Rhapsody on a Theme

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “Dinner at Franelli’s,” Darren said. “And I got tickets for that play in Southampton you wanted to see.”

  Jayden paused in rubbing patterns over Darren’s tattoo. “One in a Million and my favourite restaurant?”

  “Yep.”

  Jayden cupped that narrow face to kiss him again, brushing his thumbs over the rough graze of stubble after a lazy weekend shave. The dark hair was beginning to show. “You’re the one in a million,” he murmured lowly and smiled.

  “Cheesy,” Darren murmured, both hands coming to rest on Jayden’s hips. The water was warm, but Darren’s hands were warmer.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually taking me out on a date,” Jayden teased, smiling so wide his face ached for a moment. “You haven’t done that in ages.”

  “Yeah, well.” Darren pulled Jayden in until they were chest-to-chest, and kissed the spot just below his left ear. “I’m showing some appreciation.”

  “Yeah?” Jayden murmured lowly, carding his fingers through heavy dark hair.

  “Mhmm,” Darren agreed, kissing down Jayden’s neck and across his shoulder: wet, open, sucking kisses that brought the blood up to the surface in large red rings. Jayden sighed contentedly and laughed when Darren turned him until his back hit the cool, steam-covered tiles.

  “We can’t have sex in our shower, it’s too small,” he murmured breathlessly, clinging to Darren’s shoulder and huffing in exasperated fondness when Darren ignored him and started to assault the other side of his neck instead. “Darren. We can’t.”

  “Well, full-on sex, no…” Darren agreed vaguely, one hand massaging the uppermost inside part of Jayden’s thigh. He had a sweet spot there, and Darren knew it, and Jayden laughed breathlessly around another messy kiss as he pushed into the sensation. “No reason you can’t have a quick one, though.”

  Jayden chewed on his lip for a moment, trying to push aside the lust and think for a second, but Darren didn’t give him the chance, kissing a stinging path along his shoulder and stroking a heavy hand down Jayden’s ribs and around his hip before wrapping hot, wet fingers around him and angling his wrist just so, and—and then Jayden stopped trying to think, dropping his head back against the tiles and smiling at the showerhead. Lucky, was his last thought for a little while—a vague one, but true.

  * * * *

  Franelli’s was Jayden’s favourite restaurant in the whole of Hampshire: a right fancy Italian place that Darren always rolled his eyes at, but made Jayden feel all posh and proper and spoiled. So he had absolutely no problem with Darren offering Franelli’s as a date, because it meant Darren would pay and be all dressed up in nice clothes that fit well (for once) and…okay, this time it wouldn’t end the way it usually did (sex in Darren’s car afterwards) but that was just the cherry on the icing on the cake. Jayden would still have icing and cake.

  Still, it was…vaguely suspicious, especially as Darren wasn’t quite back to normal yet (he was still sleeping too much, and he’d gone a bit teary the other morning in the kitchen because the kettle had busted) and once the waiter disappeared with their menus and order, Jayden leaned forward to plant his elbows on the table and frown at Darren. “So,” he said, “what brought all this on?”

  Darren shook his head innocently. “What?”

  “The shower?” Jayden prompted. “This date, tickets, you in a suit—which, by the way, you know, that’s dirty pool.” It really was. Darren had always looked kind of hot in the school uniform, but when he put on a proper suit…well, it did things, and there was a reason that trips to Franelli’s usually ended in the back seat of Darren’s car.

  “I’m not having a quickie in the bathroom here, just so you know,” Darren said, and Jayden laughed.

  “This is nice,” he said, reaching across the table to take Darren’s hand. “You being you.”

  “I…last couple of weeks, I’ve started to feel more like me again,” Darren admitted. “I don’t feel so…twitchy all the time. I don’t feel so on edge. Like I’m waiting for a drop that’s not there.”

  Jayden squeezed those long fingers, and Darren offered a small smile, barely more than a twitch of the mouth.

  “I love you,” he said frankly, and Jayden blinked at the sudden forthrightness, “and this is a thank you. For sticking with me while I go crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy,” Jayden corrected softly.

  “I’m alive because of you,” Darren said flatly, and Jayden’s heart clenched painfully in his chest.

