Ollie Always (4 page)

“Eyes? Road maybe?”

Ollie jumped and focused once more on the tarmac disappearing at an alarming rate beneath them. “I was checking you were still straight. In the car.”

“I am very much so. Thank you for asking.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You do know no one can ever say you’re welcome without sounding like a total git, yeah?”

“Was that a rhetorical question?”

Skint frowned for a moment as if he didn’t understand this, but suddenly fished in the pocket of his jeans. “I got you something. To say sorry. Again.”

“What is it?”

He began to unfold a piece of paper. “I went online. Worst titles for books ever. I thought it might cheer you up about Stranger in a Strange Land.”

“Or Adventures in Shit?”

“Absolutely.”

“Go on then.”

“Eyes? Road?”

“Sheesh. Go on.”

“Cooking with Poo.”

“No way!”

“It’s true!”

“Jesus.”

“The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories.”

“Oh, my God! No! Lesbian horses? How would they know? Ugh, imagine that scene…”

“Okay, these two would make good bookends: Men With Balls and Goodbye Testicles. Eyes! Road!”

“You are totally making these up.”

“I assure you I’m not. How could I make up Games You Can Play With Your Pussy?”

“Stop! I’ll crash!”

“Also by the same author: The Muffin Muncher. But possibly my all time favourite: The Best Dad is a Good Lover.”

Ollie flicked him a quick look, frowning. “Your lover is…no, wait. It’s best if your…or…what the fuck?”

Skint laughed. “So, Stranger in a Strange Land sounds like a pretty cool book to me.”

“Yeah.” Ollie chuckled then drew in a sharp breath when Skint folded the list once more and then tucked it into
his
shirt pocket.

They were silent for a while, Skint apparently admiring the scenery, and Ollie thinking about the tiny hole in Skint’s faded jeans—all the things that little rupture made him want to do.

“So, what’s at the end of this peninsular?”

“Chile.”

“Huh?”

“There’s nothing. That’s kinda the point. It’s the last bit of land between here and Chile.”

“Jesus. That’s a long way. Big ocean.”

“Yeah. It’s kinda awesome here really.”

“Or lonely.”

Ollie risked another glance. It didn’t need to be.

§§§

After their whistle-stop tour of Dunedin’s main attraction, they returned to the city via the lower harbour road, and Ollie took it more sedately, only too well aware that locals were regularly pulled out of the water as they drove off the unmarked and unprotected edge of the road.

Skint was squinting into his side mirror at a large off-road Toyota behind them. “I think he needs to pass. Maybe pull over?”

Ollie shook his head. “No, he’s fine.”

Another few minutes passed, and suddenly Skint drew in a sharp, hissed breath. “Fucking hell, he’s going to ram us!”

“Don’t panic. It’s just a thing here.”

“What do you mean? A thing where? What thing?”

“Tailgating. They drive with their front bumper almost touching your exhaust. All the time. Regardless of speed or conditions.” Ollie suddenly had a vision of little cartoon cars doing this in a movie, lips for bumper, asshole for exhaust pipe, and one character complaining to another, “Gay or what, dude?” He chuckled quietly and then sighed. “Don’t worry about it. It happens every single time you go out here. You either have to accept it or…”

“Or what?”

“This.” He indicated, waited for a suitable place, and then pulled over, politely waiting for the car to pass. It didn’t. It came to a halt behind them. Skint began to laugh incredulously, and he twisted right around in his seat to eyeball the driver in the Toyota. “What the fuck is he doing?”

“Probably waiting to see why we pulled over. If there’s something in it for him.”

Ollie indicated again, checked his mirrors and continued driving. Within a moment, they had their tow again.

Skint sank back into the soft black leather and pursed his lips. “This isn’t exactly like England but back to front, is it?”

“Nope.”

“Stranger in a Strange Land. I’m liking it more and more.”

“Hungry?”

“Always. What do you recommend?”

“What’s your budget?”

“Kinda that. Budget.”

Ollie hesitated, then said quickly, as if it were of no consequence, “My treat? For saving my life? Or my dignity anyway.”

Skint shrugged. “Okay, but next time’s on me.”

Next time.

Ollie kept his grin to himself and decided to test the Toyota driver’s acceleration.

