Life is Tricky

He looked around the room approvingly. They had stripped the paint and paper from their first floor living room over the summer and decided to use one of the last sunny autumn days to tackle the painting.

Rather than decorating the generous space with bold patterned wallpaper in fashionable browns and oranges, Kenneth and Gino had instinctively chosen a soft blue green that was in keeping with the original decoration of the house. Or so they’d discovered after scraping off generations-worth of wallpaper and paint.

The soft colour enhanced the size of the room, giving a welcoming impression.

Kit would approve, Kenneth thought as dunked his paintbrush in the bucket. He paused momentarily. I wonder why I suddenly thought of him after all these years.

“Have I got paint in my hair again?” Gino asked.

Gino was rightfully proud of his thick mane of dark hair, worn longer these days than when they had first met.

“Not this time. It’s probably just the grey showing through.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Gino pretended to flick his paintbrush at Kenneth. “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. At least with your grey hair the paint doesn’t show.”

Kenneth smiled and took the paintbrush from Gino as a precaution, dunking it in the bucket.

As he took the bucket downstairs to the kitchen, he mused that he hadn’t changed much over the years. He was still ordinary, slim and spare in build, despite his enjoyment of Gino’s cooking. But he’d gone grey in his late twenties.

It didn’t bother Kenneth one way or the other.

At least we still have our own hair.

There was no need for a combover that many popular television presenters or sportsmen adopted to hide evidence of a bald patch.

“I like it,” Gino had said when Kenneth’s light brown hair had quickly faded to uniform grey. “It matches your eyes. Makes you look sexy.”

He’d proved it by kissing Kenneth and then one thing had led to another, as it usually did.

But not so much these days, Kenneth thought as he rinsed the brushes in the scullery sink.

The slow decline of the restaurant had also put the kibosh on their sex life.

Gino was understandably distracted and preoccupied.

When the restaurant was open, he tended to go to bed later than Kenneth, finishing the clearing up.

Otherwise, he was sitting at the kitchen table, wrangling with paperwork. When Gino joined him in bed, Kenneth was either already asleep or pretending to be.

The old days of snuggling up for comfort or sex seemed to be far more distant than a few months.  Kenneth turned off the tap and stared blankly into space.

“Are you nearly ready?”

Startled back into the present, Kenneth looked over his shoulder to find Gino was leaning against the door frame, buttoning up a clean shirt.

“Give me five minutes. What would your Mum say if I turned up on her doorstep covered in paint?”

“That I’m working you too hard?” Gino grinned.

Kenneth’s laugh stuck in his throat.

Gino’s joke was close to the bone but not how he had intended.

The opposite is true. You don’t let me do enough. That’s the problem.

Kenneth wished that Gino would open up a little, talk to him about his dilemma.

Now’s not the right time, he decided. Not when he’s in a good mood. Why remind him of our trouble?

“Why don’t you get in the car? I’ll be out in a jiffy.”