Page 2 of Just for Me
“You didn’t have to hang onto the reminders,” Hayden had said, pulling him close and ignoring the brittleness. “I’m here now, and I’m real.Andboringly sincere.”
He was real, all right. Really stupid. All he could say was, “What? Oh. Are you—”
The bloke put an arm around Julian. “Mmm, lovely steaks. Yousaidyou had a surprise.” He yawned and added, “Lovely nap, too,” then asked Hayden, “I don’t know you, do I? Trevor Makiri-Jones. Julian’s partner.” He eyed the animal in Hayden’s arms. “D’you always travel with a cat? Odd.”
“But I’m—” Hayden started to say as the cold enveloped him.
Julian said, “I can explain.”
Trevor said, “Explain what?”
Hayden said, through the buzzing in his head, “I don’t know. That he’s been cheating on me? What’s the explanation for that?”
Julian didn’t say the “explaining” thing again, or maybe he’d never said it to Hayden, because he told Trevor, “We were taking a break, or that’s what you say now. What itreallywas, though, was breaking up. How did I know that you wouldn’t be buggering off again this time? Thatisyour pattern, do admit.”
“Wait.” There was ice where Hayden’s blood should be, and more of that prickling buzz. In his arms. In his hands. He could still feel the cat, but that was the only thing anchoring him here. “You weren’t cheating on me. You were cheating onhim.We’ve been together two and a half months,” he told Trevor. “It wasn’t a fling.”
I brought him a cat,he wanted to say, but that was stupid. Everybody could see the cat.
“So you see, I wasn’t cheating on you,” Julian told Trevor, still ignoring Hayden. “We were on a break. As noted.”
“Not three weeks ago, we weren’t,” Trevor said. “That’s not a bloody break, that’s overlap. And I’m sorry, but what the hell is the story with the cat?” He sneezed into his shoulder, then did it again. “I’m allergic, and I’m on the call sheet for tomorrow. Can’t be dashing and dangerous with a red nose, can I? Also, I clearly need to be breaking up, or at least having a fight, and whoever you are, toy boy, you’re in the way. Two and a half months isn’t a relationship. It’s a fling. Sorry. You’ve been flung.”
“No!” Julian said. “Don’t go.” Again, not to Hayden. “Give it a minute. Let’s discuss. And then make up, because you know you’ll want to make up. If it weren’t for breaking up and making up, we’d have no relationship at all. That’s our spice, and you know it.”
Hayden wanted to make a statement. A declaration. A denouncement, possibly. His vision was blurring, though, and he was drowning. He could never get angry at the right time. Why couldn’t he get angry? All he felt was humiliation. He said, forcing the words past the tightness in his throat, “Apparently I just got myself a cat. Either that, or it’s back to the shelter with him, but he’s an awesome cat. I’m pretty awesome, too. You’re missing out on me.”
“I’m sorry,” Julian said, not sounding nearly sorry enough. “But I told you—Trevor’s the love of my life. Look at him. Look at hislife,then look at yours.”
“I’m a lawyer,” Hayden said, hearing how stupid it sounded.
“Looking at contracts for people with actual money? Really too dull for words, darling. And I meant anelegantcat, maybe a temperamental Siamese with some suggestion of pedigree, not some stripey ginger you got from the SPCA. You’re so middle class. Such a striver. Which is lovely, of course, but not for me. Stay,” he told Trevor. “I’ve made this fab dinner. Stay and eat it with me, and we’ll talk it out. I was vulnerable. I washurting.You know how I am.”
No graceful exit, then, just a walk back down the stairs, because there was a couple at the lift—holding hands, then coming close for a kiss—and Hayden couldn’t be around happy people tonight.
He got back to his car somehow, even though he couldn’t even remember which floor of the garage he’d left it on and had to walk all the way around three floors searching for it, pressing the button on his key and trying not to panic. When he recognized it at last, he had to lean against it for a minute. His boring, middle-class, silver Mitsubishi sedan, which he’d bought used, because new-car prices in New Zealand were mad. He wasn’t even a striver. He was just …
Dull, apparently. He’d never thought he was dull. Was he hopelessly, pitifully mistaken?
No. You’re not. You can’t be. It’s him, not you. Are you basing your self-esteem on the opinions of cheating Poms now? And their shallow soap-star boyfriends?
The pep talk wasn’t working.
An older woman stopped and asked, “All right?”
“What?” He stood up again. “I—I’m fine. Sorry. Fine.”
“You’re white as a sheet, love,” she said. “Sweating as well. Having any chest pain?”
Yes,he wanted to say. “No,” he said. “Thanks.” And opened the car door.
He didn’t have a cat carrier, so he put the cat on the passenger seat. This morning, he’d had a partner and no cat. Now, he had a cat and no partner, and he was so hungry, he was lightheaded with it. Or maybe that was grief. He couldn’t even tell what he was feeling.
He laid his head against the steering wheel and breathed. In and out. In and out. Hoping the woman had left, and that she wasn’t ringing the ambos at this moment.Thatwould be embarrassing. What would you say? “Sorry, not dying, just heartbroken again?” Half of him wanted to laugh at the idea.
Not like it hasn’t happened before,he told himself. But where some men grew calluses, it felt like he lost a layer of skin every time, and now, every nerve was exposed and screaming.
He’d been sostupid.And he wasn’t somebody anyone could love.
