Rhapsody on a Theme (12 page)

He drove—the flash car, this year, was an Audi with the latest plates—with pop music on the radio, and Jayden took the front passenger seat to let Darren slowly wake up properly in the back, blinking drowsily at the outside world. At least he wasn’t particularly grumpy—yet, for him—about the caffeine withdrawal, and Jayden was used to dealing with a tired Darren anyway.

Maybe he won’t be so tired when he gets better
, that little voice in the back of Jayden’s mind suggested, and he bit his lip.
If he gets better
. It had been too many years for Jayden to quite believe that Darren was ever going to be completely fine for good, but…he’d take some of the time.

“Okay?” Paul asked, swinging the car too sharply around a corner, and Jayden clutched the door and pushed the musings away.

“I will be once we’re
there
,” he sniped, and Darren chuckled lowly from the back.

“Your driving sucks,” he said.

“I never tried to take my car off the road.”

Jayden’s head snapped around. “What?”

Paul grimaced.

“Cheers,” Darren said sourly, and Jayden twisted in his seat to stare at him.

“What does he mean, take your car off the road?” Jayden demanded.

“Later,” Darren said as Paul parked—or rather, zipped into an on-street parking bay and hauled on the handbrake whilst
still
holding down the accelerator, and letting the car make an alarming noise. “
Later
, Jayden, all right? We’ve got shit to do, and it’s not important.”

Jayden pursed his lips as he got out, and snapped, “You’re going to explain as
soon
as we’re done here,” the minute that he got out of the car. Darren winced.

“It’s old,” he said flatly, then a shop door opened and Ethan came loping out, cheering and grabbing them both around the necks in a joint hug. He hadn’t changed much either—a little weight gain, a long overdue haircut, and finally learning what jeans were instead of fancy linen things—but the same enthusiastic greeting and wide grin full of childish glee. The same floppy poshness to his hair and lanky gait. The same
smile
that made him look stupid—and yet, like Paul, his intelligence always startled Jayden afresh every time.

“You,” Ethan prodded Darren in the chest. “You gonna play at my shindig or what?”

“Working on it,” Darren said and smacked the hand away. “Depends on what you’re making me wear. I’m not going to be looking like a pouf.”

“You
are
a pouf,” Paul pointed out.

Ethan waved them towards the shop. It was a professional tailoring shop, complete with musty smell and shelves of random fabrics and shirts, and Ethan handed a slip of paper to the hovering attendant. “We kind of guessed your sizes,” he said and leaned against the counter, grinning widely. “You get to meet her tonight!”

“Lucky us,” Darren said dryly.

“Bitch,” Ethan said and grabbed Darren’s hair to haul him into a long-overdue hug. Despite the secondment, they hadn’t actually seen each other since
last
Christmas, thanks to work.

“Get off me,” Darren grumbled, tolerating the attention for maybe a minute before shoving him away. “You’re like a massive kid, seriously. And congrats on the hitched thing, however long
that’s
going to last.”

“You wound me,” Ethan said, punching him in the arm. “Still gay?”

“Still stupid?”

“Ignore the bitch, he’s being weaned off caffeine,” Paul said, and Ethan smirked wickedly.

“Fuck you.” Darren rolled his eyes. “So what’s your bird like then?”

“Lillian,” Ethan said and beamed. “Brilliant. Like amazing.”

“Rich? Stunning? Plays polo at weekends carrying a glass of champagne? Tits like…”

“Darren!” Jayden exclaimed.

“…a couple of Waitrose’s best watermelons?” Darren finished ruthlessly, and Paul cackled with laughter.

“None of the above.” Ethan rolled his eyes. “She’s a jewellery designer, she’s from Devon, and she’s amazing in bed.”

“…And she’s fucking you?” Darren asked incredulously. Jayden rolled his eyes in admonishment. “What? It’s a legit question.”

“She is, and she’s amazing,” Ethan reiterated firmly, handing a receipt to the tailor, who scurried into a back room with it. “Even if she does have a weird thing for ribbed condoms,” he added after a moment’s thought.

“So does he,” Darren jerked a thumb at Jayden, who flushed furiously and hit him. “Ow! What! You do!”

“That doesn’t mean the whole world has to know!” Jayden protested hotly, flushing harder when Paul laughed. “At least I don’t
have
to have the right flavoured lube.”

