Rhapsody on a Theme (32 page)

“
Not
a deal!”

* * * *

Rachel decided it was going to be a girls’ night in. Jayden wasn’t sure he appreciated the presumption that he was, therefore, a girl, but he did appreciate the Thai takeaway she ordered in bulk, the stack of DVDs that would have had Darren running out of the house screaming, and the insistence, the moment he got back from work, that he changed into his pyjamas, crack open a lager, and put his feet up.

“There’s no serious shite tonight!” Rachel sang up the stairs when he was chased away to change, and Jayden had actually laughed.

So here they were, feet up on the coffee table, watching
Dogma
(Rachel had a weird asexual crush thing—she called it a ‘squish’, God knew why—on Matt Damon, which Jayden personally found to be utterly unfathomable) and gnawing their way through generous helpings of panaeng curry, Pog curled up between their hips and purring contentedly.

Jayden felt kind of content too.

He had his laptop open on the arm of the sofa, Facebook on the screen, because Paul was uploading pictures from the stag do from his smartphone, and Jayden was watching out for Darren via that evidence. It had started out as concern, but Rachel had turned it into a bit of a game, and his worry was bleeding away as the evening wore on.

“So,” Rachel said as Alan Rickman dropped his trousers on the screen, “when are you going to this wedding?”

“Saturday morning. That’s when they actually get hitched.”

“And then you’ll romantically propose to Darren and outshine the happy couple?”

Jayden flushed. “Um,
no
.” Why was
everyone
insisting they get married?! Even Mum had mentioned it in her last phone call!

“Why not?” she wheedled. “You should get married. You can have gay weddings now, and that’d be really fun. You’d be the bride. You’d be a bride-zilla!”

Jayden didn’t know what that was, but decided he didn’t
want
to know either. “Well, we’re not getting married.”

“Shame,” Rachel said. “You will eventually.”

“Maybe we won’t.”

“You will. You realise you haven’t called him your boyfriend in ages? It’s
partner
now. You’re so married in your head.”

Jayden jolted, startled, when he realised she was kind of right. About the boyfriend thing, anyway. “We’re not married in my head,” he protested feebly.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Anyway,” she rescued some rice from her jumper, “it’s nice now he’s doing better.”

“Yeah,” Jayden agreed quietly.

“He’s a right prick when he’s ill.”

“He’s a right prick in general,” Jayden said, and they giggled guiltily. “No, he’s not,” he admitted. “He’s lovely sometimes. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time with
you
. I’m just saying,” Rachel warded off his protest, “I’m glad he’s not a lawyer. He’d be a
bitch
in a courtroom.”

“He could have been, he’s smart enough. His father’s a lawyer.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she muttered and rolled her eyes. “I loved his brother when he came round. Met him for all of ten minutes, but oh my God, that family failed at raising normal douchebag posh kids.”

Jayden sniggered—because it was so, so true. Well, maybe. “Maybe his little sister turned out normal.”

“Or maybe not,” Rachel said snidely and grinned. “You have to get married so I can see these legendary parents.”

“I doubt they’d even come,” Jayden said, and when he thought hard about it…maybe they really wouldn’t. “They never even send cards. Christmas or birthdays. And apparently last time he spoke to his mother, she referred to me by the wrong name.”

Rachel giggled, then it turned into a laugh when a new picture popped up on Facebook, of Paul crushing Darren into a bad selfie with him. Paul was beaming that ridiculously huge smile of his; Darren was eyeing him dangerously out of the corner of his eye. “Oh God,” Rachel said, “Darren’s so going to pour that beer on his head.”

It was lager, Jayden estimated, and Darren looked slightly fuzzy-eyed, but not drunk yet. He fished his phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text.
Glad to see you’re having fun :) xxx

The next picture, predictably, showed Paul drenched in some unnamed fluid. Darren had disappeared; perhaps he was taking the photo. They were in some bar, dark and busy, and Ethan’s blond mop was clearly visible amongst the sea of friends and colleagues. (And family, judging by one lookalike with the same goofy expression.) Several people were dressed like fairies, for some reason, with oversized tutus and glittery wings and all. Jayden laughed at the put-out expression on Paul’s face, and then Darren confirmed he had the phone by uploading another selfie with Ethan, both of them grinning like loons and looking a little worse for wear, but happy and open. Relaxed.