  “Darren…”

  “Hear me out. I’m still here because of you. It’s the simple truth. And I couldn’t have done any of this, this shit with the drugs, the Prozac, if it weren’t for you. Or coming off them again, or therapy, or the new drugs, or any of the rest of it. The Prozac meant the bad days weren’t so bad, but it also meant there were no good days. And I’m not giving up my good days with you, for anything. It’s not a good trade.”

  Jayden wrapped both his hands around Darren’s on the table and held his tongue. It was simultaneously wonderful and horrible to hear Darren say it—to admit so openly how he felt, but also that bombshell that he really didn’t think he’d be here at all if not for…

  “I love you, and that’s what gets me through this. Knowing you’re with me and you love me even when I’m bashing my head against the wall. That you care. And I don’t say it enough, and I probably never will because I’m a total man about this stuff, but I love you. And thank you for…being there.”

  Jayden swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat, and staved off the embarrassing potential display by rubbing his thumbs over Darren’s knuckles and taking a deep breath.

  “Jayden?”

  “I love you,” he blurted out, and his vision was momentarily blurry. He swallowed hard and tried again. “I mean, I decided years ago, when you first told me you had depression, I decided then that you were amazing enough to try anyway, and that’s still the same and…and I hope you do get better, you know, because I want you to see yourself the way I see you. You’re not crazy and you’re not fucked up and okay, your brain’s clearly not doing something it should—or maybe doing something it shouldn’t, I don’t know—but you’re…brilliant and amazing and funny and gorgeous and…everything. You’re everything. You always have been.”

  “I…”

  “You’re it,” Jayden said finally. “You’re it, for me. There’s never going to be anyone else like you. I’m done. This is it, this, right here with you, this is the rest of my life and I’m more than okay with it. I love this part of my life, even if it’s not perfect. I love you, and yeah, I want you to be better because it hurts, watching you have to suffer with it, but I wouldn’t trade us for anything. Not even a cure for you, and maybe that’s really selfish and wrong of me, but…”

  “Neither would I.”

  Jayden opened his mouth, but nothing happened. Darren smiled calmly at him, green eyes pale and ethereal in the restaurant lighting. He looked himself. He looked like the man Jayden knew and loved and…and Jayden wanted to leave the restaurant suddenly, just take him home and show him that.

  “I would rather be ill and with you,” Darren murmured, “than completely cured, and without you. Even partially cured and without you.”

  “You’re going to make me cry,” Jayden blurted out, and Darren laughed, squeezing his hand.

  “All right, I’ll lay off,” he offered, and Jayden scrubbed a hand under his eyes. They were watering dangerously, and he blinked furiously to keep the tears back. “You weren’t kidding, huh?”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Jayden said waspishly and composed himself. “Rude. You can’t make me cry in public.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you can’t.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “This is crap, I can’t even threaten you with a dry spell,” Jayden muttered, and Darren laughed.

  “You could, but it’s not going to work.”

  “Same thing.”

  �
�Totally isn’t.”

  Jayden kicked him; Darren retracted his leg, still smirking, and Jayden was struck with an irritable wash of fondness. And familiarity. As though things were back how they ought to be. His heart felt too big, and it ached a little, and he wanted to kiss him.

  Screw it.

  He got up and came around the table briefly, stooping to kiss Darren very lightly on the mouth, barely a second in length, but something sparked between them, and Jayden brushed his nose against the side of the Darren’s for a second and smiled before returning to his seat.

  “I would be getting lucky tonight,” Darren said, and Jayden rolled his eyes.

  “You’re impossible,” he said, rather than voicing his affectionate-if-annoyed thoughts, and Darren shrugged. “You really are. Why do I put up with you?”

  “Beats me.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Jayden said softly, and Darren’s expression gentled slightly. “Anyway.” Jayden brushed the emotional cobwebs aside. “You’ve come up with something to play for the wedding, haven’t you? You played right through a couple of times the other day.”

  “Mm. Have to record it and get it off to Lillian soon,” Darren agreed.

  “Did you…like playing?”

  Darren paused, then shrugged. “I guess so. It didn’t freak me out the way strings can these days. It was kind of nice to get back to it. I…I felt like I wanted to do it a couple of times.”

  “You really enjoyed it?”