§§§

Tossing up between Italian and Scottish, the Scottish restaurant won, mainly because they did homemade shortbread in cute tins to go. Ollie was running out of shortbread. He’d been using a lot recently.

They took their seats, and Skint said under his breath, “Not very popular then.”

Ollie frowned. “What? This is busy.”

“Huh?”

“We’re here.”

They ordered, and Ollie decided alcohol was necessary. He had a terrible feeling that their small talk was rapidly drying up. Fun so far, but he’d been here with other guys, well one, anyway, and this was the point where things had swung to more private matters, and that had ruined everything. He felt it coming now. Good friendship while it’d lasted.

“Why did you come to New Zealand? You don’t seem to like it very much.”

Ollie tried to resist the urge to shrug, as he’d used that expression a lot that morning whilst covering for deeper emotions. He played with the salt and pepper instead. “I needed to get away. Get some space.”

“I guess you got that.”

Ollie snorted softly. “That I did.”

“But how did you…? I mean, I got here using the skills shortage list. Are writers in short supply here?”

Bugger
. Ollie shook his head and mumbled, “Investor list.”

Skint sat back in his chair. “You came here as an investor? But that means you…”
Yeah. Exactly.
Ten million dollars. Ollie tried to make himself smaller in his chair, which wasn’t easy at slightly shy of six foot.

“Okay. Wow. Lunch
is
on you then.”

Still inwardly squirming, Ollie countered with, “What’s your skill then that they’re so desperately in need of? Running?”

Thinking this was almost witty, cutting anyway, Ollie was extremely annoyed when the other man replied quite happily, “Yeah. Well, fitness, I guess. I’m a fitness instructor.”

Fucking hell.
Typical
.

“I guess that kept you busy—in the army. What with all the going to exotic locations and—?”

“Killing people?” Skint chuckled, whether at Ollie’s deliberate attempt to be rude or at the old joke, Ollie couldn’t tell. “You definitely need to be fit and have physical courage to kill someone.”

“No, you don’t. You can do it when you’re drunk and driving too fast.” It was out before he’d meant to say it, and to cover, Ollie turned swiftly in his chair and announced to the empty room, “I need to go…” He rose slightly clumsily and made his way to the toilets, threading his way through the tables, feeling the weight of Skint’s gaze upon the back of his neck.

He stared at himself in the little mirror over the sink as he washed his hands. Eleven thousand miles. How much further could he run? He pressed one finger to his skull, drilling it in. Was the memory of Ed there? Here? Where was this pain? Why couldn’t he dig it out? He snarled at his reflection, liking the distortion to the perfection. He’d hated the exquisite beauty of his face since he was seven years old.

§§§

The silence was a little uncomfortable when he returned, this mitigated slightly when the food arrived and they could comment on each other’s meals, their own, and make very light, inconsequential chat about the wine. After his earlier comment, Ollie was careful not to guzzle the chilled liquid quite as fast as he’d been planning to.

Skint had ordered steak, and Ollie watched as he carefully separated out the chunky chips and slid them onto another plate and then scraped off every drop of sauce. Skint saw him observing and pushed the side plate a little further away, then commented dryly, “Sorry. Bit of a waste.”

“Not hungry?”

“I don’t eat anything processed—or carbohydrates.”

Ollie, his mouth full of his own chips, which he’d smothered in salt and vinegar, mumbled, “Why?”

Skint frowned. “They’re incredibly harmful to the human body.”

Ollie swallowed and shovelled in another large mouthful. “Why?”

“We didn’t evolve to eat…”

“You think we evolved?”

Skint stopped what was obviously a fairly well-rehearsed food rant. Ollie repressed a smirk. “Huh? You…what…believe in
creation
?”

Keeping his face straight, Ollie used his knife for emphasis, waving it slightly in illustrative circles. “Think about it. Feathers. Flying.”

“What? Sorry?”

“Birds. If evolution were true—these little mutations that proved useful and so got bred and bred and eventually became the norm and, hey presto, we all advance—how do you explain feathers?”

