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“Forty-one, actually,” Rhys said, the smile fully in evidence now. “Cheers for the ‘fifty’ idea. Of course, I did find a gray hair the other day, so decrepitude could be just around the corner.”
Tania shot Craig a meaningful look down the table, and he didn’t go on to defend his age-spotted, memory-losing self. Luke did go on, to Hayden’s surprise. “I’m keeping my apartment, though. An apartment in Paris is never a bad thing. I could want to walk with you by the Seine, too,” he told Hayden. “In winter. In summer. Anytime.” And Hayden thought, Thanks. In front of my dad, too. And you’ve got mana to burn, mate. If your dad can’t see that, if my dad can’t see that, I can, and I do. I want you so much, I don’t know how I’m going to say goodbye to you.
“So if it’s not that,” Hayden decided to ask his father, because this was rubbish and he was, suddenly, so tired of it, “What? Is it me that’s bound to cheat, or Luke? And why, exactly? Because all men cheat if they can, unless women are keeping them from having their fun, so how would two men be able to resist? I can resist. Let me tell you, I can resist. Maybe some men can’t. I can.”
Maybe not perfect on the “light and cheerful” thing. Casey and Isaiah were sitting still now, their eyes going between Hayden and Craig as if they were watching a tennis match.
Craig said, “If things are so much better in Paris, maybe you’d rather stay there.”
A frozen moment that seemed to stretch out forever, and then a crash that reverberated through the room and made everybody jump.
“Oh, no,” his mum said, her hands over her mouth. “Oh, no. My Royal Copenhagen Full Lace serving bowl! How could I have knocked it off like that? How could I have been that careless? Don’t get up,” she told the kids. “Porcelain splinters, and you aren’t wearing shoes. Craig, could you help? I’m sorry, everyone, but … I may be going to cry. My beautiful, beautiful bowl. It was a wedding present. Can you just …”
“I’ll get it,” Rhys said. He was on his feet already.
“I’m sorry,” Tania said. “But please, just … go on home, all of you. I need a bit of time.” She tried to laugh. “Never mind. I’ll be all good by Christmas, and Casey and Isaiah—we have something very special for each of you. Just wait and see. Go do your decorating, and don’t send me photos. I want to come in and be surprised. We are going to have the very best Christmas, all together. And please, Luke—do come. It wouldn’t be Christmas without Hayden, and we want you, too. Of course we do.”
“I’m sorry, Nana Tania,” Casey said, her big eyes troubled. “I’m sorry you broke your bowl, and that you’re so sad. It’s extra sad to be sad at Christmas time.”
“Oh, my darling,” Tania said, “thank you. And never mind.” She dabbed at her eyes with her festive holly-and-ivy cloth serviette, took a breath, and let it out again. “A bowl is just a thing, and things don’t matter, not really. We’ll have our Christmas together, and it will be lovely. I’ll have a wee cry for my bowl tonight, and then I’ll let it go and be happy I’m with my family. All my family. Aren’t I lucky?”
CHAPTER 19
Not Quite Hallmark
Three days after Christmas, and Hayden was in the stands in a domed stadium that was still managing Arctic levels of cold, or maybe that was just his pampered summer-in-New-Zealand body. He hunched into the folds of his pale-blue-and-white-striped Racing 92 scarf and wondered whether he was indeed in the WAG section. Yes, everybody around him was good-looking and extremely chic, but as most people in Paris were extremely chic and most of them were good-looking, that didn’t tell you much.
The reason he wasn’t sure whether he was in the right place was that he hadn’t met anybody, because Luke had so far not come out here. Not that he actually knew Luke hadn’t told people, but he hadn’t said anything about it to Hayden and there hadn’t been a fuss, so he probably hadn’t. Of course, they’d only been here a few days, and Hayden couldn’t read French to know whether there’d been a fuss he didn’t know about, but he was assuming.
Had it been worth it to come? Absolutely, despite how cold he was right now, and despite the fact that he wasn’t getting to see much of Luke. Luke left the apartment at some ungodly hour of the morning when Hayden was just coming out of his twelve-hour-time-difference jet-lag coma. Luke brought him a flat white first, though, from the kind of espresso machine full of stainless steel and dials, which was, hello? Pretty bloody wonderful—and came home again at close to six in the evening seeming about the same as always, not like somebody who’d abused his body all day. After that, Hayden produced whatever non-French meal he’d managed to come up with in his visits to the neighborhood shops, and they … well, hung out and ate dinner and watched a cookery show, or an architecture one, which Hayden pretended to follow, and Hayden always fell asleep, exhausted from his day of exploring and the aforementioned jet lag, and possibly that bloody concussion, plus the attempt to understand a language he definitely did not know. Then they went to bed, which was thrilling as can be, every time.
