When we gamble with the world - part 4
Title: When we gamble with the world
Rating: R
Fandom: Take That
Pairing: Robbie/Gary
Genre: romance, angst
Summary: Rob has always thought of the two of them like magnets. When everything is the wrong way round, nothing is going to keep them together. When things are good, though, they just attract, drawing the other in without even trying.
Word count: 14370
Gary returns Dan to Dawn on the twenty-eighth of December and goes straight to Heathrow from there. He bought his tickets online last night and it’s probably the most insane thing he’s ever done and it’s probably too late but he knows if he doesn’t at least try then he’s going to regret it forever.
He gets through security without being recognised, which is a first. He finds his gate just in time to board and settles into his seat as comfortably as possible. He didn’t sleep a wink last night, he’s running purely on adrenaline at this point and he taps his fingers nervously against his armrest. Exhaustion gets the better of him somewhere over the Atlantic and he falls asleep, until the flight attendant shakes him awake several hours later, asking him to bring his seat back to its upright position for landing.
It’s during his layover in New York that he digs his phone out of his bag to call Josie. She isn’t happy to hear from him, Gary can tell from the moment she answers the phone. He certainly doesn’t blame her, considering the fifteen or so emails he’s now sent in addition to the seven or eight voicemails, all after completely fucking with Rob’s head.
“What can I do for you, Mr Barlow?” She says, her tone clipped. He doesn’t think she’s called him that since the first time they met and he immediately asked her to call him Gary.
“Don’t hang up.” He says quickly. “I need your help.”
Josie sighs the long-suffering sigh of someone who deals with idiots on a far-too-regular basis for her liking. “I don’t think you’re in a place to be asking for any favours.” She says coolly.
“I know.” Gary says. “But I don’t know who else to call.”
“For future reference, it’s not me.”
“I messed up.”
“I’m not your therapist. I’m not even Rob’s therapist.”
“I need to fix it.”
“I don’t think you can.”
“I need to try, at least.”
“Do you realise what you’ve done?” Her voice is cold and unforgiving, and Gary is certain she’s never going to think very highly of him again. “The two of you dragged each other through hell twenty years ago, and you’d finally gotten yourselves into a good place. You repaired friendships, you made a brilliant album and everything was good for him, better than it’s been in a decade, probably. And then you started sleeping together, which I don’t know, maybe that was unavoidable, but either way, flipping like a switch, dropping him with no warning, you absolutely destroyed all that progress.” Josie laughs mirthlessly. “There’s a terrible pun for you, but it’s true.”
“I know. I know what I did was wrong and hurtful and I’ve probably ruined everything but on the off chance that I haven’t, I need to try. Please.”
“How, exactly, do you want me to help? I won’t talk to him on your behalf.” He can hear the scowl in Josie’s voice, and he wonders how many times people have asked her to do just that. Probably too many.
“No, it’s up to me to talk to him. I’m in New York now, I’m taking the red-eye tonight and I’ll be in L.A. by morning. But he’s not answering his phone and he won’t reply to my emails.”
“You want me to get you into the house,” Josie says flatly, and Gary’s ninety-nine per cent certain he’s not going to be able to talk her round, and he’ll end up standing on Rob’s driveway pathetically pleading his case through an intercom box.
“Yes.”
“I could get fired for that. I could get fired for even talking to you, the state he’s in right now.”
“We both know he’s not going to fire you, Josie. You’re absolutely indispensible to him, I wouldn’t have called you if I thought otherwise.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Barlow, flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“Please, Josie. I don’t know what else to do.”
She sighs again. “I’m only doing this because I think seeing you is the one thing that’s going to help him, even if he just wants to shout at you. My access code for the gate is 4481. You have one chance. I’m changing the code in two days regardless of whether or not you’ve turned up. And if I get fired, you’re finding me a new job.”
“Deal,” Gary agrees before she can change her mind. If one chance is all he gets, he’s going to have to make the most of it.
* * *
Rob wakes stupidly early to the sound of someone knocking on the door downstairs. He’d think Josie had forgotten her key, but she never forgets anything. He kicks free of his duvet and pulls on a t-shirt as he shuffles down the hallway.
It could be Mark or his mum, he supposes, but neither of them is really the type to turn up unannounced.
He certainly wasn’t expecting him, but Rob is somehow not surprised to find Gary standing on his doorstep, looking a bit bleary-eyed and rumpled like he came straight from the airport.
