Gigi Sinclair

"You let Ste steal your wallet?" John Paul wasn't sure whether that was saintly or stupid, but he was leaning towards the second choice.

Kieron leaned back in his library chair. John Paul had been ecstatic when he showed up unexpectedly between classes, but he hadn't been so happy with the story Kieron brought with him. "I didn't let him steal it. I turned my back for a second and he ran off with it."

"But you didn't call the police."

Kieron sighed. "You know him. He's struggling at the moment, what with Amy and the baby..."

"That doesn't mean he should get away with theft."

"He gave it back," Kieron continued, as if he hadn't heard.

"Minus the money."

"I'll just have to get Kris to give me drinks on credit this week."

John Paul shook his head. "This is a priest thing, isn't it? You think that Ste stealing your money is some kind of message from God." A thought struck him, and it wasn't entirely comfortable. He lowered his voice, even though the nearest person was a girl he didn't know sitting four tables away, listening to her Ipod. "Are you being punished because of us?"

Kieron laughed, but not like he found it particularly funny. "If God wanted to punish me for being with you, He'd do a lot worse than that."

"Wow, thanks."

"But it would be worth it." Kieron looked at him evenly, the steady, intense look that sometimes worried John Paul at the same time it comforted him. "Anyway, there were more important things in the wallet than the money."

"Like what? A naked picture of me?" John Paul grinned. He'd taken one, once, when Kieron had gone to work early and accidentally left his phone behind. The look on Kieron's face when he discovered it was priceless, even though it had just been the two of them at home, but John Paul assumed he'd had the sense to delete it since then.

After a long, awkward pause, Kieron didn't reply, and John Paul felt a sudden chill. "It wasn't, though, right?"

"It was a ..." Kieron mouthed something unintelligible.

John Paul leaned forward. "What?"

Kieron looked over at the girl with the Ipod, and inched closer to whisper: "A condom, all right?"

John Paul would have been less surprised if it had been the naked picture. More concerned, but less surprised. "You carry a condom in your wallet? Why?" Kieron blushed, which, John Paul had to admit, was not a bad look for him. He couldn't resist going on: "I didn't even know you had your own condoms. Where do you get them, from those machines in the SU Bar?"

"I'm glad you find this so funny, John Paul."

"OK, OK. I'm sorry." He touched the back of Kieron's hand, just for a brief instant, even though no one in the library seemed the slightest bit interested in them. "Seriously, though..."

"It's one of yours." After being caught short on one particularly frustrating occasion, which had resulted in Kieron searching Niall's meticulously organized spongebag and leaving him a hastily written IOU, John Paul had made sure to provide a packet for Kieron's bedside table. "I thought that maybe, if we got the chance, we might want to try it somewhere different, and I wanted to be prepared." He explained it like it was perfectly rational reasoning, like they, a couple who couldn't even look at each other too much in public, might suddenly feel the urge to have sex on a park bench or maybe round the back of the Dog after closing time.

"It's a bit risky, isn't it? What if it had fallen out while you were paying for something?" It had happened to John Paul, when he'd been all of fifteen and buying a Coke and a Mars bar from the corner shop. To make matters worse, his mother's friend Kath had been on the till at the time and he had to endure months of teasing from his family, even though he never used the condom in question and eventually threw it out after carrying it for two and a half years.

"I didn't think that far ahead."

"But you thought far enough that we were having public sex somewhere."

Kieron stood up. "Obviously this is just an hilarious situation, and I'll have to go somewhere else for sympathy."

"Sit down, Kieron." He did. "I just didn't know you thought about that kind of thing, that's all." It was kind of gratifying, John Paul thought, to find out he did.

One of the things he appreciated most about Kieron was how much Kieron wanted him. Had always wanted him, even when they were fighting and John Paul didn't know what he wanted. Of course, Kieron didn't usually put it in those terms. "Love", he said, as in "I loved you from the first moment I saw you, John Paul."

"Yeah, right, loved my arse in a pair of workout shorts, maybe," was John Paul's usual rejoinder, but Kieron seemed convinced.

He talked a lot about love, but he didn't talk much about sex, at least not in the crude teenage terms John Paul was used to. Unlike, say, Kris, who cornered John Paul in the pub one quiet lunchtime and said: "Right, then, give me all the dirt. Have you had a go yet, or is he strictly a clergymen-on-top kind of guy? I knew the term 'missionary position' had to come from somewhere."

"Do you seriously think I'm going to discuss it with you?" John Paul replied. He didn't even discuss it with Kieron. They just did it, and it always went well. Amazingly well, John Paul would say, unlike with some of the other guys he'd known, who talked like sailors until you got to bed and they suddenly had no idea what to do.

