Page 161 of Pride Not Prejudice

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. That would 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 so stupid. And he wasn’t somebody anyone could love.

Stop it, he tried to tell himself. It’s a bump. That doesn’t mean it’s you. Maybe you should ring the ambos. Always one hot one, with ambos.

It didn’t feel like a bump, though. It felt like a hole ripped straight through his heart. Like he couldn’t do this anymore.

He felt a soft tap on his face and turned his head. The cat was standing on the center console on his hind legs, one snow-white paw on Hayden’s shoulder, the other tapping at his cheek.

“Reckon it’s you and me, George,” he told the cat. He didn’t know where “George” had come from. It just had. “Two blokes with nowhere to go.” His throat closed at the thought, but he kept talking. That was what he had. Talking, and being funny. He’d be funny again. He had to be. “Guess we’re going there together.”

Luke Armstrong woke up hurting.

Yes, it was Monday morning, and yes, he’d played a rugby match last night, and yes, he was a prop, which meant his job was as much about collisions as any demolition derby driver—or any demolition derby car—which meant he always hurt.

This hurt was different, though.

He rolled out of bed and stood up, forcing himself to feel his bare feet planted on the floor, to look out the window and take in the day. The rooftops of Paris were shrouded by drizzle this morning, the beads of moisture collecting on the glass, the swallows that swooped in acrobatic flight during the long summer evenings long departed for North Africa in search of warmth.

Luke knew how they felt. He wasn’t relishing being out there himself today.

He made his way over the ancient floorboards to the bathroom with its black-and-white tile, ducking his head through the low doorway. Five minutes later, after sluicing his head with cold water and then doing it again when the first time didn’t work, he was in the kitchen making coffee and cooking a pan of eggs to fuel him for the trek to the practice facility. The hardest journey of the week, when every cell of your body was screaming for rest.

He’d been playing rugby almost as long as he could remember, and he was used to hurting, used to going on when he didn’t think he could. That was his world. That was his life. So that wasn’t why he was still standing here, staring in the mirror at red-rimmed eyes. It was because … he couldn’t do this anymore.

Thirty minutes until he had to be out the door. He downed a couple of paracetamol, washed them down with two glasses of water, pulled on track pants, then opened the refrigerator, hauled out the seven bottles of strong, dark Bière de Noël that remained there, opened the tops one at a time, and poured them down the sink, watching the liquid gurgle away in a foaming chocolate river.

So he’d broken up, or, rather, been broken up with. It had been more than two months, and it was time to quit wallowing. Time to either choose to be alone, or start the whole cautious process of finding somebody again. Always careful. Always hiding.

He could be lonely, though. He could be in pain. He knew how to be both of those things. He’d had practice.

What he couldn’t be was pathetic, and drinking alone was pathetic. Drinking was starting to feel pathetic, full stop.

Eggs. Toast. Coffee—too much of it. Trainers. Jacket. Checking his bag by rote for the mouthguards and gear that would be there, because they were always there, because he always cleaned and packed them the night before. Even when he’d been drinking … much too much. Out the door and down the stairs, worn in the center by the passage of centuries of feet, and out into the courtyard, his legs like lead. He’d feel better once he’d got stuck in with the boys, and better than that once he went for some physio.

Or at least he’d know he hurt. Lately, he was beginning to go numb. He could play rugby hurt. He didn’t know how to play it numb.

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