He thinks about shutting the door in Gary’s face, but he can’t make himself do it. Instead, he steps aside and lets Gary into the house, knowing he shouldn’t.
“What are you doing here?” He asks flatly. It’s a stupid question, he knows why Gary is here; it’s not as if the other man was just in the neighbourhood and decided to pop over on a whim for tea and the full English.
“Needed to speak to you.”
“How did you even get in the gate?”
“Josie. I badgered her for a week to get her to help me. Don’t fire her.”
“I’m not going to fire her.” Rob grumbles. “Might take back her Christmas bonus, though. Bloody traitor."
"Rob-
"Gaz, don't. Do you realise what you've done? Do you have any idea how horrible the past few months have been?"
"I've got some idea, yes."
Rob huffs out a frustrated sigh, because he’s not sure Gaz understands, really. “Do you ever have that dream where you’re falling? It doesn’t matter how or why, just that you are. Dropping towards the ground, although you can’t actually see the ground getting closer, you still know you’re falling because you never forget what that feels like? And you’re panicking the whole time, bracing yourself for what comes next because you know it’s going to hurt. And then you wake up and you can tell yourself it was a dream, but it still feels like you just jumped off the top of a three-storey building from the way your heart is racing. And all you can think about is what happens if you go back to sleep and you’re falling again.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what it was like. What it’s still like.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
Rob levels him with a stare that could freeze hell. “No one deserves that, Gaz. It was a complete one-eighty. Everything was fine and you panicked and instead of trying to talk about it, you gave up.”
“I know.” Gary says quietly. “I know I did.”
“Why?”
It’s such a simple question, and Rob deserves an answer, but the answer isn’t so simple.
“I was scared.”
“And you think I wasn’t? It was a big fucking gamble, falling in love with you, and it seems like I was right to be afraid.”
“I’m not good at this, Rob. I’m shit at having a personal life at all, let alone actually being in a relationship with someone. I’ve been on my own since Dawn.”
Rob snorts. “No, that’s just what you tell yourself. You were just afraid to try.”
“I don’t know how to make you understand how much I regret it.”
“I don’t know either.” Rob says. “It’s not some rom-com. Flying out here like it’s some grand gesture to me isn’t enough.”
“I know it’s not. I needed to talk to you, though, and you weren’t exactly taking my calls.”
“Wonder why?” Rob says darkly.
Gary drags a hand through his hair and Rob fidgets and they both just sit avoiding looking at one another for a long minute. Gary doesn’t know what to do, wishes he’d planned a bit more before jumping on a plane and showing up on Rob’s doorstep. And Rob’s right, there’s nothing to a grand gesture. It’s the figuring out what comes next that takes work.
“I don’t know what you want,” Rob says, finally.
“You.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it? All those things you’re scared of are still going to exist. How do I know you’re not going to run on me again?”
"You don't. You just have to trust me."
"I don't know if I can."
Gary nods once, like it's the answer he's been expecting. "Right. So...where do we go from here then?"
"Dunno." Rob shrugs, feeling more helpless than he has in decades. "I need some space. I can't think properly with you looking at me like that."
"I'll go check into my hotel then, shall I?" Gary says.
"Yeah. That would be good."
Gary nods again and turns to go. He hesitates in the doorway and turns back. "I love you. Should've said it ages ago. Just imagine the trouble I could've saved us if I had."
What do you think I've been doing the last four fucking months, Rob thinks, but he doesn't dare say it out loud. It will give too much away, more than he wants Gary to know right now.
"Just go, Gaz. Please. I'll ring you tomorrow."
It hurts sending Gary away, and Rob wonders almost immediately if he's done the right thing. He wants to believe Gary, desperately, but he's not sure he does. He doesn't even know if he can forgive him, let alone trust him.
* * *
When Gary gets to his hotel room, he checks his mobile in a rather pathetic move. He knows one conversation isn't enough to fix things and hoping for a message from Rob already is foolish. He does have a few text messages from Dan though, asking r u there yet??? and wots happening? and mum says I have to go to bed now but tell me how it goes!
Gary replies with as much detail as he can without disappointing Dan. He never would have expected this much support from his son, and he wishes he'd just said something sooner. Not that hindsight does anybody any good. He's always going to have regrets about how he handled things, but the only thing to do is move forward and hope for the best.
