Tattoos & Teacups (6 page)

“Where does she live now?”

“Lu or Chloe?”

“Both. I’m guessing they’re together.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Lu got married about four, no, five years ago now. Chloe has a little sister and another brother or sister on the way.”

“And a stepdad.”

“I don’t mind so much about that,” I mumbled. “I’m not the best father in the world.”

“Why not?” Chris demanded, looking upset for the first time since I’d started the conversation. “You made her, you should take responsibility for her.”

I nodded slowly. “I know that. But Chloe is nearly fourteen, Chris. She doesn’t like anyone these days, least of all an absent father figure. Mike is good for her, I know that, he’s a great dad.”

“Does she know you’re gay?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.”

“Well, that clears that up,” he said sarcastically.

“I don’t know,” I repeated. “Luisa may have told her. I certainly haven’t. She has enough problems to deal with without adding her absentee father’s sexuality into the mix.”

“Would you introduce her to me?” he asked. I felt that this was some kind of test. How serious was I about our relationship? Serious enough to mix boyfriend and daughter?

“Yes,” I said. “If you would like to, of course I will.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

I excused myself to the bathroom and let him wander around the rest of the flat. When I came out, he was studying a painting of a church near where I grew up.

“Is this Edinburgh?” he asked. I nodded, going to him and wrapping my arms around him from behind.

“I used to be able to see that church from my old bedroom. I loved the gargoyles. They were all over the building, snarling and screaming at you.”

“Do you write?” he asked, turning in my arms. I shook my head. “You should,” he insisted. “You have a way with words.”

“I’ve written a lot of research papers,” I said, correcting my previous statement.

“That doesn’t count.”

“I’ve been working on a book for a long time,” I admitted. Walking backward to the sofa, I kept my arms around him, bringing him with me. “It’s still in the writing process.”

“What’s it about?” he asked, then huffed a breath as we slumped into the cushions.

“Kipling,” I admitted. “It’s not a biography, or a critical analysis of his work, but it has elements of both.”

“Maybe I’ll get to read it someday,” he said softly.

“Maybe.”

“I’m giving a lecture next week on scansion and meter,” I said. “It’s similar to what you do: rhythms and beats and flow and pace.”

“In poetry?” he asked.

“Yes,” I enthused. “Kipling was a master. He crammed so many beats into one line. It’s sort of like….” I searched for the comparisons to music that I’d used years ago, trying to find another level for my students to connect to. “In four-four timing, you have four beats in a bar, right?”

“Right,” he agreed.

“But the melody over the top of a four-four bass line may have many more beats in it.”

“That’s pretty normal, actually,” Chris said. “It’s the skill of the percussionist to be able to play different rhythms with each hand and foot.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So, okay, you’ve probably heard the phrase ‘the female of the species is more deadly than the male’.”

“Yeah….”

“Even though that line has,” I counted them on my fingers, “fourteen syllables, metrically, it has four beats. Four bass-line beats.”

He thought it out, and I let him get it in his own time. “I think I get it.”

I tapped it out for him, repeating the phrase until he heard the stresses on the beats.

“All speech has natural patterns. And in poetry, there’s hundreds. But Kipling really knew how to manipulate meter and shove as many unstressed beats into a four-stress-beat line as possible.”

“It sounds complicated,” he said.

“It is,” I agreed. “But here’s where our worlds collide. I spend hours poring over poetry, finding the stressed and unstressed beats, working out the rhythms and how that changes things, how it affects the music of the poem.”

“And this is your lecture.”

“Part of it,” I said, smiling. “You should come along.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” I said, an attempt at nonchalance. “I’d like to hear your opinion. There’s always a seminar afterwards.”

“I never went to college, Rob,” he said. “I doubt I’d have anything interesting to say.”

“That’s why I’m interested in your opinion,” I argued. “Because you don’t have an academic viewpoint, you have a musical one. That’s going to be completely different to what my students are used to hearing.”

He leaned in and kissed me on the nose. “I’ll think about it.”

I beamed at him.

“But if I come to your lecture….”

“Go on,” I encouraged him.

“I have a gig booked with a local theater company. They’re doing
Aida
. Would you come?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that.”

I glanced at the clock on the wall; in all the time we’d spent talking and eating and more talking, it had crept up to midnight. It was a do or die moment—I could ask him to stay, or we could end the night here.

Despite my hormones (those long-forgotten friends) screaming at me to ask him to stay, I had some old romantic notion of wooing this man. I wanted to date him, to do things properly. It would be too easy to take advantage of the spark between us and act on it, letting it ignite a fire that could too easily burn out.

I turned and found Chris’s lips, kissing him slowly, letting the spark smolder between us until we were both angling for more. He broke it off with a laugh, then nuzzled into my neck and kissed the delicate, oh-so-sensitive skin there.

Then he stood, maybe understanding what I was thinking, that the anticipation we were building was delicious and should be savored. I stood too and kissed him again, then silently followed him back to the front door.

“The lecture is on Wednesday afternoon,” I said. “If you want to come, just let me know and I can give you directions.”

“I’m not sure of my schedule, but I’ll be in touch,” he promised.

I sighed heavily, and my fingers twitched to touch him again as he layered back up in his leathers. Chris kissed me again before he left, the heavy motorcycle gloves clumsy on my face.

“Night,” he murmured.

“Good night,” I echoed.

After I’d locked the door behind him, I closed my eyes for a brief second, allowing myself to bask in the thrill of whatever this was, then crossed to the window to watch him swing a leg over his bike and roar off down the street.

