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He was joking, but he probably wasn’t, inside. Luke knew that brittle look. He took Hayden’s hand and asked. “D’you think you’d want to quit, too? You’ve said that they’re a bit hidebound there, at your work. Pretty buttoned-down. Maybe we could try something more … casual. Have a life. Or a lifestyle, maybe.”
“The gay lifestyle,” Hayden said, still trying to joke. “I’m still trying to figure out what that is.”
“I think,” Luke said, “that it’s being together. Being happy. Being ourselves. Living somewhere beautiful and relaxed, and maybe with more than farmers around, so they may not be quite so shocked by us. Someplace where you can still wear shorts in a restaurant, though.” He smiled, and wished it were steadier. “Want to toss everything else aside with me and try to find it?”
Hayden took a breath, and then he smiled as, behind him, the swallows soared. “Yes,” he said. “What’s life, after all, if it’s not an adventure? And what could be better than taking that adventure together?”
CHAPTER 26
Epilogue
Luke had never imagined he’d have a wedding day, much less a flash one.
He and Hayden—and George, the marmalade cat—had settled on living in Wanaka, in the end. In his opinion, the most beautiful place in the world, in his home soil of Otago, pretty cosmopolitan for New Zealand, and with a healthy population of rich people needing both luxury homes and contracts. All good, and living with somebody who loved you—really loved you—was even better.
And still, on the early-autumn day when he’d got down on one knee on the shores of Lake Wanaka at sunset with the Southern Alps ranged in the background, he’d asked the question with his heart in his throat and nothing in him believing he could be this lucky.
But Hayden had said yes.
Luke had suggested, when they’d got around to discussing the actual “wedding” part, which took some time, because he’d had to be giddy for a while first, “Keep it small and simple, probably, so there’s no fuss.”
Hayden had looked at him searchingly. At least Luke thought that was what it was, though Hayden could just have been enjoying his crème brûlée with passionfruit pulp and mango and coconut gelato. They were in Bistro Gentil at the time. Modern French cuisine with New Zealand meat and produce—what could be better? Especially if you didn’t have to pretend it wasn’t romantic.
“Is that really what you want,” Hayden asked, “or what you think your parents would want?”
So—searchingly, not just excellent crème brûlée.
“I don’t know,” Luke admitted.
“You don’t want to invite your rugby teammates?” Hayden asked. “Our friends here? Have a party, with dancing and all, now that we know how to do the tango? Admit that you were created just for me?”
“Well, yeh,” Luke said. “But …”
“How about if we embrace it?” Hayden asked. “Go on and be, you know, out and proud. Ask some of the big queer mags if they’d be interested in sponsoring it, maybe. First major international rugby player to come out while he was still playing, getting married with his teammates from three countries cheering him on? That’s a story. Also much cheaper.”
Luke had to smile. “I know I’m marrying a Kiwi now, anyway.”
“Family’s the people who want you,” Hayden said. “Not the ones who don’t. If your parents think our big, glam gay wedding is disgusting and rubbing people’s nose in our fabulous gayness and they’ll never be able to show their faces again, or if my dad thinks so, isn’t that their loss? You know Nyree and Kane and Zora will be there. So your dad won’t drive a few hours from Dunedin. So we never spend Christmas with your family again, or with my parents, either, though my mum’s going to put her foot down about that, it’s pretty clear, and drag my dad along whatever he says. Don’t we want to have Christmas, and our wedding, too, with the people who actually love us? Loving somebody isn’t accepting them only if they live the way you want. If we …”
“If we what?” Luke asked. He wouldn’t say he was comfortable, exactly, but he was riveted. Hayden had that effect on him. It was like his world had opened up. Like you’d got specs for the first time and could see all the colors and the leaves on the trees.
Now, Hayden was the one who wasn’t looking comfortable. “Well, I want to say it, so I’m going to say it. What are we, if we’re not honest?”
Luke covered Hayden’s hand with his. “Some people have said, since I came out, that I’ve got mana. I don’t have half the mana you do. Go on and say it.”
“If we ever want to have kids,” Hayden said. “Adopt, use a surrogate, whatever. Isn’t that what we want to show them? Would we only love them, accept them, if they turned out to be queer?”
Luke sat stock-still. “No,” he said.
“No?” Hayden rocked back a bit, then rallied. “OK, then. Just an idea.”
“I don’t mean—I don’t mean no,” Luke said. “Not that I don’t want to do that. Maybe I’d want to, if I knew how. If I thought I could love a kid right, and have a … a happy home. I mean, no, of course I wouldn’t only love them if they played rugby, or loved the right person, or were as clever and beautiful as you, or whatever you’re thinking. Though I think that if we go for surrogacy, we should use your sperm.” He tried to smile. It wasn’t easy. “They’d be prettier, anyway.”
“But if they had yours,” Hayden said, “they’d be strong. Never mind, we don’t have to decide now. OK, then. Back to this glamorous wedding that’s going to set the world alight.” Trying to be brisk, to be funny, as if he’d opened his heart too fully.
Luke loved him so much, it actually hurt. He remembered that cold, rainy Christmas, when he’d run through Newcastle with Kane, day after day, unable to visualize life in New Zealand with only his dad for company, the bleakness in his heart matching the weather. He’d tried to imagine what happy families did at home, how they spent their time, and failed. Now, he knew. “I want to do what makes you happy,” he said. “If that’s a big wedding, that’s what I want. And I’d like to dance with you.” He could see it, suddenly. He could see the photos, and the emails from teenagers, the ones that said, “Thanks for letting me know it’s OK.” The ones that told him those kids didn’t feel so alone anymore, because there was a rugby star who was like them.
Now, he stood beside Hayden in front of the lake and the mountains on a warm December afternoon, two years to the day after they’d met, under a floral arbor that Zora and Rhys and the kids had spent the morning decorating, all crimson, white, and gold. Everything about them saying, “We’re here, we’re doing this, and we aren’t one bit ashamed to tell you so.” Wearing charcoal trousers and a white dress shirt so fine, you could pass it through his wedding ring, looking at Hayden wearing the same thing, and not worrying about how many rugby players were watching him do this, or that his parents weren’t happy, even though they’d come. Just grateful that the people he cared about most had decided they wanted to be here.
