christian away. He couldn’t live in my living room anymore. I didn’t know how to pack him down, I didn’t know how to take loving him apart31 — I don’t think I can. I think I accidentally loved him in a way where he’ll be my weak knee forever, so maybe he’s a statue I can’t tear down and I’ll always bow to and see in some holy light but maybe he’s a statue I could shift onto a trolley and move him out of the main room and away into the guest room — the same room where all my thoughts live, the ones about my brother and how much I miss him and how scared I am without him and how I wish he would just come and get me and make me come home but he won’t so I won’t either. So what if Christian is just another thing I won’t ever be able to disassemble? At least I can put him a room, bolt the door shut and wear the key around my neck. Visit when I need to — if I have to — but then I just close the door. That’s what I did that night, I closed the door and I looked straight ahead, and straight ahead was Tiller.
And that was nearly nine months ago.
I buy two coffees from the shop downstairs, but I bring my own muffins because mine are better than theirs, and then I cross the road to the black Escalade that’s always parked across from my place.
Tap on the window and it rolls down.
“Stop following me,” I tell Miguel as I hand him a coffee and a muffin.
“Stop with the chia seeds, I told you I don’t like them.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You need the potassium.”
“So give me a banana—” He frowns as he takes a bite anyway. “And no.” He gives me a bright smile and I roll my eyes at him, handing him my coffee wordlessly as I bend down to tie my shoe.
“Where are we off to today?” he asks as I stand up again and he hands me back my coffee.
“We’re off to nowhere.” I give him a look before gesturing to myself. “I’m off to the farmers’ market with Jack.”
He nods. “Which route are you taking?”
“Oh, the None of Your Business route — very scenic.” I flash him a smile.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Just tell me.”
“Piss off—” I glare at him as I back away.
“Misty Way?” he calls after me.32
I flip him off as I open my car door.
“Is that a yes?” he calls, exasperated.
“Yes,” I growl.
“Does your brother know he’s still with you?” Jack asks a few hours later, nodding at Miguel as he slips into the booth behind us.
“I presume so.” I shrug. “Otherwise Julian’s just resigned to Miguel suddenly becoming a terrible employee — disappearing for massive chunks of the day.”
“It’s kind of sweet.” Jack shrugs, trying to help.
“It’s kind of unnecessary—” I say loudly, loud enough for Miguel to hear. “I don’t need a bodyguard, I’m dating someone in law enforcement! I’m normal now!”
“You sound normal! Yelling away in a coffee shop, idiota louco—” Miguel calls back and I pout.
Jack reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“How are you doing today anyway?”
“Today?” I bat my eyes, shrugging like I don’t know what he means. Jack rolls his eyes. “What’s today?” I keep it going.
He gives me a look, nods at my plate. Breakfast hash.
I push the plate away from me. It’s not as good as the ones I used to make anyway.
October 30th. My brother’s birthday.33 Barely thought of him once.
“Are you going to send him something?”
“Of course not.” I shake my head.
Jack gives me a gentle shrug. “It might be a nice peace offering…”
“I don’t want a peace offering,” I lie. And I know it won’t work. If there was ever a thing that was going to work for my brother and me to be okay again, it’s already happened and it didn’t change a thing.34
“Come on.” I clap my hands together. “I have to go and put dinner on.”
“She’s very good,” Tiller announces, pulling me down onto his lap and leaning back into his chair.
“It was a roast chicken—” I roll my eyes at him and he wraps his arms around me tighter.
“How’s it going with that guy,35 Jacko?” Tiller nods his chin at him.
“Yeah, good—” Jack tries not to smile too much. “We’ve been together a month now, bit more—”
“What’s his name again?” Tiller looks between us.
“August Waterhouse,” I announce.
“Producer.” Tiller nods. “Got it. I remember. Sick, man — I’m glad it’s going well.”
Jack smiles and opens his mouth to say something before glancing around our apartment. “Why do you have so many roses everywhere?”
I glance around at the six bouquets in the dining room alone.
“Oh—” I shrug. “Tiller sends me flowers all the time.”
Tiller sniffs a laugh. “No, I don’t.”
I turn back to look at him. “What?”
“I don’t send you flowers.” He gestures to the flowers. “These aren’t from me.”
