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Luke sighed. “It’s a hard bargain. But I reckon, on consideration … I’ll take it.”
CHAPTER 16
Everybody Fronts Up
Luke couldn’t remember an afternoon as relaxed as that one. The most productive thing they’d done, beyond his making coconut, lime, and sambal grilled chicken with coconut rice for dinner, watching another movie with Hayden, and not having sex again, because Hayden had concussion and Luke had already done too much—which he reminded himself about pretty sternly during that movie, when Hayden was in his arms and he was touching that soft skin again—was to take the short walk to Sephora.
Yes, the makeup store, which Luke didn’t even recognize for what it was until they were standing in front of it. He’d assumed from the name that it was a flash clothing store, or possibly someplace you’d buy a wedding present. Makeup wasn’t something he’d been much aware of in his life. He looked at the window display, made up of enormous photos of bottles of scent and women wearing astonishing amounts of cosmetics, and said, “Uh … this is new for me.” While telling himself, You can broaden your horizons, and hoping he actually could.
If he can want a rugby player, and not the pretty kind, you can want somebody who wears … whatever this is going to be.
Hayden said, “Yeh, well … concealer. I need expert advice. No thanks on the questions tomorrow.” Proving what Luke had suspected—that he wouldn’t want anybody to know about the bashing he’d got.
Weakness. Vulnerability. Shame. Nothing you wanted to share.
“I realize it’s awkward for you,” Hayden went on, “unless there’s something you really haven’t told me. No possible good explanation for why you’d be buying makeup with a man, especially a man as fabulous as me. You can wait outside instead and look butch.”
Luke smiled. “Nah. New experiences are good. I’m coming in.”
“All right,” Hayden said. “Then I’m going to be queenly here. Watch my smoke.” And went through the glass doors, head held high, fully here and, yes, fully fabulous.
He toa taumata rao.
Courage has many resting places.
The next day, he put the coming encounter with his dad out of his mind as much as he could and focused on researching what was good value in wine and beer and champagne before buying out half the stock of the Christchurch Liquorland. He and Kane made more than a few trips to wrestle all the boxes into the rental SUV, and then Luke got behind the wheel and drove them through the flat, uninteresting expanse of the Canterbury plain, two lanes of tarmac as straight as a die, then took the turn. Straight and flat some more, and then a rise to the land at last, and the line of snow-capped mountains in the distance coming closer. The Southern Alps, and Luke couldn’t have described the state of his heart.
A bend in the road, and they were there. The cloudy blue-green of the enormous lake, seeming as always lit from below, backed by line after line of jagged peaks, the wisps of clouds trailing across their snow-clad summits, the sky above a cerulean blue. The tiny stone Church of the Good Shepherd on the shore, built like a hope and a promise by the people who’d first settled this inhospitable place. And the lupins, glorious in their height, their pinks and purples and oranges, bursting out along the shores in a riot of color. After the dullness of the journey, the pale dun tussocks of the Mackenzie highlands broken by nothing but the occasional flock of grazing merino, the Easter-basket extravagance of it was nearly too much to take in.
“A good day for it,” Kane said. “A good place, too. Better for Marko, maybe.”
Nyree and her mum were from Northland, originally, lush and green and surrounded by the sea, edged by kilometer after kilometer of golden beach. That was where this wedding had been meant to happen, about as far from this place as it was possible to get, but that was all right. Nyree was the lupins and the lake, that was all, and if you were marrying somebody, maybe that happiness, and their happiness, were enough.
Luke thought about that, and then he thought about unloading boxes of drink and bags of ice and setting up a beverage station on one of the folding tables covered with mismatched, cheerful tablecloths, all set around the edge of a cleared space in front of a big, rambling house overlooking the lake and backdropped by the Alps. Meanwhile, Zora and Rhys fastened flowers to a homemade arbor, Hayden went over to help, and Luke’s father, who’d barely acknowledged his sons so far, directed people in setting up more tables and rows of chairs, barking orders like the rugby coach he still wished he was. Luke opened wine bottles, carried glasses, and poured drinks with Kane, working against the clock until, barely an hour later, they went into the house and he took his turn in an old-fashioned bathroom, changing out of T-shirt and rugby shorts and into dress trousers and a collared shirt before giving himself a last careful shave around his beard.
It wasn’t much of an improvement, but it was the best he could do.
It was a wedding, then. Everybody sitting in those rows of mismatched chairs, borrowed from every farm around, and Marko standing in front of the arbor with his best man, frowning ferociously, staring at the kitchen door, and looking, as usual, barely tamed. Hayden standing in the center, impossibly slim and handsome, the bruise not visible under the careful makeup, looking serious and maybe nervous. A stillness to the moment despite the breeze, like the day was holding its breath, and Victoria playing the cello. More of that sadness, possibly, along with the joy, because that was the way cellos sounded, and because Marko’s grandmother was lying on a deck chair in the front row, looking like the wind could blow her away.
Everything passed, and so did everybody, the good and the bad together. Made it more important to live your life the way you wanted, maybe, because now was all you had, and if you weren’t yourself, who were you? If nobody knew you, and you couldn’t even know yourself … how could you live an entire life like that? Why should you live an entire life like that?
He was so tired of hiding.
Nyree, then, coming out at last on her grandmother’s arm in an ivory gown that clung to her pregnant curves, and Marko’s face changing in a way that almost hurt to see. And Luke thought, That’s all right, then.
She got there, Hayden began to talk, and it was even better, because he’d been right. Hayden was good at this.
“These rings,” Hayden finally said, “in their infinite circle, represent your marriage, and the love that’s greater than the sum of you. They symbolize the bond you share and the trust and faith you give each other, world without end. When you look at these rings on your hands, be reminded of this moment, and the infinity of your love.”
Marko’s voice, repeating after Hayden, and then Nyree’s, as they slipped the rings onto each other’s hands, Nyree having a bit of trouble sliding the thing over Marko’s rugby-battered knuckle and Marko having to help her, which gave everybody a much-needed laugh. “I give you this ring as a symbol of my love,” they told each other, “with this promise, offered freely and unreservedly: to love you today, tomorrow, always, and forever.”
Hayden again. “You’ve made your promises today in front of all those who love you best, and have sealed your vows with the exchange of rings. Therefore, by the power vested in me as a wedding officiant of Aotearoa New Zealand, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Looking like he meant every word of it.
Looking like the triumph of hope.
Luke wished he could kiss Hayden, afterward, and tell him he was proud. He wasn’t good with words, but he could have managed that. Not the time or the place, though, for revelations, whatever Marko had said.