Skint clearly had never explained feathers in his life, so Ollie helped him out. “The first proto-feather wouldn’t have been much use, would it? On a lizard. What, he wakes up one day and finds this weird little lump, all itchy and ugly, and thinks, whoa, this’ll be a feather one day. I’d better crawl on over and hump my girlfriend so our babies can have ugly little lumps, too. Nope, can’t see it happening. Spontaneously turning into a bird; now that would be cool. Evolution? Pile of pooh. If you ask me.”

“So…you think…?”

“Stranded alien humanoids. Hopefully James Caviezel. It’s obvious. Only explanation. So, tell me about this training stuff you do. Besides running.”

Skint appeared to realise his steak was getting cold, so he cut a piece and began chewing. He kept giving little glances to his rejected chips as if asking them to solve a puzzle. “Aliens?”

Ollie began to laugh. He had to lean back in his chair, his napkin over his mouth.

Skint sagged. “You bugger.”

“Had you going, though. You want pudding? Oh, I forgot. No sugar. Sheesh, I’m glad I’m not your b…” He covered quickly by taking a large swallow of wine and finished, “I think I’ll have one.”

Apparently happy to let Ollie’s slip go, Skint shook his head. “Where the fuck do you put it all? You look like heroin chic is coming back into fashion; you pass out running a tune in your head, but you eat like there’s an apocalypse chasing you. How the hell aren’t you on
My 600lb Life
?”

“Good jeans.”

“Seriously. You think genetic makeup can overcome—?”

“
Jeans
—with a J. They’re designer. You get what you pay for.”

Skint blew out his cheeks and drank some water. Ollie waved the waitress over. He ordered the largest and most sugary thing he could find on the menu, and as she was leaving, added on two tins of shortbread. Better safe than sorry as his mother always told him.

But not in the context of shortbread.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ollie gave Skint a very quick tour of the highlights of Dunedin’s city centre, telling him not to blink or he’d miss them, and then he took him the long way home along Three Mile Hill, a road which went over Dunedin’s steep suburbs into the valley behind the city and wound its way back up over the distinct range of almost-mountains, which ran all the way along the coastline.

“You going to write later?”

Ollie roused from deep contemplation of all the things he’d wished he said over their meal, and all the replies he could almost hear the other man giving him. “Write?”
Damn it.
He hadn’t meant to make that sound like, “
Write? Hardly!
” He corrected himself with a casual, “Yeah, probably. Why?”

“Thought I might try out the waves. Do you surf?”

Ollie’s eyes opened wide. “Yes. The net.”

“Seriously, we’ve got one of the world’s finest surfing beaches within walking distance.”

Ollie risked a turn of his head. “It’s October!”

“Spring. Good waves.”

“No. It’s
October
.”

They were turning into Skint’s driveway.

“So are you coming? I thought I’d run over, and we could walk up the beach from your place.”

Ollie closed his eyes then remembered he was driving and opened them swiftly. “I’d rather just watch, but come on over, sure.”

“Well, I’ll bring two boards in case you change your mind.”

I won’t.

He did a turn around in front of the house, and Skint climbed out. “Thanks for lunch and the tour. It’s been fun. See you in an hour?”

Ollie nodded.

It was happening again.

What was it about him that said:
I want to be friends with straight guys
? Could they never sense what he was really thinking? Skint had suggested surfing,
he’d
pictured…
swimsuit
. Skint had asked,
are you coming,
and
he’d
thought,
I wish
. Why was he this way? Or why weren’t they, more to the point. It was as if he existed in a slightly different reality to everyone else: a wavering, liquid place of distorted messages and half-heard replies.

Now, he had an hour to fret about what to wear for a walk on the beach with David Fucking Gandy. He already knew the guy had legs that went from where they needed to be to where he wanted to go, arms that could crush the life out of most hopes, and a face that launched more than ships. What would the rest be like? Packed into a swimsuit. See? It was already
packed
. In his imagination. Wasn’t it more likely the guy was a one-incher, not a shower or a grower, just a little worm of disappointment?

As he turned into his driveway, he collected his post. It was always utter rubbish, but he didn’t have the heart to put
no junk
on his box, as most other people did. He didn’t want to hurt the postie’s feelings or have no mail at all. Hell, who was he kidding? Before he’d watched for the runner, he’d stalked the postie. You could set your watch by him as well.