That strength. That body.
So far, there hadn’t been anything you’d call “nightlife.” Luke had said, when Hayden had asked, “I don’t really do nightlife. Not suited for it, I guess, and there’s training, and …”
“You might say the wrong thing,” Hayden finished for him. “Or look at some cute boy too long.”
“Yeh.” Luke had been packing his kit for the game at the time, as calm and focused as a hunter in a duck blind—yes, New Zealand reference, but that was what Hayden had. “I’ll be with the boys for a bit after the game tonight, too. Home around eleven, twelve, like that. I have my day off on Wednesday, though, if you’d like to do some tourist things. Good time for museums, midweek in January. The Impressionist one in the Musée d’Orsay is nice, and just across the Seine, so we could take a walk through the Jardin des Tuileries first. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs is meant to be good, too, in the Louvre complex. Art Deco, Art Nouveau, like that. You’d probably like it.”
“Sounds extremely gay,” Hayden said.
Luke smiled. “Probably. I’ve never been. We could go to a bistro afterward, if you like.”
“Suits me,” Hayden said, wanting to say instead, “When you come out, you won’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing,” but biting his tongue. This wasn’t up to him, and if Luke was willing to go to a decorative-arts museum with him, that was a step, right? “And I get to watch you play.”
So far, he was getting to watch everybody else play, because Luke was still on the bench. It was Racing 92 against Pau, whoever they were, and Racing had six points on two penalty kicks, while Pau had 15 on two tries, two missed conversions, and a penalty. Both the tries had been scored in the first half, though, and it was now … Minute 54. Twenty-six minutes to go, and play was back and forth, back and forth. Men running with the ball, passing the ball, getting tackled hard, until somebody spilled the thing or kicked it away and possession changed, or until the referee blew the whistle and there was a scrum, for some unknown reason. After that, there was a scrum reset, because the structure kept collapsing, the referee pawing with his foot on the grass and having a stern French word as the big screens replayed the reset, as if you cared. Meanwhile, Luke was sitting on the bench in an oversized jacket, hands on his knees, watching like there’d be a quiz later. Occasionally, the substitutes would take a wee jog around the edges of the field to stay warm, but that was the limit of the Boyfriend Activity thus far.
Hayden’s mind may have drifted. First to the impossible beauty of Luke’s apartment, which was more like Nyree’s description than Luke’s, no surprise. The herringbone wood flooring. The high ceilings with their dark beams. The huge, multipaned, arched windows, and the marble fireplaces in lounge and bedroom. The balcony with its wrought-iron railing, and the modern-but-cozy kitchen and bath done in white and cobalt blue, all of it somehow harmonizing with the ancient diamond-patterned black-and-white floors and plaster walls. And the view over the rooftops to the park. It was the best apartment in the world, no question.
And then, of course, there was Paris. His feet hurt, that was how much he’d walked. It had rained today, and he hadn’t even cared, had just gone to the Picasso Museum, which was close to Luke’s place, because that was the kind of ancient-but-flash neighborhood Luke lived in—Le Marais, it was called, and it was fabulous—looked at pictures of people with their eyes in odd places, then decided that was enough culture and refreshed himself by exploring the five floors of the men’s store at BHV Marais, the incredible department store housed in another of those old domed mansions. Being a good little bougie gay boy in Paris.
Fendi, Moncler, Givenchy, Gucci, and Valentino, all under one roof. Imagine that. He’d bought Luke a Fendi wool scarf with an elegant geometric pattern in beige and chocolate brown. It had cost so much, he’d had to shut his eyes to pay for it, but it was masculine, warm, and gorgeous, and Luke deserved to have somebody do something special for him. Hayden was willing to bet it hadn’t happened often.
He could have gone to Notre Dame after that. It was just across the river. He could see it. He’d gone up to the fifth floor for a coffee and croissant instead. That had been a pain au chocolat, and it had been buttery, flaky, decadent, and incredible. He’d eaten it slowly, looking out over those historic slate rooftops and white-stone buildings some more, and thought, Early dinner tonight, by myself, because Luke will be getting ready to play. Fish and veg and that is all. And no chocolate croissants tomorrow! A very cute fella had brought his own coffee over and slid into a chair opposite him at the long table, too, which had been flattering and definitely wouldn’t have happened at Notre Dame, so there you were.
They hadn’t been able to communicate that well, but Hayden didn’t really want to communicate. He felt off the market in a way he never had. It was very odd.
It hadn’t even been three weeks.
