Page 14 of Just for Me
Luke should have gone, but he kissed him once more, because he couldn’t help it, then said, “I’ll text you,” and got out of the car.
His legs were steady. His mind wasn’t. His mind was thinking,Bloody hell.And,Tomorrow.And,Be careful with him.
It was standing in the tunnel, bouncing on your toes, rolling your shoulders, preparing to run out onto the field, centering yourself so the hammering of your heart, the pulsing of the blood in your veins didn’t overwhelm you. It was knowing that you’d be hurting, and you’d be sweating, and by the end of eighty minutes, your legs would have that tremble in them, all the way down deep in the muscle, because you’d given it all you had, and you’d left everything out on the paddock.
It was being ready to play the game full-tilt, flat to the boards. Win or lose.
It was living.
6
STAKEOUT IN THE PARKING GARAGE
Hayden didn’t drive away at once.He couldn’t manage it. He sat there, his hands on the steering wheel, and stared at the concrete wall ahead.
Wow.
Maybe he should get out of the car and walk around a while. He could text Luke and …
No.What was he, seventeen years old?
A tap on the window made him jump, and then it made his heart pound.
When he turned his head, he didn’t see somebody almost as broad as he was tall, with biceps that looked like he was smuggling snakes under there, coming back to say that he couldn’t possibly wait until tomorrow.
He saw, in fact, Julian.
He rolled the window down. He could do that, because the car was still on, the radio still playing soft and low. “Hi,” he said, and couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Julian had crouched down to look into the car, which meant his head was centimeters from Hayden's. He didn’t say hello. He said, “Come out.”
Hayden thought,Why?He actually had his hand on the door handle, that was how used he was to thinking Julian was fabulous and that he was lucky to be with him, but he took it away and asked, “Why?”
Julian sighed. “Because I want to talk to you, obviously.”
“Maybe I need to get home to my cat.” Hayden’s head was still seriously turned around, and he wanted to let it stay there. He wanted to think back over every minute of tonight, not marinate in disasters past. Possibly go to the gym after all, if this leaping energy didn’t settle soon.
Tomorrow,he thought, and got a kick of mingled lust, anticipation, and, possibly, fear. The kind of adrenaline rush that said there was no choice.
Julian said again, “I need to talk to you. Get out of the car.”
Hayden got out, because Julian wasn’t going anywhere, and he couldn’t exactly back out and run over his foot, could he? Or sit in the car while Julian tapped on the window, because that would be a ridiculous scene, and he wasn’t much for drama anyway.
“Right,” he said, when Julian had backed up out of the space to make room and Hayden had slammed the car door. “I can’t wait. Groveling apology? Cutting remarks about my life that you failed to think up the first time around? Let’s have it.”
“Why are you parking in my garage?” Julian asked.
Hayden laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Did your family buy it, then?” He could have said,Because I’m a thrifty Kiwi, and I bought a bloody expensive monthly pass to visit you that still has two days to run,but why should he?
Julian looked down his aristocratic nose. He wasn’t far off two meters tall, another fact that had once made Hayden swoon. Now, Hayden was noticing that he was possibly a bit … weedy. Julian didn’t do much working out, because, he’d said, “Horses, racing shells, and possibly a bit of boxing at school, dear boy. Those are the only necessary pursuits of an English gentleman. At least one who inherited the Lumley physique, don’t you think? I’m not sweating like a navvy just to fit in with the latest trend. They’re the ones who want to look likeme,but you know—L’habit ne fait pas le moine.The habit doesn’t make the monk,” he’d translated for Hayden’s benefit. “The monk is made of what lies within.” He’d laughed as he’d said it, though, and added, still laughing, “Which is bloody pompous, of course, but there you are, Iambloody pompous. Or confident. We’ll call it that, shall we?”
At the moment, though, Julian wasn’t saying that. He was saying, “You know what I’m talking about.”
“No,” Hayden said, “I find I can’t imagine. Other than the groveling apology. I can just about imagine that.”
“You’re stalking me.”
“I am?”
