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There was never going to be a happy ending to this, Billy thinks. He doesn’t get to hold the thought for long, blood loss and all. He hopes Freddy got lost in the woods and doesn't have to see his father like this. Hopes it’s instead a random hiker that finds him, all splayed out; almost like a meal.
—
The worst part is that Billy knows exactly how he got here.
Billy isn’t thickheaded, he’s been conducting an affair with Joe for at least two years now. Of course he knew Joe murdered Duncan. He knew right after that meeting with the bin men that the seed of revenge had been planted in Joe’s head. Billy decided then, on the way back to the restaurant, that he wasn’t going to run. It wasn’t a choice made on his own free will, just something he had to do. Stick by Joe’s side, like he always did.
He could always leave, he knows that well. Could always get a job at some similar restaurant, maybe get a little more recognition, maybe work some place a little more sane. But none of those places have Joe. No one would make him feel as whole and as needed and as loved as Joe would. And that’s worth whatever gets thrown at him. That’s what makes him stay through all the little bits of restaurant drama, through their wives, through whatever prediction the bin men throw at them. And if Joe killed Duncan, Billy’s already decided to stick through it all, this being no exception.
But for as well as he knew Joe, he clearly didn’t know Ella well enough to know she’d get involved.
—
It’s not as if he thought he knew Ella, but it’s weird when you’re participating in an affair, how intimately you start to know the other person’s partner. He knows all of Ella’s lipstick shades because they’re always sorted neatly on the bathroom counter. Knows she likes to keep her side of the bed cold because he sleeps on her side of the bed. Knows what her shampoo smells like because it’s all over Joe’s skin. Knows how she likes her coffee (one sugar, no cream) because it’s how Joe makes it for him when he’s too tired to think. He wonders if some mornings, Joe makes Ella his coffee (three creams, two sugars). If when she presses close to him, she smells Billy’s aftershave. If sometimes she slips into bed to find it’s warmer then she likes it.
Billy wonders if Joe can feel it too. Sees where his wife’s kissed him, purposely kisses him in the same spot. If Joe knows his wife’s concealer color, because he’s been using it to hide Joe’s marks. If he knows Billy’s wife likes her eggs scrambled, because sometimes Billy also forgets what life he’s living and doesn’t make Joe’s fried egg. When it happens, Joe doesn’t say anything and still eats them.
Billy doesn’t know if he wants Joe to say anything at all. Doesn’t know what he’d want Joe to say anyways. So he stays quiet, tries to stop wondering, and takes the coffee.
—
But Billy’s never stopped wondering. It’s always been a problem, always watching stars instead of sleeping. But now, hiding this thing with Joe as if it was his only vice, his wonderings are all about Joe. Because however close they can be, there are hard lines in the sand. So Billy has to use his imagination. He imagines Joe, not as saddled with work and not as forced in the background. Allowed to shine. Wonders how Joe might look at him then, full smile on display. Wonders about kissing him in a crowded room. Everyone looking, no one paying attention. How Joe might look at their wedding, smile even brighter than at Joe and Ella’s engagement party. Wonders about kissing him hello, kissing him goodbye.
He wonders about kissing Joe a lot. Billy doesn’t give Joe goodbye kisses. He’s found out the hard way that if he kisses his wife when he gets home, Joe’s still on his tongue. Joe seemed to have no problem kissing both Ella and Billy within a minute of the other. He wonders if Ella can taste him in Joe’s mouth, as some indistinct taste that’s gotten so mixed with Joe’s that no one can tell the difference or if it’s a glaring sore thumb she chooses to ignore. Billy always knows when he’s the second to be kissed. Physical evidence is allowed to exist when it comes to Ella, her lipstick shade branding Joe. He gets in the habit of wiping Joe’s lip before they kiss. He can taste it, but there’s no bloodied mark anymore, staining Joe’s skin. There’s no reminder to anyone else, if for a moment, that Joe belongs to anyone but Billy. It’s uncharacteristically possessive of him. He’s never been so consumed by the idea of something being his, much less a person. But something about Joe brushes close to violence in even the most gentle people. Joe thinks it’s cute when Billy gets possessive over him. It’s not like Joe isn’t possessive himself, but only when he has excuses. Only when he’s four drinks deep does he wrap himself around Billy. Only then does he whisper into Billy’s ear what he wants to do to him. And only when they’re alone does he tell Billy that he’s his favourite, that he loves him before he coaxes his mouth open.
You don’t love me enough to leave her, Billy thinks as Joe cups his face in his palms. But then Joe kisses his nose when they wake up in the morning and Billy forgives him.
—
There’s been only one time Billy didn’t forgive Joe.
Joe was proposing to Ella the morning after, and had suggested a celebration. A pre-stag do. Billy agreed, but it played out to be a usual night out for the two of them. Billy couldn’t walk straight and his vision was swimming, but in that pleasant way relinquishing control was. Joe was plastered himself, talking nonsense about rabbits and car crashes. This was familiar. This was usual.