Chapter 4

I
DIDN
’
T
own a tuxedo, so I had to go down to the hire shop that Marley had given me the details of. Chris had laughed at me when I’d said where I was going, then told me in a low voice that he couldn’t wait to see me in it. He, of course, already had a tux for occasions such as this. I couldn’t wait to see him, either.

I left the shop with a suit bag over my arm and butterflies in my stomach. It was only an evening at the opera. I’d been once before with my mother, so I knew what to expect, but the added complication of Chris made the experience new and strange in a wonderfully welcome way.

He texted me just as I was parking the car. Unsurprisingly, he was smoking around by the stage door. His dark-suited figure glowed in the light from a window high above him and I only noticed his nervous energy as I approached.

“Hey,” I said softly, placing my hand on his upper arm.

“Hi,” he said shortly. Threw the glowing butt of the cigarette away, for my benefit, I knew that.

I caught his hand as he brought it back to his body. Turning his palm over, I studied the smooth, even color of his skin. Chris caught my expression and smiled.

“Makeup lady got to me,” he said by way of explanation. “They don’t mind what I look like on the street, but there’s a certain level of decorum around here. They covered up the one on my chest as well, just in case the color shines through under the lights.”

I nodded as if I understood, but deep down it bothered me that that little, vibrant part of him was being covered up. Chris watched me, frowning, as I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and rubbed at the thick layer of makeup that obscured his tattoo. The white came away with an orange smudge, and a small patch of red was then visible, just by his thumb.

Chris’s frown relaxed into a smile, and I lifted his hand, pressing the softest kiss into his red ink.

A tinny voice rang out over a metal speaker bolted to the outside wall. “Ladies and gentlemen of the orchestra, this is your call to the stage, please, your call to the stage. Thank you.”

“I need to go,” he said apologetically. I let go of his hand and nodded again.

“Me too. I’ll see you after.” My eyes darted to the stage door, where a bored-looking man read a newspaper, studiously ignoring us. I leaned forward and brushed my lips over his. “For luck,” I explained.

Chris nodded and kissed me back, then disappeared back into the theater.

I had to rush back around to the front of the building; the usher on the door scowled at me, and I knew I’d left it too late to be admitted to the auditorium. I could already hear the orchestra tuning up. I was in luck, though, and the ticket that had been reserved for me was a private box, so I could sneak in without disturbing anyone else.

The view from the box was obstructed, and I couldn’t see the whole stage. I did, however, have a perfect, uninterrupted view right down onto the rhythm section. Chris walked through a door that probably couldn’t be seen from the auditorium, not looking up and going straight to his instruments, touching each of them in turn, checking that they were in the right places.

Only then did he look up, searching for me. I didn’t ever find out if he saw me, leaning eagerly over the balcony, trying desperately to catch his eye; just then the house lights started to dim, and I was forced to sit back to watch the show.

Not that I actually paid attention to anything that happened during the performance. My eyes were fixed on the man in the black suit, his face furrowed in concentration as he flipped page after page of sheet music and watched the conductor for cues. It was hard to correlate this intense, serious musician with the wild, laughing man I’d come to adore.

At the end of the first act, I went to the bar and ordered a whiskey, neither enjoying nor tasting the liquor as I sipped at it absently. I wanted to know what Chris was doing backstage. If he was outside chain smoking—that was the most likely scenario—I knew I didn’t have time to race around the side of the building to go and see him. Not if I wanted to be back in my seat again for the beginning of the second act.

The rest of the show passed in a blur; I enjoyed the music, but I was anxious, edgy to see him again, to be able to praise him and thank him for sharing this side of himself with me.

He’d called me on Tuesday night to apologize because he wouldn’t be able to make it to the lecture the following day, and I tried not to be too disappointed. The band, who he had rehearsal responsibilities with, were half of his source of income, and they needed to rehearse and promote like crazy to build up anticipation for their upcoming gig.

I also had a feeling he was afraid of not fitting in at the university, even though he wouldn’t say as much. His earlier confession about not excelling in school had touched me, in a way; I’d always taken my academic success for granted, studying came easy to me, and I had a genuine interest in my subject that fueled my career.

My line of work certainly exposed me to others who weren’t as lucky. My students were not easy to categorize, and doing so was often a fruitless task. There were those who were forced into taking my subject by the parents who were funding their education. Those who saw it as an easy ride. Those who took it because they were good at it, or perceived it as a good career move, or because they didn’t know what they wanted to do with their life and English was a solid base from which to move forward.

Chris didn’t fit into any of those categories, and although he was clearly successful in his own career, he hadn’t followed a traditional academic path.

As I took my seat for the second act, I resolved to spend more time paying attention to the actual music and less time making goo-goo eyes at the man in percussion. That resolution lasted about twenty minutes before I gave in and learned my first lesson when it came to the combination of Chris and music—that he was utterly captivating.

There was a little crease in his forehead as he split his focus between the sheet music and the conductor, his concentration never seeming to waver. As for the music itself, well, I’d never really been able to find my thing when it came to classical music. There had never been a hallelujah moment when it had all started to make sense, not like when I was given a book of poetry by a stuffy old aunt and spent an entire weekend absorbing it aged just fourteen.

Still, I could understand the passion if not the subject matter, and Chris had passion in droves.

A fair explosion of rapturous applause broke my reverie, and I joined in, surging to my feet alongside those either side of me. Even though common sense told me Chris wouldn’t be able to see out into the audience with the bright stage lights shining in his eyes, I still let myself indulge in a silly fantasy that he could see me.