“Oh,” Rachel said. “Aw, that’s a nice one. You should print that out for your collection at work.” Jayden kept a collection of photos of his loved ones at his desk at work—Mum and Dad, lots of Darren, the odd one of the three of them on a day trip somewhere, his graduation photo with his family and Darren all together…

Jayden saved it.

“He’s got a nice smile when he wants to,” Rachel said wistfully and punched Jayden in the arm. “You’re so fucking lucky, even if he is an arse half the time.”

“Oh, more than half,” Jayden said, and his phone buzzed. “Case in point,” he said, turning it around to show her.
Some ginger tart wont leve me alone think ive puld xxx
.

“Tell him to take a picture.”

Jayden did, and thirty seconds later, Paul texted him a photo of Darren looking somewhat sceptical, a fresh drink in hand, and—

Jayden scowled and texted Darren again.
Against the rules! Find some lesbian to dance with!

The ginger tart was in fact a man, and no prizes for guessing that he was a gay man. Firstly by his proximity to Darren (there couldn’t have been two inches between them!) in the photograph, and secondly by his dress sense: incredibly tight skinny jeans, fashionable boots, a V-neck T-shirt that showed off a blatantly waxed chest, and definitely designer stubble. “Is that an earring?” Jayden asked, showing Rachel the picture.

“He’s definitely pulled,” she opined, and Jayden decided to hate the ginger guy on sight.

“He’d better not be at the wedding,” he said, and Rachel snorted.

“I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “You’ve caught your boyfriend good and proper. We went food shopping the other week while you were at your drama thing, last Saturday or the one before? And the cashier flirted outrageously with him, and he didn’t even notice.”

“A man or a woman?”

“He’s bisexual, does it matter?”

“Well, no,” Jayden admitted. “But I don’t really mind so much when girls flirt with him. I just…I
really
don’t like it when other guys do.” He knew it was irrational—always had—but it didn’t change the way he
felt
.

“But you
do
know he wouldn’t, right?”

“It’s not
that
,” he said. “I
do
know he’s not going to go off and cheat on me or anything, it’s more…I don’t know, it’s more I don’t like the idea of other guys thinking they could have him.”

“Possessive,” Rachel teased, and Jayden flushed faintly.

“Maybe,” he allowed.

“Completely,” she insisted and grinned. “I hope the ginger guy
is
at the wedding! Ask Darren what his name is.”

“No, that means they have to talk,” Jayden said tartly, and his phone buzzed again.
Just got invited bk 2 his hotel 4 the nite!!

“He seems surprised.”

“He rarely goes out without me,” Jayden said, fiercely texting.
You better have said no!

Rachel paused the film to look over his shoulder and giggle. Jayden felt oddly relaxed, despite the potential ginger tart threat on the horizon, and let a smile creep onto his face. It’d be fine. Darren wasn’t wasted, and Paul would rescue him. Later rather than sooner, perhaps, but he
would
rescue him in the end.

“You could have a threesome at the wedding,” Rachel suggested faux-innocently; Jayden pinched her, and stole her last prawn cracker. “Hey!”

“You deserve it.”

“I do not!”

“Yeah, you do.”

“I do n—ooh, he’s had a few,” Rachel interrupted herself as a new picture popped up on Facebook, showing Darren outside the bar in a busy, wet-looking London street, shirtless, and Ethan apparently drawing on him with a black marker pen. “Ooh, new tattoo.”

“He didn’t show you?”

“Apparently not. What is it?”

“
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
,” Jayden said. “Apparently because…because rhapsody in music is a change, or something, and it means happiness too…and…he’s, um, he’s happy now. And that’s a change for him.”

Rachel made a soft noise and wound her arms around Jayden’s shoulders to hug him. “He should be,” she said gently and squeezed. She was skinny and lean, yet gave surprisingly good hugs. “He’s lucky too, ’cause he has you.”

Jayden hugged back, pushing back the lump in his throat that rose up at her words, and they settled back to watch the laptop update itself with Darren’s topless form. Three or four members of the party were drawing on him now, and drawing music, Jayden realised. He was being covered in messy, drunken music.