“Are you sure?” I frown.
“Am I sure I’m not sending you flowers?” He gives me a look. “Yeah.”
“But you come in with them sometimes—”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “They’d just be sitting there at the door—”
I blink. “You’ve never sent me roses?”
“You thought I was sending you flowers all this time and you’ve never once said thank you?” He sits up.
“Oh my God.” I roll my eyes, shifting in his lap. “They’re roses, not the Hope Diamond — you pass them to me, I say thank you, that’s a perfectly acceptable exchange.”
Jack gets up and starts poking through a bouquet.
“No cards—” I tell him. Never cards. I turn back to Tiller. “I just thought they were from you.”
Tiller shifts, tensing underneath me a little. Holds me different. His face flicks into worried mode. He looks from me to Jack.
“Hemmes?” he suggests.
I shake my head. “We haven’t spoken since—”36 It catches in my thought so I catch Tiller’s eye to steady myself. “Since that night here.”
His face pulls — that was a hard night for him — but he nods.
“Romeo?” Jack throws out there.
“Hates me.” I flash them both a brave smile.37
Tiller’s hand rests on the small of my back as he sighs. “Your brother?”
I shake my head. “Also hates me.”38
A cloud settles over the room that I feel the need to swat away, so I jump to my feet and start clearing the plates.
“It’s probably just a mistake—” I shrug.
“What?” Jack and Tiller frown in unison.
“Like, someone’s got the address wrong, and they’re trying to send flowers to the fit girl upstairs.”
Jack rolls his eyes. “Dais, you are the fit girl upstairs.”
I bend over and touch Tiller’s worried face. “It’s nothing, Tills. Just some poor dyslexic’s dosh down the drain—” I give him a light-hearted shrug. “They’re not for me.”
1 Eventually. A melatonin and four guided meditations later.
2 A conflict of interests, his boss told him.
3 Doesn’t like leafy greens, my boyfriend.
4 And if Killian Tiller thinks that a rocket leaf is interchangeable with baby spinach, I honestly can’t help him.
5 Bayswater
6 Which — to reiterate — I am now.
7 Because he’s an idiot.
8 Because they’re all idiots.
9 Also possibly idiots.
10 Even though everything in me really just wanted to call my brother.
11 Yes, Jago Benz. The one from the band. He’s only here some of the time, most of the time he’s in New York.
12 I guess because old habits die hard.
13 Or perhaps because I will defend my brother whether I want to or not and til my death.
14 Somewhere in South America, Miguel told me without my asking him.
15 I managed to say that without outwardly resembling the cracked egg I feel like inside.
16 Which, to refresh you, is an investigator with the NCA.
17 I’d later find out that he’d listen out for things about me and my brother, just in case, because he knew I was alone.
18 Who was — by the way — very dramatic about the entire thing, saying I should have been living with him, that this would have never happened if I’d had a housemate, he knew we should have gotten a flat together, and I said, “With all due respect, Jack — you had a spider the size of a 1p coin in your laundry room the other day and made me come to get rid of it, so my expectations for how you’d deal with a robber aren’t currently sky high.”
19 Which, to refresh you, is an investigator with the NCA.
20 And because he was hoping to get a look at the Sexy Police Officer.
21 That absolute child of a man.
22 Still is. Concern is so cute on men like him. Endearing somehow, not patronising.
23 Makes me smile when I think about it now. It’s so Tiller to be measured.
24 The other him. The one I love but can’t love anymore, because I’m normal now.
25 And, sort of reluctantly, Taura. I don’t really know how she wormed her way in here, but anyway.
26 Try though I do, daily. I also do not let him in my house, just to be difficult. One time I did let him in to do a wee though.
27 ‘I have always liked you and I’ve always wanted some version of this.’ is what I do not say out loud to him.
28 And I don’t think I will ever.
29 The dodgy one, on Queensway.
30 More than anything and painfully so.
31 I still don’t.
32 Hhhh.
33 Thirty-One today.
34 And I don’t want to talk about it.
35 Brace yourself. Big news!
36 Since that one night where nothing changed.
37 Like saying that doesn’t make me sick to my stomach.
38 I force a smile because it’ll ward off the crying.