He collapses into bed after that, exhausted from travel and the time difference. When he wakes up, the clock on the bedside table tells him it’s nearly three in the morning, and it doesn’t seem possible that he’s slept that long. He reaches for his phone and finds he has a new voicemail from only a few minutes ago. He thumbs clumsily at the screen, still a bit groggy from so much sleep, and he has to listen to the message twice before he really understands it.
“It’s me. I know it’s late. Or early. Whatever. Can you ring me?”
He dials Rob’s number and presses the phone to his ear, holding his breath while it rings.
“Gaz?” Rob says as soon as he answers.
“Hey.”
“Where are you staying?”
Gary has to think to remember the name of the hotel but it comes to him after a moment.
“I’m getting in the car now. Need to speak face to face.”
“Okay,” Gary agrees, trying not to get his hopes up and failing miserably.
“Be there soon.” Rob says before hanging up.
* * *
As it’s the wee hours of the morning, there’s no traffic to deal with and Rob flies down the motorway to Gary’s hotel. He hasn’t slept and his body is thrumming with adrenaline, his thoughts chasing themselves round his head in dizzying spirals. He lets the valet park the car and steps through the automated doors into the warm lobby, which is totally empty except for the man at reception who nods at him sleepily.
He finds the lifts and rides up to Gary’s floor with a feeling of déjà vu. He is certain he’s felt this exact combination of anxiety and desperation and panic in this lift before.
Because he has. Because this is the same bloody hotel where he came to meet the boys when they were mixing The Circus. The irony is almost enough to make him go back down to his car and leave.
He doesn’t though. He gets out of the lift and he finds Gary’s room, but he hesitates outside the door. He still hasn’t made his mind up and going into that room is going to force the issue, one way or another. And maybe that’s what he needs. He needs to make up his mind, and he’s not going to do it sitting alone in his house torn between wanting to forget everything that’s happened because he misses Gary so much and telling himself forgetting is taking a step backwards and they’ll only be in this same position a few weeks or months or years down the road. He doesn’t know which is right, or if there even is a right answer. Maybe it’s just the decision he makes and the consequences that go with it.
He knocks and the door swings open almost immediately, like Gary’s been waiting for him since he rang.
“Come in,” Gary says, and Rob steps into the room. It’s strange, how comforting all hotel rooms are in their familiarity. It seems only fitting, given their history with hotel rooms, that this is where Gary and Rob are going to have this conversation.
Rob sits down on the bed and Gary sits next to him. The silence stretches out between them.
“Maybe you were right.” Rob says finally. “You and me, we’re always going to find a way to absolutely wreck each other.”
“Rob, I was being horrible when I said that. I didn’t mean it.”
“Either way, we can’t keep doing this to each other.”
“No, we can’t.”
“But I don’t know how to fix it.”
Gary sighs and lies down, staring up at the ceiling. “You and me...it’s never going to be easy.”
“No, it’s not.” Rob agrees.
“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Or so my eleven-year-old tells me.”
“You’ve told Dan about us?”
“Yes. He wasn’t very surprised. I suppose we weren’t subtle.”
“What did he say, then?”
“He called me an idiot for giving up.”
Rob can’t help the laugh that escapes him at that. “Takes after his mum then, your Dan?”
“He does seem to have inherited her talent for telling me what I need to hear.” Gary grins. For a moment it’s as if nothing has happened. They could be back in one of those hotels on tour, just the two of them existing in their own little bubble. Then, Gary’s face falls. “He was right. I was an idiot. And a coward.”
“Yeah.” Rob says, and Gary flinches just a little. “But I don’t blame you. You’ve got more to lose than I do.”
“No.” Gary frowns. “I just thought I did. The things I was afraid of losing-aside from Dan-don’t matter. Turns out you’re the thing I’m most afraid of losing. Only I didn’t realise until I cocked it all up.”
Rob doesn’t know what to say to that. He rubs a hand over his face, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Sleep on it?” Gary suggests. “You look knackered.”
“I feel it,” Rob nods.
“Sleep then. We can’t solve everything in one day. Took us twenty years last time.”
Rob shifts farther up the bed until he finds a pillow, curling onto his side. Gary mirrors him, close enough that they’re breathing the same air.
“I’m not giving up on you again.” Gary says softly.
“You might have to prove it.” Rob says, letting his eyes close. Gaz is right; they can’t solve everything right now. Rob doesn’t think he can be all in again, not yet. He can’t gamble his broken heart.
The press of Gary’s lips against his forehead is the last thing he feels before he falls asleep, content for the first time in months.
