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Luke’s smile vanished. “No worries. I know.”
Hayden looked up, startled. “What?”
“That it’s just a drink,” Luke said. “No worries.”
Hayden shook his head. “Wait. Start again. This is awkward.” He tried to laugh, but for once, he couldn’t. He also couldn’t think how to be insouciant. “What do you think I’m saying?”
“That you …” Luke stopped, then went on. “That you don’t want me to think this is more than a drink. Never mind. You don’t need to say it. I look at my face in the mirror every day.”
Their drinks came, and the second the server had left, Hayden said, “Wait. You think I’m not attracted to you? You can’t even tell? Geez, this is rough.” He blew out a breath. “Why are the things I want always so rough?”
Luke looked at him, then down at his hands, which he’d laid flat on the tiny table as if he were about to push off and sprint for the exit. Those were scarred, they were enormous, and Nyree was right about his knuckles. Hayden thought about that, because he didn’t want to think about what he’d just said. “I know why it’s tough for me,” Luke said. “I’m not going to say ‘rough.’ I’m not rough. If that’s what you’re after, it’s not me. I know how I look, but I’m not that guy. I’m never going to be that guy.”
“Oh.” Hayden had no idea how to react. No idea what to do. He’d been flooded with dread, and now, he was flooded with something else. “That’s good,” he managed, “if we’re going there. Going to say that, I mean.” He took a sip of his drink, tried once again to laugh, and said, “Right. I’m going to say what I need to say, and then we can finish our drinks and you can walk out, and I’ll know that at least I told the truth, instead of going along with … whatever. That I wasn’t desperate.”
Luke’s hand came out to cover his, and Hayden stared at it some more and tried not to feel the warmth and the safety of it. You weren’t safe because a man touched your hand, and he knew it. “It’s OK,” Luke said. “We don’t have to see each other after tonight. Whatever it is, you can say it.”
The cold was rushing in again, drowning Hayden. “Got it,” he managed to say. “No, thanks. That’s a no.”
“Wait,” Luke said, pulling his hand away. “What?”
“What I wanted to say,” Hayden said, “was that I can’t tell whether you’ve got somebody already. The chef with the wine. That I couldn’t tell if he was the present, or the past. I wanted to ask Nyree, but I didn’t want to be that guy, scared to ask the truth, scared to tell the truth, so I thought I’d ask you instead. I’m telling you that I don’t want to be your … your prize for coming out, some fella you’ll never have to see again. I’m not going to be cheated on again, and I’m not going to be cheated with. If it doesn’t matter, I don’t want it. I know I don’t look ….” He hauled in an unsteady breath. “Serious. I know I don’t seem serious. That doesn’t mean I’m a toy. That doesn’t make me anybody’s temporary entertainment.”
“Hayden.” Luke had his hand over Hayden’s again. “I’m not with somebody. I’m fairly spectacularly not with somebody, in fact. The chef is in the past. I’m not pretty, and I know it. I’m not quick or clever, and there’s nothing flash about me except my flat and my pay packet. I’m strong as oak, though, and I’m steady as hell. And I don’t cheat. I don’t hurt, I don’t lie, and I don’t cheat.”
Hayden tried to say something, and he couldn’t. “So come on,” Luke said. “Let’s go somewhere quieter, where I can see you and you can see me, and we’re not shouting out our deepest secrets. Because I want to kiss you.”
Hayden had an elbow on the table, his hand in his hair. “It’s not this easy,” he managed to say. “It’s never this easy.”
“Yes,” Luke said, and that voice was deep, it was strong, and it was sure. “It can be. It is.”
Hayden pulled into a parking garage in the Wynward Quarter, using a passcard to do it, and Luke wondered why and decided not to ask. If Hayden had brought Luke home with him …
No. Don’t go there. Hayden hadn’t made any conversation, beyond, “This is me,” when they’d come to the car. Nervous, Luke thought, and the tenderness that had welled up in him when Hayden had put his hand in his hair back in the bar was right here again.
Hayden needed somebody strong. Somebody kind. Strong was the one thing Luke knew how to be. Kind, he wasn’t so sure about. He reckoned he’d do his best.
Hayden found a carpark, turned the car off, and sat there like he didn’t know what to do next. Luke thought, He wants to know he’s not a toy. What do I do about that? Not jump him, that’s sure. “Maybe we could sit a bit, eh,” he decided to say. “Maybe turn on the radio.”
“Oh.” Hayden turned the key, switched on the sound system, and fiddled with the dial.
His hand was shaking.
“Here.” Luke put his hand over his. “I can do it, if you like.”
“You can’t know the stations. You don’t even live here.”
“But I can still find music,” Luke said, and he did. An alternative station, it had to be, maybe the university’s, playing something reggae-inspired, with that upbeat, relaxed vibe. He asked, “OK?”
Hayden said, “Sure. I like that you asked. Shows patience, consideration, and so forth. All admirable qualities.” Making conversation, obviously, because he was so clearly nervous.
What now? They both had their seatbelts off, but Hayden wasn’t moving. Luke finally said, “We don’t have to do anything tonight, you know.”
A long pause, and Hayden said, “You know, your gentleness is pretty devastating.”
Luke said, “When your job is being a hard man, you lose your taste for it as recreation, maybe.”
“Hopefully not completely,” Hayden said.
