Page 65 of In at the Deep End

Owen laughed. “Put it this way... if I’d collected Air Miles instead of phone numbers, I’d have flown around the world twice.”

So far, Matt felt as though he’d met three different Owens.

The young man his parents remembered from university.

The husband and father in the family photographs.

And the quiet man standing beside him now, content with casual relationships and a peaceful life.

Somehow they were all the same person.

He was suddenly eager to discover the Owen hidden away in those boxes.

They sat on the couch, the boxes at their feet, and Matt opened the one from 2011. It was filled with loose prints, and most of them were portraits.

Hundreds of them.

Men laughing, dancing, wearing leather, in harnesses.

A Pride parade.

Someone asleep on a sofa with a cat. Two men kissing outside a pub. A group in front of Brighton Pavilion. Someone in drag. Friends around a barbecue. Someone wearing nothing but tiny shorts, washing a car.

There was a photograph of Owen, laughing with a drink in his hand.

Matt stopped dead. “Look at you.”

Owen merely grinned.

Then it hit him.

These aren’t photographs of hookups.

They were photographs of people.

Friends laughing until someone happened to press the shutter. Chosen family. Men who looked at ease being themselves. Based on Owen’s initial reaction, Matt had expected photos that were a lot more lurid.

What he’d found instead was life.

Owen traced his image with a finger. “I said yes to everything back then. Pride, weekends away, a visit to a leather club, even camping.” He swallowed. “I was terrified if I stopped moving I’d think about everything I’d lost.”

Matt’s chest was suddenly tighter.

He sifted through the boxes, drinking it all in. One in particular disarmed him totally. Someone had taken a picture of Owen laughing, and he seemed so… radiant, so alive and confident, that it robbed Matt of breath. It took him a second or two to work out why. The Owen Matt knew smiled just as much, but there was always something behind it.

Matt stared at the photo. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so free.”

Owen didn’t speak for a moment, and when he did, his voice was quiet.

“I wasn’t free.” Matt turned his head to gaze at him and Owen gave that same sad smile. “I just thought I was.”

And in that brief capsule of time, Matt understood.

Owen hadn’t been chasing sex. He’d been chasing the life he’d never been allowed to have.

His throat seized, and he went back to working through the photos.

At last he found his voice. “I think this is my favourite one of you.”