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“There can be a hundred thousand or more,” Luke said. “We got lucky.”
“How do they know what to do?” Hayden asked. “How do they choreograph that?” It was a ballet, if a ballet were made up of tens of thousands of pieces flowing like a single entity. Like a hundred thousand birds in one body.
“Dunno,” Luke said. “Reckon they fly with their neighbor. Sometimes, teamwork’s better.”
Hayden hummed, and they watched in silence as the birds formed and re-formed, as they flew upward in a column, then rushed down again and spread into a thin oval. Finally, Luke said, “You’re going home tomorrow.”
Hayden’s hands tightened on the stone balustrade. “Yeh.” He tried to think of something funny to say, and couldn’t. It was another black wave, of desolation this time.
“I’m turning thirty-four,” Luke said.
“I know,” Hayden said. “Wish I could be here for your birthday.”
“There’s a time,” Luke said, his eyes still on the swallows, “when you have to hang up the boots and find something else to do. I’ve hung on a year too long, maybe. Thinking this was all I have, that it’s all I am.” He turned, finally, and looked at Hayden, and there was so much in his eyes. Sorrow, and weariness, and something else.
Caution. And, maybe … hope.
Hayden couldn’t slow his heart. He couldn’t catch his breath. “It’s not all you are,” he said. “You’re a beautiful soul.” He tried to laugh, but couldn’t. “Sounds odd, but you are. I don’t think you know half of what you are. Half of what you can be.”
“Maybe I don’t,” Luke said. “But I’d like to find out.”
“So …” Harden up, Hayden tried to tell himself, and couldn’t. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve been thinking,” Luke said, “about what’s next. I want to take some time, then decide. Isaiah wasn’t right about the two million dollars a year, but he wasn’t too far off. I’m thinking, maybe … build some luxury houses. Something like that. Something I can do with my hands, as my hands are the part of me that works the best. Them and my back, anyway. I know what looks good, too. What makes people happy, I think.”
“Oh?” Hayden wanted to hear the rest, and he didn’t.
“And the other thing I know is …” Luke had that flush mounting on his cheeks, his ears, and Hayden realized he was nervous. A wave of tenderness flooded him, and he thought, He’s like me. He’s so much like me.
“I know,” Luke went on doggedly, “that I want to … I need to see what we have together. If we’re in the same place. If we’re willing to give it all we’ve got, and if that’s enough.”
“I can …” Hayden had to stop and take a breath. “I’d like that. In fact …” He tried to laugh. “It’s all I want.”
Luke’s smile started slowly, then grew. “Yeh?”
“Yeh,” Hayden said.
“The question is,” Luke said deliberately, “where.”
“Oh. Where.” Hayden thought, You have to tell the truth. You have to be yourself. “I can’t work in France,” he forced himself to say. “Or in the UK. Law’s very … region-specific. That’s all law is, in fact. I want to be with you, too, but I like what I do. I know it’s not exactly glamorous, but it suits me, I’ve trained hard for it, and I like it.”
Luke was smiling again. “Well, you see, that’s why I’d be moving there. To En Zed.”
“Oh.” Hayden sagged against the balustrade and tried to catch his breath. “OK, then.”
“But no worries,” Luke said, “I’m going to ask you something hard anyway. Does it have to be Auckland, or …”
“It’s not a big country,” Hayden said. “And I don’t think I’m that picky.” He felt like he was climbing those stairs again, because his heart was galloping. “But I’m a bit picky. I don’t want to live in … Gore. Invercargill. Hamilton, for that matter. Bulls, where you have to name your business some awful pun, or you don’t fit in. What would I call my law practice? ‘Feas-i-bull?’ ‘In-del-i-bull?’”
Babbling again.
Why was it so hard to believe?
Why was it so hard to hope?
Luke shouldn’t be laughing, but he was anyway, even though he was also more nervous than he could ever remember being in his life. “Cheers for the list of duds. I was thinking, more … could we travel around a wee bit, maybe? See what appeals to us? D’you think you could …” He looked down at his hands. Fingers like sausages, Nyree had said, and knuckles like ping-pong balls. It was true. He was no prize, in so many ways.
“I probably can,” Hayden said, “if you ask me. I’m flexible. There’s my sign, for when we move to Bulls. ‘Flex-i-bull.’ Course, it makes me sound like I’m running a yoga studio.”