That’s a nice view ;)
he texted, but got no reply. In the pictures, Darren looked faintly bemused, but fine. Paul captioned one of them with
compare this to how he’ll look on Saturday!!!
and Jayden looked forward to it.

* * * *

Darren woke up with a pounding headache.

He woke up with more than that, truth be told, but the headache was the most immediate symptom of trouble, followed promptly by the taste of dead weasel in his mouth (or perhaps stoat, as it was a richer flavour that indicated he had stayed away from the promised vodka and remained on the offered ale instead). His right eye had forgotten what it was designed to do; the left had somehow retained its contact lens, and was gleefully stabbing his frontal lobe with ludicrous amounts of sunlight. Death by UV poisoning via a spiteful retina. What a way to go.

He sat up, promptly wished he hadn’t, and lay back down on his front. Better. No sun in sofa cushions, and anyway, his head ached to the point that even his hair wanted to hide.

It had been a good, good night.

He fumbled blindly for his phone, and when enough minutes without agonising pain in his eyelids had ticked past, he slid one back to peer at his phone. One o’clock in the afternoon. Not bad. Four or five texts, mostly from Jayden (and one from Scott, probably about the pictures Paul had been posting online all night). He ignored them. Reading anything longer than
one new text message
took more brain cells than Darren currently had.

Priorities. Death could wait for a moment.

He lurched off the sofa, staggering into the kitchen with his hands clamped either side of his skull to stop his brain falling out (it was
definitely
loose in there, he could feel it rattling around). Paul’s house generally looked like a bomb had hit it, and today was no exception. Darren vaguely remembered that they’d attempted to make bacon sandwiches when they’d got home. At four in the morning. The kitchen smelled
disgusting
now, and he ground down on the desire to retch into the sink.

Instead, he opened the fridge and liberated an entire carton of orange juice.

Returning to the sofa, he burrowed in his bag and came up with the blister packet. One painkiller, down the hatch. One stoner pill, down the hatch. And then he drained the carton. It was Paul’s fault—match Darren’s drinking his fragrant, shapely
arse
—so he could lose some juice to make Darren felt better.

He sent a text.

To: Jayden

Time: 13.11

Message: death by sunlite. v hungova. i leve al my stuff 2 u. luv u xxx ps taken my preg pill b4 i die xxx

Darren buried himself in the sofa and went back to sleep, to the dulcet tones of Paul groaning in pain upstairs. He missed the reply, half an hour later, and would not pick it up until the evening.

Love you too, idiot :) See you Saturday xxx

Jayden arrived at Ethan’s tidy little terraced house at around half past ten on Saturday morning.

The house was a hive of activity: cars were double-parked for the next fifty feet either side of it, and the front door was wide open. A dumpy blonde woman who was
definitely
Ethan’s mother, by the face on her, was corralling some lanky teenager into holding still for some photographs being taken by a balding man in his sixties who was equally definitely Ethan’s dad, by the
height
on
him
. The taxi struggled to pull up; Ethan’s house had a driveway barely fit for a Fiat 500, and the activity and narrow street meant it was almost entirely blocked off.

“Sorry,” Jayden said, paying the disgruntled cabbie, and stepped out into Paul’s hands.

“There you are!” Paul said, and hugged him, to Jayden’s surprise. “Train issues at Euston, was worried you weren’t going to make it.”

“We always come in at Waterloo,” Jayden said, frowning.

“Good, then,” Paul said. He was dressed in fine grey suit trousers, but otherwise socks, trainers and a white T-shirt. He looked shockingly dark all of a sudden. Jayden typically barely noticed Paul’s skin tone, but surrounded by Ethan’s collection of Swedish-blond relatives with their milk-white skin, even Jayden felt tanned.

“Recovered from Thursday?”

“Just about.” Paul grinned. “Daz was fine, by the way,” he added. “Hungover as fuck, but no weird mental shit happened. Kept an eye out, said I would.”

Jayden squeezed his elbow. “Thanks,” he said, but Darren had been right: the little fraction of time apart, with somebody else doing the watching out, had let Jayden relax. He felt better too. He felt like this was going to be a really good weekend. “How’s the groom?”