Page 65 of Just Say Christmas
He wasn’t sure how to work that one out, but he was going to have to work it out soon, because on the morning after, she’d asked him, “Why didn’t you wake me up?” And had looked upset about it.
“Because I’m not . . .” he’d started, then gone on, picking his way across broken glass, “Because our life isn’t a rugby match. It’s not win or lose. It’s about being as happy as we can be, now, in this moment. Waking you up when you’re too tired to have sex is never going to make me happy, and knowing that you’re asleep beside me, that you’re safe there, does. Full stop.”
Her Byzantine eyes had softened, and she’d said, “I love you. I really do. You are such a good man.” He’d kissed her, and she’d clung to him, her body softening in the way it did when he touched her, and after the kids had left for school, he’d taken her back to bed. Not because of her temperature. Because of his.
He’d loved her slow, and he’d loved her deep, trying to show her with his body everything it was so hard to say. That he had her back, and he always would. That they belonged to each other.
She’d walked around afterwards, that day, with a glow to her. It was in her skin, and in the way she held her head. You could tell when Zora was happy, and whether they had a baby or not, her happiness was enough for him.Theywere enough. He needed to remind himself of that, and then he needed to tell her.
He also needed to tell her that she didn’t have to be jumping those fences and running down those dark alleys anymore, because that was his job, and he was here to do it. An even trickier conversation. One they needed to have, though, because that need burned as deep and hot as the sexual attraction that had pulled him to her from the start.
View it as a negotiation, maybe. Identify the problem he saw and work with her toward a solution. Less satisfying, but more chance of getting what you wanted.
She finished filling lemonade glasses beside him now and said, “I’m having a glass of wine. Alargeglass. I may be sorry tomorrow, but oh, well. It’s been a very long day.”
“Pour me one as well,” he said, and she tipped the straw-colored Sauvignon Blanc into two glasses and handed him one. She took a sip and made a face, and he asked, “All right?”
“Too fruity?” she asked.
He tasted it. “A bit sweet, maybe, but it’s all right.”
“Oh, well. My mum will like it.” She continued to stare into space, then inclined her head a little. He bent down to her, and she whispered, “Is it Hayden? Is that what’s odd?”
He looked across the kitchen to the terrace. Oh. ItwasHayden. How had he missed that? Hayden was talking to Isaiah and Casey, but his trim frame was nearly vibrating with tension. He should have noticed that. He asked Zora, “Go out and offer our support, you reckon?”
“Yes,” she said. “He’s done it for me enough times.”
It wasn’t easy to suss out how to start, though. He settled for telling Hayden, once everybody was settled with their food and drink, “You’ve sacrificed a fair bit of your time to us this week, mate. I remember when you’d have had something to say about our general dullness. What happened to that?”
“Uncle Hayden doesn’t think we’re boring,” Casey objected, her hand wrapped around another sausage roll. The sausage rolls had been her idea, no surprise. “He helped paint, so he wanted to come and see.”
“Of course he doesn’t think you’re boring, darling,” Tania said.
“Or maybe,” Hayden said, still with that tension in his body, but with the usual smile on his face, “it’s all good, because for once, I brought a date. Well, I metmy date here. Close enough.”
Luke, who was sitting beside him, went still, and Kane, who’d been talking to Victoria, looked up.
“Oh?” Tania’s own smile looked pasted on—Hayden had learned from the master—and Hayden’s father Craig wasn’t smiling at all.
“Luke and I are going out after this,” Hayden said. “Which is, yes, a fair bit of public announcement forveryearly days, and yet here I am announcing anyway. I’m going out with Luke. He is my date tonight. That noise you hear is the closet door banging behind him. Also behind me, possibly, in a way. Huh. Who knew?”
“That’s fine, darling,” Tania said, her social smile still firmly in place. “But you don’t need to tell us about it, surely.”
“I do, though,” Hayden said. “I find, astonishingly, that I do.”
“Bloody wonderful.” Craig muttered it to Tania, but Rhys heard him. Craig was never as quiet as he thought he was. “Not just one rugby player in the family, or even two rugby players. We’re all the way to three now. Jesus Christ. Next we’ll havehisbrother.”
The last sentence fell into one of those sudden lulls you got in a gathering. Finn’s head went up, all the way at the other end of the table, as if he’d sensed it, and Kane’s face darkened.
Zora said, “I heard that, Dad.” Her voice was tight. “You can’t say that.” The gentlest woman in the world, unless you were hurting somebody she loved.
“No,” Rhys said, keeping it calm. Keeping it controlled. “You can’t. Not in our house.” His almost-father-in-law’s mouth opened, then closed. That was probably more defiance than he’d met for thirty years. The winner, though, was the one who kept his cool, and Rhys had been winning almost as long as Craig had, against opposition Craig couldn’t begin to imagine. “Tough to say, was it?” he asked Hayden. You focused your energy on the target of the aggression, not the aggressor.
“Well, yeh,” Hayden said, “since you ask. Also, I’m drinking lemonade in order to be supportive. Very little liquid courage in lemonade.”
“You aren’t supposed to talk about people, Grandad,” Casey said. “And being gay, or LBTG . . . LBG . . .”
“LGBTQ Plus,” Isaiah said. “It’s normal.”