Rating: R
Fandom: Take That
Pairing: Robbie/Gary
Genre: romance, angst
Summary: Rob has always thought of the two of them like magnets. When everything is the wrong way round, nothing is going to keep them together. When things are good, though, they just attract, drawing the other in without even trying.
Word count: 14370
Gary returns Dan to Dawn on the twenty-eighth of December and goes straight to Heathrow from there. He bought his tickets online last night and it’s probably the most insane thing he’s ever done and it’s probably too late but he knows if he doesn’t at least try then he’s going to regret it forever.
He gets through security without being recognised, which is a first. He finds his gate just in time to board and settles into his seat as comfortably as possible. He didn’t sleep a wink last night, he’s running purely on adrenaline at this point and he taps his fingers nervously against his armrest. Exhaustion gets the better of him somewhere over the Atlantic and he falls asleep, until the flight attendant shakes him awake several hours later, asking him to bring his seat back to its upright position for landing.
It’s during his layover in New York that he digs his phone out of his bag to call Josie. She isn’t happy to hear from him, Gary can tell from the moment she answers the phone. He certainly doesn’t blame her, considering the fifteen or so emails he’s now sent in addition to the seven or eight voicemails, all after completely fucking with Rob’s head.
“What can I do for you, Mr Barlow?” She says, her tone clipped. He doesn’t think she’s called him that since the first time they met and he immediately asked her to call him Gary.
“Don’t hang up.” He says quickly. “I need your help.”
Josie sighs the long-suffering sigh of someone who deals with idiots on a far-too-regular basis for her liking. “I don’t think you’re in a place to be asking for any favours.” She says coolly.
“I know.” Gary says. “But I don’t know who else to call.”
“For future reference, it’s not me.”
“I messed up.”
“I’m not your therapist. I’m not even Rob’s therapist.”
“I need to fix it.”
“I don’t think you can.”
“I need to try, at least.”
“Do you realise what you’ve done?” Her voice is cold and unforgiving, and Gary is certain she’s never going to think very highly of him again. “The two of you dragged each other through hell twenty years ago, and you’d finally gotten yourselves into a good place. You repaired friendships, you made a brilliant album and everything was good for him, better than it’s been in a decade, probably. And then you started sleeping together, which I don’t know, maybe that was unavoidable, but either way, flipping like a switch, dropping him with no warning, you absolutely destroyed all that progress.” Josie laughs mirthlessly. “There’s a terrible pun for you, but it’s true.”
“I know. I know what I did was wrong and hurtful and I’ve probably ruined everything but on the off chance that I haven’t, I need to try. Please.”
“How, exactly, do you want me to help? I won’t talk to him on your behalf.” He can hear the scowl in Josie’s voice, and he wonders how many times people have asked her to do just that. Probably too many.
“No, it’s up to me to talk to him. I’m in New York now, I’m taking the red-eye tonight and I’ll be in L.A. by morning. But he’s not answering his phone and he won’t reply to my emails.”
“You want me to get you into the house,” Josie says flatly, and Gary’s ninety-nine per cent certain he’s not going to be able to talk her round, and he’ll end up standing on Rob’s driveway pathetically pleading his case through an intercom box.
“Yes.”
“I could get fired for that. I could get fired for even talking to you, the state he’s in right now.”
“We both know he’s not going to fire you, Josie. You’re absolutely indispensible to him, I wouldn’t have called you if I thought otherwise.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Barlow, flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“Please, Josie. I don’t know what else to do.”
She sighs again. “I’m only doing this because I think seeing you is the one thing that’s going to help him, even if he just wants to shout at you. My access code for the gate is 4481. You have one chance. I’m changing the code in two days regardless of whether or not you’ve turned up. And if I get fired, you’re finding me a new job.”
“Deal,” Gary agrees before she can change her mind. If one chance is all he gets, he’s going to have to make the most of it.
* * *
Rob wakes stupidly early to the sound of someone knocking on the door downstairs. He’d think Josie had forgotten her key, but she never forgets anything. He kicks free of his duvet and pulls on a t-shirt as he shuffles down the hallway.
It could be Mark or his mum, he supposes, but neither of them is really the type to turn up unannounced.
He certainly wasn’t expecting him, but Rob is somehow not surprised to find Gary standing on his doorstep, looking a bit bleary-eyed and rumpled like he came straight from the airport.
