The Best Man: Part Two (5 page)

Three seconds later, Noah’s following him. He’s planning on doing the Christmas food shop this afternoon, and he needs to ask Connor what alcohol he wants.

Only Connor’s already vanished like a damn designer-clad ninja and Noah’s left standing there, sighing, considering calling him instead.

Then his attention’s caught by Patrick once again, who’s now making his way down the steps that lead to the flats above the coffee house. Noah walks over to him, frowning in confusion.

“What were you doing up there?”

Patrick stops at the bottom of the steps, puts his hands in his pockets. “Just checking something out.”

“Lenny lives up there,” Noah says suspiciously. “You weren’t trying to scope out the competition, were you?”

Patrick blinks, then shakes his head. “What competition are we supposed to be having, exactly?”

“Fuck if I know,” Noah says, laughing. “Best stag night maybe? Lenny’s a bit intense about being the best at everything.”

“Right, good to know.”

Patrick seems lighter, less guarded, now that they’re alone. His expression more open, his eyes brighter.

“Don’t worry,” Noah teases, giving the front of Patrick’s shirt a little tug, “I’m sure you can more than hold your own.”

“I wasn’t worried, but thanks.” Patrick smiles at him, and stares at him for a moment, before his eyes clear and he takes a breath. “What are you doing now?”

“About to go shopping actually. Christmas food. You?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nope,” says Patrick. “Free agent.”

The way he says it gives Noah the impression that maybe he’s hinting, and Noah, tummy swirling pleasantly, goes with it.

“Do you wanna, uh…give me a hand?”

“Food shopping?” Patrick asks, and Noah nods. “No.”

“Oh…”

“I hate supermarkets.”

“I get it.”

He goes to take a step back, inappropriately disheartened by the blunt rejection. Stupidly, a part of him assumed Patrick would always want to spend the time with him, regardless of what they were doing. Recent events have given him a false sense of importance, it seems.

His step back leads him into the path of a young woman. He didn’t see her coming, but he feels her wrath as he steps on the toes of her bright pink, sky-high heels. She snarls at him and spits venom before stomping off, Noah and Patrick watching her go with their eyebrows raised.

Funny, really, how oblivious he is to other people whenever he’s looking at Patrick.

Funnier still that Patrick didn’t notice her approach.

The interlude has filled Noah with a bit of his previously dwindling confidence, and he steps up to Patrick again, adopts a slow half-smile. “What if I begged?” he asks, dropping his voice. Patrick’s eyes narrow for him, twinkling. “You know Connor better than me. You must’ve had tons of Christmases with him. You know what he eats and drinks and everything.”

“You don’t know this stuff?”

“I’ve never spent Christmas with him before.”

“Right,” says Patrick, tilting his head to the side. “Because you’ve only known him for six months. And you’re marrying him.”

“You really need to get over that.”

“I think you’re both idiots.”

“I’m aware.” He smiles again, and he pinches the front of Patrick’s shirt in his fingers, pulls on it. “Are you coming then?”

Patrick blows out a huffing breath, rubs his forehead. “Fine,” he grumps, hand coming up to Noah’s forearm where he’s holding his shirt, curls his fingers around the bones of his wrist. “But you’ll owe me.”

Noah grins, heart lifting high in his chest. “Yep, sure, forever in your debt.”

“Don’t think I won’t cash in, Noah,” Patrick says, smirking, and he takes the first step forward as Noah pulls on his shirt.

Noah leads him along by his shirt, walking backwards, grinning up into the expression of soft amusement on Patrick’s face. “Just tell me when,” he croons, Patrick’s eyes flashing in response. And then he catches sight of Ron watching him funnily through the window of the shop, and he suddenly realises what he’s doing, how this must look.

He lets go and turns, Patrick eyeing him curiously at the abruptness of it.