Having proof that Kieron thought about it when they weren't together, that he'd even imagined a scenario in which they were overcome by desire somewhere other than John Paul's bedroom or Niall's flat, made John Paul feel warm towards him. Very warm.

He glanced over to the corner of the library, at the astronomy section no one, except maybe Elliot and some of his friends, ever visited. But since he didn't think Kieron would quite go for that, he moved his gaze to the three private study rooms against the far wall.

"So," he leaned forward across the table, resisting the urge to brush his lips across Kieron's ear. "Is it still in your wallet?" He looked pointedly at the study rooms, their windowless doors closed to the rest of the library.

Kieron sat back like he'd been burned. "We can't. I have to get back to the church." But he didn't move, and his expression, John Paul noticed, was the same concentrated frown he always got when he wanted something but didn't think he should have it. He'd worn it a lot when he'd first come to live with them and John Paul had tried, and quite obviously failed, not to notice him.

The private study areas were small, carpeted rooms with a table, a handful of chairs and a whiteboard that inevitably had a happy face drawn on it, a few obscenities scratched into the metal frame, and a complete lack of felt pens. Since John Paul had no intention of making notes, that didn't bother him this time. As soon as he'd handed his student card over to the librarian in exchange for the key, he led Kieron in and turned the outside sign to "Occupied."

John Paul had used the rooms before, usually to waste time on painfully ineffective group projects. Looking at Kieron, staring wide-eyed back at him in this private public place, John Paul couldn't believe he hadn't thought of this sooner.

"I don't think..." John Paul cut off his protest with a kiss, and Kieron gave up instantly. Taking that as agreement, John Paul did it again, untucking Kieron's shirt with one hand and reaching for his fly with the other. Kieron pushed the hand away, smiled, and sank to his knees on the library carpet.

Despite Kris's speculation, Kieron was a very fair partner. He wasn't a talker, but he had never acted like any kind of virgin, and he embraced just about every position and variation John Paul could think of, usually with a lot of enthusiasm. John Paul had a clear idea of what he wanted now, though, and as enjoyable as this was, he pulled Kieron up before it was too late and leaned him against the edge of the table.

He slid his hands around to Kieron's backside, pausing for an unsubtle grope as he fished the wallet out of his back pocket.

"Wait," Kieron said, pulling back just as John Paul opened the wallet. "I don't have anything...else." He looked pointedly at John Paul, who mentally went through the contents of his school bag. Since he didn't think they'd get very far with his tiny tube of sunblock cream, and since the stick of children's glue he'd bought for one of the group projects wouldn't do at all, he dropped the wallet on the table and returned his hands to Kieron's bottom.

"Then I guess we'll have to think of something else." He slowly brought one hand around to the front of Kieron's trousers, where it was met by a very interested erection.

Kieron, John Paul had determined, had three principal variants of "I love you." One meant "Let's have sex now", one was more of a "Thank you for putting up with all this," and the third actually did mean "I love you."

He assumed this was the one Kieron whispered in his ear afterwards, as John Paul sat on his lap on an uncomfortable moulded plastic chair. "You should come for tea with Mum tonight," John Paul offered. "She loves having you."

Kieron raised his eyebrows. "As much as you love 'having' me?"

John Paul laughed. "I hope not." He put his arms around Kieron, hugging him tightly. He still had half an hour before his next class, and while he would have liked to go for a drink or a quick lunch, he thought he'd better spend the time studying. He didn't want the librarian to get suspicious at a too-hasty exit, and he did have work to do. "Better hang on to that condom, though. You never know when it might come in handy."

"No," Kieron agreed.

"And don't let Ste take advantage of you." Ridiculously, John Paul felt a stab of jealousy along with the more usual dislike for Ste. "He's not a charity case, he's a head case."

"All that, and you're empathetic too," Kieron smiled, but he kissed him gently. "Although," he went on, when he pulled away, "I suppose we should be grateful he didn't take my phone."

John Paul looked at him. "You're not serious."

"I couldn't erase the picture. I need it to keep me company when you're sleeping at home."

"You're going to get us caught, Kieron." It was inevitable, John Paul knew that, but he had hoped to put things off for as long as possible.

He looked at Kieron's guilty but remorseless face and imagined his lover lying in his bed at Niall's, staring at the picture John Paul had taken in the bathroom mirror that one morning, carrying a condom in his wallet because he didn't want to let an impossible chance slip by. And just like that, John Paul couldn't bring himself to worry about the future, Ste, or anything else.