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“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 …”
“What?” Hayden asked.
“If I kept loving it. I couldn’t stand to do it because it was what my dad wanted, and at the same time, it was what I’d worked for since I was a kid.”
“For your chance to shine,” Hayden said.
“No,” Luke said. “For my chance to get away and live my own life. Which I did, which is why the Crusaders.”
“And the fact that you were gay …”
“Yeh. Well.” Luke pushed a clam around, then seemed to make a decision and stabbed it. “I didn’t share that. With anybody. Reckon I hid it a bit too well, with how shocked Matt was the other day. I tried to tell him it wasn’t like that. That naked bodies don’t mean the same thing to you in the changing sheds, that grabbing his jersey in the scrum and having him grab mine was just rugby, not foreplay. Maybe I should’ve told him that I never fancied him. I have a thing for—” He stopped again.
“A thing for what?” Hayden asked. “Mashed potato? Small feet? What?”
Luke smiled. “For blokes like you, I guess. Clever. Good-looking. Talkers. And I guess … thinner. Matt was a prop, too. No beauty contestants in the front row, and I don’t much fancy kissing somebody’s ear if it’s as mangled as mine. And mostly, that there has to be spark coming back, or nothing catches fire. I can look at a fella and think, ‘Yeh, he’s fit,’ but if there’s nothing coming back, it doesn’t … catch.”
“But he didn’t believe you,” Hayden said.
“Maybe he would’ve if he’d listened a bit longer. Made some awkward jokes, laughed a fair bit, and then I went off to bed and so did he. I could hear some talking from in there, though. Him telling his wife, and her being shocked. So in the morning, I got up before they did, left a note, and found a room.”
“You don’t think …” Hayden began slowly.
“What? I know what I heard from him. I know what I saw from him.”
“That he may just have needed some time,” Hayden said. “If it’s been that long—surely he knows you better than that.”
“Dunno,” Luke said, “and I wasn’t keen on waiting around to find out. He hasn’t sent me so much as a text since, though.”
“And you’re wondering whether you can keep playing,” Hayden said, “once people know.”
“Well, yeh.” Luke finished his clams, and the waiter came by and whisked the plates away. “Time will tell, I guess.”
“Right,” Hayden said. “Well, I’ve got nothing that juicy. Just, you know, garden-variety parental angst and so forth. As you saw.”
“When did you come out?” Luke asked.
“Do you really want to do this?” Hayden asked. “Tell these stories?”
“Well, no,” Luke said. “Not right now. I want to … hear about your sister, maybe. Hear about the kids. Be entertained, possibly.”
“With tales of fairies and bunnies,” Hayden said. “And of Casey Moana and Isaiah.”
Now, Luke was smiling for real. “Worse things to talk about than fairies and bunnies. Tell me about them. About Casey and Isaiah, and why Casey’s got an American accent. They’re funny kids, eh. Expressive, you could say. Tell me about Zora. I know about Drago—Rhys. No need to tell me about him. One of those players who tells you who he is by what he does out on the paddock. Rugby’s a bit like golf, I reckon. You can tell heaps about a man by how he plays golf. Whether he cheats when he thinks nobody’s watching. Whether he gets narky when he has a bad round, if he blames the caddy or the wind or nothing at all. I haven’t played golf with Drago, but I’ve played rugby with him.”