* * * * *

Food shopping with Patrick is an experience. He pushes the trolley along like he’s heading for the gallows, scowling at everything, sighing obscenely loudly whenever Noah takes just a bit too long to choose an item. Noah’s endlessly amused by it, takes the piss out of him, calls him Grandpa and Grumpy and Princess, gets filthy looks and pokes in the ribs for his trouble. He doesn’t brighten until they reach the cake aisle, and Noah ends up with a trolley full of diabetes, shakes his head and rolls his eyes each time Patrick drops another dose of sugar in there.

They have a minor scuffle at the checkout when packing, Noah trying to create some kind of order while Patrick throws everything in haphazardly. He plants his hands flat on Patrick’s chest and pushes him back and tells him to stay put and keep his hands off, and Patrick’s eyes are dancing for him, amused and darkened and making Noah’s heart skip.

They get home and Patrick helps him unpack and they edge around each other in the kitchen, knocking together and sliding past, Patrick’s hand gliding over his hip as he reaches around him to put the milk away, fingertips slipping under the hem of his t-shirt.

Afterwards he makes Patrick wash his hands and then sets him up with a bowl of mince and flour and onions and herbs, shuffles in next to him in the corner and shows him how to make a meatball.

“Once you’ve squashed it into a meatball shape,” he says, demonstrating, “just roll the ball in your hands until it’s nice and tight.”

Patrick smirks and Noah looks up at him, face warming, breathing a laugh.

“Why does everything I do with you sound like innuendo?”

“Guess I just have that effect on you,” Patrick murmurs.

“Hello, people,” Connor says, coming in. Noah didn’t even hear the door open. He steps away from Patrick. “This smells
good
, Jesus. Patrick—are you actually cooking right now?”

“I’m making meatballs,” he says, holding up a lump of mince. “Cooking’s a bit of an overstatement.”

Connor comes up behind Noah and places a kiss on the side of his neck. “Who knew you’d be the one to domesticate big, bad Patrick Walsh.”

Noah snorts. “There’s nothing big or bad about him.”

“Uh oh,” says Connor to Patrick. “He’s seen through your bullshit. You’re losing your touch.”

“Well fuck me,” Patrick says mildly, too busy making the perfect meatball to react any further to Connor’s teasing.

Noah suddenly feels claustrophobic here in this little kitchen, with Patrick and his dexterous hands moulding the meat on one side, Connor crowding in close behind. “Shut up the pair of you and get out of my kitchen,” he says, and Patrick casts him a woeful look.

“But…I was helping.”

“And now you’re just in the way,” Noah says, flapping his hands at the pair of them to get them out.

Patrick glares at Connor. “You ruin all the fun.”

Noah makes dinner while Connor and Patrick watch football, like the manly men they think they are, and after they sit and eat and have too much wine. Patrick does the dishes while Noah sits at the breakfast bar and talks to him, Connor vanishing like he always does when the topic of household chores presents itself, and then they put on a film and the three of them squash onto the couch to watch it.

Connor takes his hand halfway through the movie, but it’s Patrick’s arm brushing against his on the other side that makes his tummy flip, and he doesn’t pay much attention to the film, his mind toiling with confusion.

* * * * *

Christmas comes and goes.

He goes with Lenny to the tux fitting on the Friday, and then they have lunch together, and he spends the evening putting up Christmas decorations alone with Patrick. He puts on festive music, which Patrick grumbles about, but he spends ages manipulating the branches of the tree into the correct angles, so Noah doesn’t think he’s as averse to the holiday as he makes out. They hang lights around the tree and then tinsel and balls, and Noah takes a picture of Patrick placing the star on top. He gets up on a chair after to hang garlands around the room, Patrick holding his waist the whole time to ensure he doesn’t fall, giving him the odd inappropriate tickle to make him jolt and nearly slip, laughing each time he steadies him.