“That blueberry one was
rank
,” Darren said calmly.

“Why was it in your mouth in the first place?” Paul asked, then winced. “No. No, no, no. Forget I asked.”

“Because I was ea…”

“No!”

“I have a very talented mouth,” Darren said and grinned when Paul put his hands over his ears and sang loudly. “Jesus, when’d you get prudish?”

“I don’t want to imagine it!”

“You can’t,” Darren said. “It’s epic. Especially when…”

Paul hit him. Darren laughed. “Fuck yes!” Ethan said and leaned around the other two to ask Jayden, “Why ribbed?”

“Feels good,” Jayden shrugged, the angry heat fading slowly from his face. He felt a little uncomfortable, truth be told, about airing that kind of detail in public, even in front of friends, but the anguished expression on Paul’s face was just too sadistically funny to
completely
pass up, so…maybe he could at least understand why Darren had said it. And anyway, he
could
have said worse, all things considered…

“Doesn’t feel any different to me.”

“Because you’re
wearing
them, I assume,” Darren said tartly.

“Well, yeah.”

“Have her screw you with one and then…”

“Darren!” Jayden admonished as the tailor came back in, caught the sentence, and coughed in an embarrassed sort of way.

“Ah, yes, ah, here are the, ah, items that you requested, Mr. Summerskill…”

‘The items’ were piles of soft grey cloth and some wrapped shirts that looked to be the loose-around-the-sleeves type.

"Lillian picked them out,” Ethan said, shoving one pile at Darren. “I even found a matching sling on Amazon in case you and your war wound decide to be a spaz.”

“I haven’t worn a sling in
years
,” Darren said, rolling his eyes, but took the bundle and was shown into a changing cubicle by the embarrassed tailor. Jayden hovered for a minute, then settled on a chair in the corner to wait as Paul disappeared into the neighbouring slot.

“Are you not part of the wedding party?” the tailor asked.

“Oh, um, no, not really,” Jayden said. “I mean, you know, Ethan’s a friend, but um, we’re not that close.” He began to chew on the edge of his thumbnail, worrying over Paul’s remark in the car. When had Darren tried to go off-road? His car wouldn’t be able to go off-road even if he wanted to, it was a second-hand Vauxhall previously wrecked by Scott with less-than-awesome suspension, and Darren wasn’t exactly the off-roading
type
. He thought nature was boring and ugly and preferred to stay inside ‘where the warm is.’

Jayden just…had a bad feeling.

Luckily for Jayden and his bad feelings, Darren stepped out first, hair messier than usual thanks to changing in a hurry, and transformed by a pale grey, slightly-too-large suit. The trousers were a little long in the leg, but cupped his arse perfectly, and the shirt was that almost-Edwardian style with baggy sleeves and a nearly blouse-like appearance.

“Bit gay, isn’t it?” was Darren’s ignorant opinion, and Jayden snorted.

“Bit gorgeous, actually,” he said and smiled, eyeing him from socks to curls. “That’ll look really good once they fit it properly.” The tie was a deep, royal blue—Jayden guessed he knew the colour scheme—and maybe a light green would have been better for Darren’s eyes, but it was still pretty good against the pale grey and white of the rest of it. He tidied up beautifully; he always had, but Jayden had…semi-forgotten. “No, that’s good.”

“I know you,” Darren said flatly. “What’s wrong with it?”

“A bit loose,” Jayden hummed, plucking at the shirt fabric between finger and thumb. “I don’t know. Maybe a waistcoat or something. Is there a suit jacket?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, put it on.”

The tailor chuckled over Jayden’s shoulder, and Darren rolled his eyes. “Why? I’m only going to wear the jacket in the church.”

“Just put it on.”

Darren disappeared briefly and came back out shrugging the jacket on awkwardly. His left shoulder had never relearned the smoothness of that motion, and Jayden hitched the fabric a little higher into place, humming.

“Mm,” he said. “No, it’s good. It looks good.
You
look good.”

“Watch it, frizzy,” Paul said, emerging from his own cubicle and grinning in an identically coloured tuxedo. “Check it
out
, ladies. Do I look hot or do I look hot?”

“Where’s the ‘you look like a twat’ option?” Darren asked and got cuffed around the head for his efforts. “Charming.”

