Page 54 of Just Say Christmas
Luke stood in the driveway with Hayden and Tom as Marko and Nyree climbed into Marko’s car, and Nyree rested her head against the window and probably went to sleep again instantly. It was still warm out, and still light, too. Half of him wanted to stand around and chat, as if it would make something happen—or as if he knew how to chat—and the other half knew that his rental car was one of two at the back, and he needed to leave right now. Which meant that even if he’d wanted to say something, some impossible thing like, “I’ll text you, shall I?” He couldn’t have.
Instead, he said, “Well . . . I’m off myself. This is me.” He put a hand on the door.
Hayden said, “We could go have a drink if you like, toast your big day. Nonalcoholically, of course, which makes it an even more blameless idea. I don’t feel like going home yet anyway. It’s barely seven-thirty. Whenever I’m with Zora and Rhys, I feel like I’ve aged thirty years, like I’d better run out and buy a spectacularly unsuitable convertible in a desperate attempt to hold onto my vanishing youth. Why is that?”
Tom was looking at both of them, and Luke had a moment of sheer panic, as if the top of his skull had come off his head and his brain was out there, exposed. This was the moment he’d feared for decades—the moment when somebody would say something, and he’d answer wrong, and everybody would look at him and know, and his life as he knew it would be over.
Hayden said, “Or not, of course. Whichever.” As if he’d put himself too far out there and was about to be shot down, when all he’d been was kind.
Everybody already knew. That was the point of this week. Luke kept forgetting that. Ready or not, he was here. “No,” he said, his heart knocking against the wall of his chest as if he were playing the All Blacks. Playing with his dad watching. Playing for too much. “I mean—sure. That would be good.” He knew he was flushing, and not just his ears. It was a friendly gesture, a chance to talk to somebody who understood, who’d done it himself.
Hayden said, “There’s a place near Britomart that’s surprisingly quiet. That could work. It’s called Caretaker, and they do nonalcoholic as well.” Still casual.
“Sounds good,” Luke said. “I’m staying in a hotel in Viaduct Harbour. I’ll park and walk over, meet you there.”
A half hour at least to do all that. That was good. It would give him time to have a talk with himself, and time to get real.
* * *
Hayden was right.The place he’d chosen wasn’t actually mind-numbingly, hearing-impairment-inducingly loud or standing-room-only crowded, unlike your average Britomart bar. It was surprisingly dark, though, as it was in a basement, down a steep flight of stairs from a door marked only with aC,as if the whole place were a closely guarded secret. Luke wound his way through tables placed too close together to accommodate a man of his size and headed for Hayden, sitting at a table barely big enough to deserve the name, shoved against one wall.
“You’ve been living in Paris,” Hayden said, after they’d given their orders to a server who’d vanished back into the gloom again, “so the darkness and cramped quarters will be a feature, not a bug. Or not. I don’t really know. I’ve been to Paris once in my life, on my gap year. Got bedbugs in a hostel and itched for days, and saw the Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa. I’m one step removed from readingMadelinefor my knowledge. Never readRemembrance of Things Past,much less remembering the title in French. I readThe Three Musketeersas a kid, though. Does that count?”
“Probably,” Luke said. “I never read the Proust one myself. Started it once, and got about a hundred pages in before I gave up. Seven volumes of tormented introspection. No, thanks.”
“Tormented introspection,” Hayden said. “Good one. Did you read it in French?”
“Yeh,” Luke said. “Maybe I’m not as dumb as I look, eh. Though, like I said—only a hundred pages.” And smiled. He wasn’t sure why. He was still in exactly the same spot, and it was an awkward one. But he was on home soil, and he wasn’t lying. That was pretty remarkable. Worthy of celebration, surely.
Hayden looked at his water glass, picked it up, and set it down without taking a drink. “I need to say something.”
Luke’s good mood vanished, and so did his smile. “No worries,” he said. “I know.”
Hayden looked up. Startled, maybe. “What?”
“It’s just a drink,” Luke said. “No worries.”
Hayden shook his head. “Wait. Start again. This is awkward.” He tried to laugh. “What do you think I’m saying?”
Luke’s heart had started up with the frantic beating again. He had to work to catch his breath. “That you . . .” He thought,Harden up.It was like the earlier time today, when Nyree had told Kane about him, and it was nothing like it. He was out there alone in the cold and the wind once again, though. That part was exactly the same. “That you don’t want me to think this is more than a drink. Never mind. You don’t need to say it. I look at my face in the mirror every day.”
Their drinks came, and Luke tried to get hold of himself and failed. The second the server had left, Hayden said, “Wait. You think I’m not attracted to you? You can’t even tell? Geez, this is rough.” He blew out a breath. “Why are the things I want always so rough?”
Luke looked at him, then looked down at his own hands. He could see well enough for that. The backs of his fingers were scarred, his knuckles enlarged and misshapen, but his hands were the same as always. They were big, they were strong, and they weren’t shaking. Amazingly. He looked back at Hayden and said, “I know why it’s tough for me. I’m not going to say ‘rough.’ I’m not rough. If that’s what you’re after, it’s not me. I know how I look, but I’m not that guy. I’m never going to be that guy.”
“Oh.” Hayden looked tentative for the first time today, the surface cleverness stripped away, and Luke’s chest was filled, suddenly, with aching tenderness, as if his heart knew what his head hadn’t figured out yet. “That’s good,” Hayden said, “if we’re going there. Going to say that, I mean,” he went on, and this time, Luke thoughthemight be the one whose color was rising. He couldn’t exactly tell, though. Too dark. Hayden took a sip of his drink, laughed a little, and said, “Right. I’m going to say what I need to say, and then we can finish our drinks and you can walk out, and I’ll know that at least I told the truth, instead of going along with . . . whatever. That I wasn’t desperate.”
Luke saw it happen like he was watching from outside himself. His hand, moving to cover Hayden’s. He’d never touched a man like this in public in his life, but he was doing it now, and he was doing it in New Zealand. It scared him, but he was doing it. “It’s OK,” he said. “You can say.”
Hayden looked at his hand, and Luke didn’t take it away. “We don’t have to see each other after this,” he told Hayden. “Whatever it is, you can say it.”
This time, Hayden pulled his hand out from under his, and he wasn’t looking tentative anymore. “Got it,” he said. “No, thanks. That’s a no.”
“Wait.” Luke was back to “confused” again. “What?”
“What I had to say,” Hayden said, “was that I can’t tell whether you’ve got somebody already. The chef with the wine. That I couldn’t tell if he was the present, or the past. I wanted to ask Nyree, butIdidn’t want to bethatguy, scared to ask the truth, scared totellthe truth, so I thought I’d ask you instead. I’m telling you. I don’t want to be that fella you don’t have to see again after tonight. I don’t want to be your . . . your prize for coming out, or whatever it is. I’m not going to be cheated on again, and I’m not going to be cheatedwith.If it doesn’t matter, I don’t want it. I know I don’t look . . .” He hauled in an unsteady breath. “Serious. I know I don’tseemserious. That doesn’t mean I’m a toy. That doesn’t make me anybody’s entertainment.”
“Hayden.” Luke had his hand over Hayden’s again. “No. I’m not . . .” It was so hard to find the words for this. “I’m not with somebody. I’m fairly spectacularlynotwith somebody, in fact. The chef is in the past, but I’ve come out on the other side, and I’m in a better place. I’m not pretty, and I know it. I’m not quick or clever, and there’s nothing flash about me except my flat and my pay packet. I’m strong as oak, though, and I’m steady as hell. And I don’t cheat.” He said it again, because it needed to be said. “I don’t hurt, I don’t lie, and I don’t cheat.”
