Shireton didn't have much to it.
When his mother had sold the family flat and said she was going to go somewhere cheaper, some nice little place in the country, Gabe hadn't been bothered by it, hadn't faulted her for it at all. She'd been on a waiting list for an allotment for years and had never been able to get one, and she'd always look dreamily at people's window boxes or talk wistfully about what she could do even with just a tiny little patch of garden, that she'd be able to grow things just like her family did when she was growing up in Italy.
It wasn't exactly as warm and temperate as Italy, as far as Gabe saw it, but she had a big yard, had enough space to keep chickens as well as grow her own vegetables, and every week she put pictures in the group chat of whatever her progress was, whatever little thing she was working on in her retirement, and it was
cute
.
Gabe liked to see it — in pictures.
In person?
It was a muddy garden full of vegetables and plants, a garden surrounded by little houses and other similar gardens, and a village so small it didn't even have its own post office, just a pub and a petrol station four miles down the road.
There was one, and precisely one entertainment to be found
except
for the pub, and Gabe waited until he saw the light go off in the front room, the waiting room, then moved forward.
Doctor Hendricks' breath hitched in his throat when Gabe pushed open the door just before he could lock it, and his cheeks took on a slight pinkness.
"I didn't, um, I didn't know you were visiting," he said softly, but he stepped back so eagerly that Gabe couldn't be anything but flattered, nudging the door shut behind him and taking the key to lock it. "You look — You look very nice."
"I do, don't I?" asked Gabe, then turned around and smiled down at the other man, "Do you think I'll look nicer with my clothes off?"
"Oh," said the older man softly, but he led the way further into the corridor, and Gabe let his gaze fall down on the older man's arse, watched his hips move, watched the beautiful wobble of it under his cardigan.
"Busy day?"
"Terribly." said Hendricks. "Busier with you in it, but this is a rather welcome busy, I think."
This was, what, the fifth time that Gabe had dropped in on the doctor for a house call? The sixth? He just got a little bored visiting — his mother stayed busy, and she didn't chat much when she was working in her garden or when she was focused on something else, and there was only so much he could actually help with before she wanted him to get out of her way for a bit.
Hendricks normally only used his hook-up apps when he was in Cardiff, wasn't used to anyone coming in to fuck in this sleepy little town, and that meant he always looked at Gabe with stars shining in his eyes, grateful and eager and so fucking
good
.
Gabe had unbuckled his belt already, and he shrugged off his shirt as they went into Hendricks' bedroom.
Rufus Hendricks was a short man, plump — he was forty-five, maybe fifty, but for all there was a little wrinkling around his eyes and his mouth, his hair was still as red as ever, had a glossy sheen to it.
"Do you dye it?" Gabe asked, and Hendricks laughed as he hung up his cardigan.
"You asked me that before, you know," he said, amused. "No, I just have, ah, remarkably robust follicles."
