Page 20 of Just for Me
“What was what about?” Hayden couldn’t remember.
“The way you were just then,” Luke said. “Like there was something wrong with this. About the place, or me asking you, or whatever. I wanted it to feel …” He hesitated. “Romantic. I don’t normally get to be romantic. I’ve never given somebody, uh, romance.”
So what have you given them?Hayden wanted to ask it, and he didn’t. He wanted toknowit. “That I was wondering,” he said, “if that was where you were staying.”
“No,” Luke said. “Thought that could be pressure. I’m staying back there near the garage, at the Sofitel.”
“Also pretty flash,” Hayden said.
Luke shrugged one big shoulder. “They had a room. I wanted to find someplace fast.”
“So French rugby reallydoespay better.” Hayden was getting his sparkle back, somehow. “And here I thought you were just impossibly hot. Didn’t realize I could do some gold-digging as well.”
This time, Luke smiled, but when Hayden went on to say, “And you got a room there when your mate turfed you out,” the smile left his face.
“Yeh,” he said. “I did.” He stopped in front of enormous glass doors. “This is it.” Holding the door for Hayden. Romantic again, or something.
They didn’t talk while they walked across to the restaurant, or while they were being seated, either. The place was Kiwi-flash, which meant that the kitchen was open, a wood-fired pizza oven was glowing hot, the banquettes were sleek and modern, the hanging lights were some kind of trendy thing that looked like lobster buoys, and the floor-to-ceiling windows took in the view of the Viaduct. Hayden picked up the menu and, whatever Luke had said, gulped a bit. He’d thought at first,Oh, lovely. Scallops with black pudding and pumpkin? Chargrilled Mangonui snapper filet with taramasalata and salmon caviar? Yes, please,and then had realized that those two dishes alone added up to about seventy-five dollars, and then there were the vegetables, which could easily add another thirty. And who knew what they’d charge for water?
Help.
He said, “I’m not all that hungry, actually. The linguine looks good.” And only twenty-nine dollars. You couldn’t tell him that Luke was normally a big-spending sort of fella. He looked more like a meat pie and, yes, a beer.
Luke looked up in surprise. “What, after working all day?”
“I sit to work. And Ididhave a sausage roll. Also lemonade.”
Luke set the menu down and studied Hayden comprehensively enough to make him want to squirm. “You think I’m gobsmacked by the prices, regretting asking you. I live in Paris. Also, I was with a chef for over two years. Got half my dinners out for free, if you want to look at it like that, so I came out ahead there. And I don’t like bad food. But here’s the real question. Why can’t you believe that I wanted this to be special?”
“Uh …” Hayden wanted to run his hand over his hair. Instead, he sat still.
“Because nobody’s ever treated you like that, maybe,” Luke went on slowly. “Nobody’s ever treated me like that, either. We could try treating each other better. It’s a thought.”
“Oh,” Hayden said. “All right, then. But I do want to hear about you coming to stay at the hotel.”
Luke didn’t smile, but Hayden thought he might be trying not to. “That the pound of flesh, then?”
“Well, yeh,” Hayden said, “or it’s a way to make me feel slightly less raw when you ask me why my dad was such a dickhead.”
Now, Luke’s smile was real. “Order first, you reckon?”
When the air left Hayden’s body, he realized how tense it had been. “Yes,” he said. “Order first. And if it’s really all right with you to pay much too much for all this—what’s cavuto nero when it’s at home? Or do I blindly order it and hope for the best?”
“It’s kale,” Luke said. “The dark kind.”
“Well, they could just say that,” Hayden said, “but then they probably couldn’t charge sixteen dollars for it.”
No wine, but he didn’t need wine, not tonight. He was floating, suspended in a bubble of deliciousness that started with the just-caught, tender bites of scallop cooked with chile and lime, and drinking fizzy water, but not too much, so it wouldn’t wash the taste away. Looking at Luke opposite him, his face relaxed for once, as he ate Cloudy Bay clams with sherry and peas. Not requiring Hayden to sparkle, not asking him to dance for his supper. All right with just being here, while patrons came and went around them, the bar got a little louder, and the laughter rose and wafted out through the open windows.
“You wanted to know about my mate, the other night,” Luke finally said.
“Yes,” Hayden said, “if you want to tell me. When I came out … but we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.”
Luke shrugged again. “I’m probably happier if we talk about you, but all right. Met him at the Crusaders when we were twenty-two or so, young blokes without much of a clue, making more money than we’d dreamed we could, hoping it would all last.”
“But your dad was your coach before that,” Hayden said. “You must have known you’d make it.”
“Doesn’t mean what you’d think. Not that you’ll be good enough, it doesn’t. I was in the First XV at school, yeh, but so were hundreds of other fellas. And I only wanted to do it if I …”
