Page 15 of Just for Me
“You know you are.” Julian sighed again. “Look, dear boy. It was awkward, we’ll both admit, but you need to face facts now. I’m with somebody else, and you need to move on. It was terribly nice, but it’s over.”
“Uh-huh.” Hayden had leaned against the car now and folded his arms. He should be trembling at the confrontation, but somehow, he couldn’t. “How’s that going, then? Still blissful? Everything you’ve ever dreamed of? Did he replace the cashmere jumper yet?”
“We’re going to Fiji in the new year, actually,” Julian said. “Since you ask. Trevor wants to sail there, as he’s got a break from work. Lovely adventure, don’t you think?”
Hayden had to laugh. “In that boat? It’s over a thousand nautical miles to Fiji. Ten-day sail at the best of times, with nowhere to stop, and we’re still in the midst of cyclone season. You’ll either drown or get blown off course and die of thirst.”
“I can sail.” Now, Julian’s voice was stiff. “And Trevor’s learning. And we’d buy a bigger boat, obviously.”
“You can sail in Waitemata Harbour,” Hayden said. “Maybe up the coast a bit.”
“And you’d know better?” Julian asked.
“Well, yeh, I would. Enough to know I’m not sailing to Fiji, anyway. Also enough to know that I’d go stark raving mad after ten days on a boat that size, and likely cannibalize my partner if things went pear-shaped and the stores ran out. And when Trevor says ‘we,’ he means …”
“He has money,” Julian said.
“Boat money? Really? Saved up, then, has he? Or is he spending it as fast as he’s earning it? While he’s on a ‘break from work’? I know a little something about fellas who get into a lucrative line of work and piss it all away. I wouldn’t count on his half.” Hayden was doing exactly what Isaiah had been rude for doing—talking about how much money people made. He also didn’t need to be having this conversation, but he found he didn’t much fancy scuttling away, either, as if Julian had wounded him.
“At least he’s not dull,” Julian said. “At least those ‘fellas’ he knows aren’t rugby players, with all their brains in their hands and feet.”
Now, Hayden was the one sighing. Also regretting that he’d engaged. “It’s been lovely catching up, of course, but honestly, atinybit dull. I need to go home to my cat. George gets lonely. Also peckish. Past his teatime.”
“I’m sorry if your life isn’t exciting without me,” Julian said. “I’m sorry you haven’t found anyone. That doesn’t mean you can come here and lurk in the shadows like this. If Trevor finds out, it’ll scare him.”
The hilarity was rising in Hayden’s throat. “Which would be the point of stalking, if I were stalking. And I thought he was so strong and fit and exciting. I’m sure I’ve seen him having a stoush with somebody on TV. That all for show, then? He can’t throw a punch? Can’t even take on a lawyer?”
“I’ll ring the police,” Julian said.
“Do that,” Hayden said. “Please. Ring them now, so they can explain the nature of my offense to me.”
“You’re acontractslawyer,” Julian said. “Not a criminal one. You don’t know.”
“You’re right,” Hayden said. “Not about the law, because I do know that, but that I fail to understand your predicament or the threat I pose, other than poking holes in your sailing dream. Dim, I reckon. But, fun as this has been …” He opened the car door, rested his hand on the top of it, and turned for a last word. “I really do need to go feed my cat.”
7
FINE FOR PENGUINS AND BONOBOS
Luke didn’t sleepwell that night, either. For a different reason than the desolation of the night before, when he’d realized that even his best mates might not want to be his mates anymore.
No, it was Hayden.
He was a man who compartmentalized. There was no other way to live his life and play his game. He didn’t fall head over heels. He didn’t walk around in a fog. He couldn’t afford to.
Hayden was bursting through all his compartments.Because you’re not playing,he tried to tell himself, and knew it was a lie.Because you have to see Dad this weekend.Maybe, but at two in the morning, with his body about to levitate off the bed from sexual tension?
No.
The next day, he filled in the details on a rocky cliff while Nyree painted in swooping blue swallows, then, the second the cliff was dry, added gnomes digging for gemstones. While he painted, he thought about tonight.
Someplace flash. Someplace absolutely high-end. The kind of place he’d never been with a partner, because it would look romantic. The thought made his breath catch and his stomach seize up, but he knew he’d be doing it anyway. In fact, he went outside during a break in the action, found the right place, and made a booking.
That was that. Time to put this out of his mind and paint.
He managed it for an hour or so, until Rhys knocked at the bedroom door.
Nyree said, “Go see who it is, will you, Luke? But donotlet those kids in. There’s no peeking.” She was painting like fury now, a smear of blue on one cheek, that deadline approaching fast. Not looking much like a woman getting married in … three days.