He thinks about shutting the door in Gary’s face, but he can’t make himself do it. Instead, he steps aside and lets Gary into the house, knowing he shouldn’t.
“What are you doing here?” He asks flatly. It’s a stupid question, he knows why Gary is here; it’s not as if the other man was just in the neighbourhood and decided to pop over on a whim for tea and the full English.
“Needed to speak to you.”
“How did you even get in the gate?”
“Josie. I badgered her for a week to get her to help me. Don’t fire her.”
“I’m not going to fire her.” Rob grumbles. “Might take back her Christmas bonus, though. Bloody traitor."
"Rob-
"Gaz, don't. Do you realise what you've done? Do you have any idea how horrible the past few months have been?"
"I've got some idea, yes."
Rob huffs out a frustrated sigh, because he’s not sure Gaz understands, really. “Do you ever have that dream where you’re falling? It doesn’t matter how or why, just that you are. Dropping towards the ground, although you can’t actually see the ground getting closer, you still know you’re falling because you never forget what that feels like? And you’re panicking the whole time, bracing yourself for what comes next because you know it’s going to hurt. And then you wake up and you can tell yourself it was a dream, but it still feels like you just jumped off the top of a three-storey building from the way your heart is racing. And all you can think about is what happens if you go back to sleep and you’re falling again.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what it was like. What it’s still like.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
Rob levels him with a stare that could freeze hell. “No one deserves that, Gaz. It was a complete one-eighty. Everything was fine and you panicked and instead of trying to talk about it, you gave up.”
“I know.” Gary says quietly. “I know I did.”
“Why?”
It’s such a simple question, and Rob deserves an answer, but the answer isn’t so simple.
“I was scared.”
“And you think I wasn’t? It was a big fucking gamble, falling in love with you, and it seems like I was right to be afraid.”
“I’m not good at this, Rob. I’m shit at having a personal life at all, let alone actually being in a relationship with someone. I’ve been on my own since Dawn.”
Rob snorts. “No, that’s just what you tell yourself. You were just afraid to try.”
“I don’t know how to make you understand how much I regret it.”
“I don’t know either.” Rob says. “It’s not some rom-com. Flying out here like it’s some grand gesture to me isn’t enough.”
“I know it’s not. I needed to talk to you, though, and you weren’t exactly taking my calls.”
“Wonder why?” Rob says darkly.
Gary drags a hand through his hair and Rob fidgets and they both just sit avoiding looking at one another for a long minute. Gary doesn’t know what to do, wishes he’d planned a bit more before jumping on a plane and showing up on Rob’s doorstep. And Rob’s right, there’s nothing to a grand gesture. It’s the figuring out what comes next that takes work.
“I don’t know what you want,” Rob says, finally.
“You.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it? All those things you’re scared of are still going to exist. How do I know you’re not going to run on me again?”
"You don't. You just have to trust me."
"I don't know if I can."
Gary nods once, like it's the answer he's been expecting. "Right. So...where do we go from here then?"
"Dunno." Rob shrugs, feeling more helpless than he has in decades. "I need some space. I can't think properly with you looking at me like that."
"I'll go check into my hotel then, shall I?" Gary says.
"Yeah. That would be good."
Gary nods again and turns to go. He hesitates in the doorway and turns back. "I love you. Should've said it ages ago. Just imagine the trouble I could've saved us if I had."
What do you think I've been doing the last four fucking months, Rob thinks, but he doesn't dare say it out loud. It will give too much away, more than he wants Gary to know right now.
"Just go, Gaz. Please. I'll ring you tomorrow."
It hurts sending Gary away, and Rob wonders almost immediately if he's done the right thing. He wants to believe Gary, desperately, but he's not sure he does. He doesn't even know if he can forgive him, let alone trust him.
* * *
When Gary gets to his hotel room, he checks his mobile in a rather pathetic move. He knows one conversation isn't enough to fix things and hoping for a message from Rob already is foolish. He does have a few text messages from Dan though, asking r u there yet??? and wots happening? and mum says I have to go to bed now but tell me how it goes!
Gary replies with as much detail as he can without disappointing Dan. He never would have expected this much support from his son, and he wishes he'd just said something sooner. Not that hindsight does anybody any good. He's always going to have regrets about how he handled things, but the only thing to do is move forward and hope for the best.