It was well past midnight, the two of them leaning on each other and giggling like fools back home. Ella was visiting her parents in the countryside, the flat empty except the two of them. They’re laughing about some small thing only the two of them find funny when Joe lets go of his arm, says wait, and dashes into his room.
Billy’s still trying to regain control of his senses when Joe emerges from his room. Billy’s trying to talk to him, but Joe keeps shushing him through giggles. Eventually, Billy relents. Because it’s Joe, typical old Joe, and what could Joe ever do that would surprise Billy anymore?
And then, holding the box he’s giving to Ella tomorrow, he gets on one knee.
The night fades into a blur after that, but when he wakes up next to Joe, the ring’s still on his finger. He looks at Joe sleeping softly next to him, and his heart aches. Billy’s sleeping in Ella’s spot in bed, with her ring on his finger, his own ring lying forgotten with his clothes.
He should feel guilty, he should feel hollow at going behind both his wife and Ella’s back. But instead, he feels good. He feels as if this is exactly where he belongs. And that horrifies him.
It’s that horror that propels him out of Joe’s bed. Fearing that if he stays too long, he could never leave. That he wouldn’t want too.
Careful not to wake Joe, he slips Ella’s ring off his finger and puts it on the nightside table. He throws on last night’s clothes, and leaves.
—
They’ve been engaged for a year and a half, but they still act as if they’re in the honeymoon phase. Joe kisses Ella. Joe hugs Ella. He holds her hand and whispers into her ear and keeps kissing her. Somepart of Billy wonders if it's for show. He’s clearly aware when he has an audience, because Joe only kisses Billy when no one’s looking. Late at night in the kitchen, Billy sharpening a knife, Joe beside him, pressing himself into Billy’s neck despite the risk that Billy will slip, graze the knife over Joe’s thigh or hand or heart. Joe early in the morning, pacing while getting dressed, grazing his hands over Billy’s shoulders, kissing his cheek when they part. Joe on a midday smoke break, out where only the bin men come, stealing Billy’s cigarettes with an impish smile and a peck.
Billy tries, when he’s feeling particularly self destructive, to look at Joe and Ella and guilt himself out of this thing he has with Joe. But every time he thinks of their last after work drink, running down the street like children. Joe’s voice ringing in the tunnel, angry to everyone else but clearly an act to Billy. Telling Billy to slow down, wait for him, and Billy always does.
He watches as Joe and Ella walk along the street ahead of him. Joe, clearly the faster walker between the two, trying to stride ahead, only to be yanked back by Ella’s arm around his, only to look at Ella fondly. Ella’s his wife. Billy’s just the mistress. And the mistress may get mansions and titles and streams of affection, but a husband’s always loyal to his wife. Always takes everything away the second his wife looks a little closer.
So Billy walks forwards with the knowledge that he’s temporary. All affairs are. Wives though, are forever. He holds his own wife’s hand a little tighter, and keeps walking.
—
Still, he wasn’t expecting it so soon. It was fast, but it wasn’t sudden. He’s been watching it build, a bystander to the orchestration of his own death. He didn’t think Joe would do anything with Freddy around, but it turns out he didn’t know much of Joe anyways.
He thought he did. Joe, unofficial head chef. Billy, unofficial sous chef. Stepping up after Duncan had become more of a wine man. Duncan had stopped liking the mess of the kitchen, instead he enjoyed a clean table with messy plates and a bottle of a 1996 Bordeaux. But Joe, Joe loved a kitchen most when it bled. And Billy didn’t mind it, because he’d always be there to clean the blood Joe spilt. But maybe Billy shouldn’t have stuck so close to Joe, because it wasn’t going to be long until Joe wanted more than animal blood for Billy to clean.
So really, he should’ve known. The hole in his chest grows, bicycle fallen to the side. He should’ve known that nothing with Joe mattered. Joe in the kitchen, singing some horrid new pop song. Joe in Billy’s room, criticizing his taste in books. Joe, at day and at night and in the restaurant and in their houses, looking at Billy as if he loved Billy like Billy loved Joe.
He looks up at the cloudy sky. He was really looking forward to breakfast. He gets the sense he should be thinking about his wife and Freddy and unborn child, not breakfast with Joe. That’s Joe, he smiles. That’s Joe to take up so much of the joy in Billy’s life that he smiles just thinking of him, even after he’s surely to blame for the bullet in his chest. The lack of blood makes him so dizzy he’s not even reaching for his phone, just lying and smiling in the dirt. He wonders if his blood will seep into the dirt, make the earthworms come out for the hope of rain, only to find whatever remains of him.
It would always end like this. He’d end up as worm food while Joe took hold of the restaurant, bloodied hands marking it as his. Those hands used to be around Billy, marking him as Joe’s. But Billy wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t shiny enough compared to the restaurant and Ella.
The thicket at the edge of his vision takes up more and more of the sky every time he blinks, blackening his vision. He should’ve known, he thinks as he slips, his eyes finally closing. There are no happy endings for people like him.