“Shut your face. I’m like the second most important dude at this wedding.”

“After the usher.”

“After the
groom
, bell-end.”

The groom himself emerged in another pale grey tuxedo, and Jayden saw the real sense in the colour choice: with his fair hair and bright blue eyes, Ethan looked surprisingly stunning in the new get-up, and Darren pinched Jayden’s arm with a smirk. “Eyes,” he said. “Back in your head.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jayden muttered and huffed. “Well, I suppose it’s as close as you’re going to get for a good colour scheme for the three of you.” He couldn’t imagine three men with
less
similar colouring. Not unless Ethan had a pair of Chinese ushers on the sly or something.

“That’s the nearest you’re going to get to a compliment, man,” Paul said, clapping Ethan on the shoulder.

“Lillian chose them.”

“Shall we start with you, sir?” the tailor interrupted smoothly, selecting Darren out of the collective and wielding a tape measure like it was an offensive weapon. “A good fit is paramount for such important occasions.”

Jayden stood still long enough to watch Darren get measured up, mostly to offer assistance in holding Darren’s damaged arm up at a right angle to his body. The arm started to shake violently at seventy degrees, never mind ninety, and he certainly couldn’t have held it there for the five minutes it took the tailor to record his chest measurements, so Jayden held it for him, and stopped him complaining too much at the prodding and poking.

“I’m getting married naked,” Darren decided when Jayden dropped his arm again and he was dismissed from the footstool.

“Like hell you are,” Paul said. “Mankini is the way to go.”

Jayden wrinkled his nose. “With that lovely mental image, I’ll be outside,” he said. “It’s stuffy in here. Come and fetch me when you’re done?” he added, catching Darren’s wrist before he disappeared back into the cubicle.

“Sure.”

Despite the chilly and meagre start, it had turned into a nice day outside: bright and sunny, bitingly cold, and windless. Jayden huddled into his coat for the warmth and paced along the quiet street, peering in at the various windows—mostly high-end formal clothing stores, the odd expensive handbag shop which he ignored, and several jewellers’ with watches and rings at London prices. He’d grown to quite like shopping when he’d been at Bristol, mostly because he’d learned where all the little nooks and crannies were that hid the quieter, quirkier sort of shops. (Plus he had to like it, because Darren never did it.) But London shopping…not so much.

He wandered across the road to a jeweller’s window, banks of watches and rings glittering invitingly. He’d never been much one for jewellery—he fidgeted with things too much so he’d have lost them within a few days—but he liked to look anyway. Rings especially. Mum still wore her engagement ring next to her wedding ring, and as a little kid he’d loved twisting it around on her finger to see the stones shimmering. These were even more beautiful—silver instead of gold, blues and greens instead of red, and his eyes drifted to the sapphires—his birthstone—and wondered what they’d look like if he wore them. It would look ridiculous, probably, because men wearing jewellery always did, but he
wondered
all the same.

“Something I should know?”

He jumped; Darren smirked, having returned to his usual jacket-and-jeans combination, and slid a strong arm low around Jayden’s hips. “Arse,” Jayden grumbled, and Darren chuckled.

“What’re you looking at anyway?”

“The window, what do you think?”

“Better have been the watches,” Darren said. “At least they have a purpose.”

“Rings have a purpose.”

“Which is?”

“Telling someone you’re taken.”

“That’s what your mouth is for.”

“At a
distance
.”

“You’re taken right now, so why aren’t you wearing one?” Darren asked tartly.

“Because you never bought me one,” Jayden retorted.

“I am not paying six hundred pounds for a twisted bit of metal with some glass glued on the top,” Darren said, jabbing his finger at one such offending specimen.

“Those are
emeralds
.”

“Green bits of glass,” Darren maintained stubbornly, and Jayden pinched him before relaxing into his shoulder and dropping his head so that his hair pressed against Darren’s cheek. “You okay?”

“Mm,” Jayden said. “Just a bit tired, maybe. Or hungry. And a bit wistful.”

“Wistful how?”

Jayden shrugged. “I don’t know. Ethan’s lucky. I mean, I know you’re sceptical and everything and I am too, a little bit, but Ethan’s not entirely stupid, and he’s obviously head over heels for Lillian and…I don’t know. I think he’s lucky, just
finding
the girl he wants to marry like that.”