He collapses into bed after that, exhausted from travel and the time difference. When he wakes up, the clock on the bedside table tells him it’s nearly three in the morning, and it doesn’t seem possible that he’s slept that long. He reaches for his phone and finds he has a new voicemail from only a few minutes ago. He thumbs clumsily at the screen, still a bit groggy from so much sleep, and he has to listen to the message twice before he really understands it.
“It’s me. I know it’s late. Or early. Whatever. Can you ring me?”
He dials Rob’s number and presses the phone to his ear, holding his breath while it rings.
“Gaz?” Rob says as soon as he answers.
“Hey.”
“Where are you staying?”
Gary has to think to remember the name of the hotel but it comes to him after a moment.
“I’m getting in the car now. Need to speak face to face.”
“Okay,” Gary agrees, trying not to get his hopes up and failing miserably.
“Be there soon.” Rob says before hanging up.
* * *
As it’s the wee hours of the morning, there’s no traffic to deal with and Rob flies down the motorway to Gary’s hotel. He hasn’t slept and his body is thrumming with adrenaline, his thoughts chasing themselves round his head in dizzying spirals. He lets the valet park the car and steps through the automated doors into the warm lobby, which is totally empty except for the man at reception who nods at him sleepily.
He finds the lifts and rides up to Gary’s floor with a feeling of déjà vu. He is certain he’s felt this exact combination of anxiety and desperation and panic in this lift before.
Because he has. Because this is the same bloody hotel where he came to meet the boys when they were mixing The Circus. The irony is almost enough to make him go back down to his car and leave.
He doesn’t though. He gets out of the lift and he finds Gary’s room, but he hesitates outside the door. He still hasn’t made his mind up and going into that room is going to force the issue, one way or another. And maybe that’s what he needs. He needs to make up his mind, and he’s not going to do it sitting alone in his house torn between wanting to forget everything that’s happened because he misses Gary so much and telling himself forgetting is taking a step backwards and they’ll only be in this same position a few weeks or months or years down the road. He doesn’t know which is right, or if there even is a right answer. Maybe it’s just the decision he makes and the consequences that go with it.
He knocks and the door swings open almost immediately, like Gary’s been waiting for him since he rang.
“Come in,” Gary says, and Rob steps into the room. It’s strange, how comforting all hotel rooms are in their familiarity. It seems only fitting, given their history with hotel rooms, that this is where Gary and Rob are going to have this conversation.
Rob sits down on the bed and Gary sits next to him. The silence stretches out between them.
“Maybe you were right.” Rob says finally. “You and me, we’re always going to find a way to absolutely wreck each other.”
“Rob, I was being horrible when I said that. I didn’t mean it.”
“Either way, we can’t keep doing this to each other.”
“No, we can’t.”
“But I don’t know how to fix it.”
Gary sighs and lies down, staring up at the ceiling. “You and me...it’s never going to be easy.”
“No, it’s not.” Rob agrees.
“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Or so my eleven-year-old tells me.”
“You’ve told Dan about us?”
“Yes. He wasn’t very surprised. I suppose we weren’t subtle.”
“What did he say, then?”
“He called me an idiot for giving up.”
Rob can’t help the laugh that escapes him at that. “Takes after his mum then, your Dan?”
“He does seem to have inherited her talent for telling me what I need to hear.” Gary grins. For a moment it’s as if nothing has happened. They could be back in one of those hotels on tour, just the two of them existing in their own little bubble. Then, Gary’s face falls. “He was right. I was an idiot. And a coward.”
“Yeah.” Rob says, and Gary flinches just a little. “But I don’t blame you. You’ve got more to lose than I do.”
“No.” Gary frowns. “I just thought I did. The things I was afraid of losing-aside from Dan-don’t matter. Turns out you’re the thing I’m most afraid of losing. Only I didn’t realise until I cocked it all up.”
Rob doesn’t know what to say to that. He rubs a hand over his face, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Sleep on it?” Gary suggests. “You look knackered.”
“I feel it,” Rob nods.
“Sleep then. We can’t solve everything in one day. Took us twenty years last time.”
Rob shifts farther up the bed until he finds a pillow, curling onto his side. Gary mirrors him, close enough that they’re breathing the same air.
“I’m not giving up on you again.” Gary says softly.
“You might have to prove it.” Rob says, letting his eyes close. Gaz is right; they can’t solve everything right now. Rob doesn’t think he can be all in again, not yet. He can’t gamble his broken heart.
The press of Gary’s lips against his forehead is the last thing he feels before he falls asleep, content for the first time in months.