Connor doesn’t come home until late and when he does, he goes straight to bed, barely commenting on the decorations. Patrick and Noah sit up and watch telly and eat mince pies, then Patrick gets out a deck of cards and tries to teach Noah how to cheat at poker. It dissolves into Patrick calling him useless, and then Noah’s throwing all the cards at him in mock offense, and then he’s on the floor sheepishly picking them up, crawling around; he feels Patrick’s eyes on him and there’s a chance he might stick his bum out a bit more, curve his back low like a bow. When he looks back at Patrick over his shoulder, his eyes are dark, and they’re pinned on him.

They get out another bottle of wine and they stick on
Elf
because Patrick’s never seen it and Noah thinks that’s a tragedy, and it’s three in the morning before Noah’s dozing off, vaguely aware of Patrick tucking a blanket around him and brushing fingers through his hair, before switching the TV off and going to bed.

He wakes up much later in solitude and darkness, teeth chattering with cold. The surface beneath him is hard like stone, unforgiving against his bones. He tries to sit up but he can't get the leverage, can't get his hands on the ground to push because they’re tied, trapped behind his back. Panic floods him, and the adrenaline aids him in rolling to his side and lifting up on one strained elbow. He can’t see much, but he can see the sharp glint of metal bars surrounding him on all sides and above.

He’s in a cage, and he can’t move.

A whimper escapes him, and then he freezes when footsteps echo in the silence. He sits there unmoving, as if doing so will render him invisible; then the footsteps draw closer before coming to a sudden stop. He doesn’t know where this person is, and the cold is seeping into his bones, and terror is rising within him like a tide.

He can’t stop the shout from bursting out of his mouth when something
thunks
onto his head from above. He hisses as pain blossoms, feels what could be the dent of broken skin beginning to seep blood instantly, and the thing that hit him rolls away on the ground before resting in the corner of this cage.

He squints through the darkness, frowning when he realises what the thing is.

It’s a coin. A single, perfectly rounded coin.

He’s barely made the discovery before another one hits the top of his head like a leaded weight and he grunts with the pain, trying to duck away from it. The second coin rolls off him and in the opposite direction, and then another hits his head, and then another, and then they start falling like rain all over him and around him, breaking his skin and catching painfully against bone.

He cries out against the storm of it, hundreds of these gold and silver coins thundering down around him, tries to curl into a ball and duck his head in and beg for it to end—only he can’t speak. He can shout and he can scream but he can't say words. Each time he tries to say
stop
or
please
or
no
, it’s as though something solid and invisible compresses his tongue, choking him.

A sudden pinpoint of light catches his eye and he stares at it like a lifeline. It’s a light coming from nowhere, and it’s settled on one single spot a metre away from this cage. The light is there to show Noah a key, the key to this cage, the most beautiful key he has ever seen, and he sobs for it and pulls on the rope tying his arms but he can’t get it, this perfect key he wants so much, more than anything else in all of existence—he can’t get it, because he’s trapped in this cage, and his hands are tied, and there’s something stopping him from speaking, and all around him coins fall like a stampede, filling this cage, drowning him in gold—

“Noah!”

Noah comes into consciousness all at once and the relief that floods him is so powerful he can’t contain it. He reaches out blindly and grabs hold of the arm shaking him awake, pulls on it as he half sits and half collapses against a solid chest, buries his face in the curve of shoulder and neck. He’s being surrounded by the strong arms of protection and he breathes against warm skin, shaking, willing the terror of his nightmare away.

“You okay?”

The voice in his ear is not Connor’s. It's the warm timbre of Patrick’s murmur and he should pull away now but he doesn’t, not yet, just a few more moments.

“Hey,” says Patrick, and he’s smoothing a hand up and down Noah’s back, rubbing the relief of reality into his skin, his scent here in the curve of his neck washing through Noah’s senses like a cleansing tonic.

When his heart rate returns to something resembling normal, he pulls back, looks into Patrick’s face. Embarrassment edges at him but he ignores it. He’s had a nightmare, and Patrick’s awoken him. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.