  “Sometimes,” Darren said. “The odd time, it felt like the music was trying to get out. I might take it up. Casual, like, just in our house.”

  Jayden smiled fondly. “I could go with that. But only if you like it, there’s no pressure to do it. I mean, if it upsets you…”

  “Enough with the walking on eggshells thing?”

  “Okay.” Jayden subsided and bit his lip. “But, um…you could wait until you can, you know. Have sex again.”

  “I can have…”

  “I am not…” Jayden looked around, then lowered his voice. “I am not having proper, all-the-way sex until you’re…”

  “Functioning?”

  “Yes. Until you’re functioning again.”

  “Fuck-tioning.”

  “Oh God, shut up,” Jayden groaned. “Serious point here. I can…okay, I kind of…I’m okay with the whole…oral thing. And, um…hands and stuff.”

  “How is it,” Darren asked in a voice of wonder; Jayden kicked him before he even finished. “How is it that you can be really filthy in bed, but you can’t say ‘handjob’ in a public place?”

  Jayden flushed. “I am not going all the way until you’re better,” he said with finality, and Darren rolled his eyes.

  “Fine, whatever, hamper your own sex life.”

  “It’s weird.”

  “As you keep saying. Why are we saying it?”

  “Because…you can’t…you know, you can’t go playing the piano a lot until you are functioning. Sexually. Because when you play a musical instrument…it still, um…”

  “Oh yeah, I know. I remember that part just fine.”

  Jayden flushed and half-changed the subject. “Anyway. As long as you enjoy it. You used to enjoy the piano, when you’d mess around in the theatre with me.”

  “Mm.”

  “Are you going to keep teaching Rachel?”

  “Probably,” Darren said. “It’s…well, it’s not fun because she’s fucking crap, but it’s…it’s not possible to get the heaviness out of the piano when she’s bashing away at it. I really would have to be crazy.”

  Jayden laughed—a little guiltily, because he and Rachel were in the same boat of musical incompetency, especially when compared to Darren’s talent—and said, “Would it help if I said you still look gorgeous when you’re playing? Seven years and you still do weird things to me when you go all musical nerd.”

  “Jayden, there’s days I think you think I’d look good in a bin bag,” Darren pointed out dryly.

  “We-ell…”

  “So no, because I could make up for it some other way.”

  “Cherish it,” Jayden said tartly. “One day you’ll be old and I’ll dump you for someone stunning and rich and young and…”

  “Keep talking.” Darren waved a hand in a bored fashion, and Jayden grinned, catching it and squeezing the fingertips again tightly. “You’re touchy today.”

  “I feel like I can touch you and you’re not going to break,” Jayden explained, clutching the captured hand. “I feel like I don’t have to walk on eggshells or be so…careful all the time.”

  “Mm. You look better.”

  Jayden blinked. “Sorry?”

  “You’ve relaxed,” Darren said and rubbed a rough thumb over the backs of Jayden’s fingers. He had a callus forming on the pad, and Jayden linked it mentally to the piano. It was almost sideways on the thumb, like how he held his right hand when playing something light and airy. “And I get the feeling it’s not just me on my knees doing it either. Or my hands in your…”

  Jayden flushed hotly; a couple at the next table glanced uncertainly their way. “Darren!”

  Darren shrugged and continued unrepentantly. “You’ve been wound tighter than I have these last few months, and I wouldn’t have blamed you for giving up and walking away at any point…”

  “Darren!” Jayden exclaimed hotly, embarrassment giving way to a flash of real and sudden anger.

  “…but you didn’t, and I’m beyond grateful for that, don’t get me wrong. But you’ve been stressed beyond belief, and there was nothing I could do about it while the fluoxetine was dragging me through the mud, but…I think the pregabalin’s working—or at least working better—so I figured it was time to…” Darren spread his hands vaguely, fingers scoping out the room. “I don’t know. Spoil you.”

  Jayden smiled, sitting back and taking his glass of wine with him. Darren had insisted, even if the bottle was just for Jayden. (Naturally, Jayden had vetoed any suggestion of Darren having alcohol.) “Okay,” he said. “Hence…the tickets. And this.”

  “This is costing more than the show, trust me,” Darren muttered, and Jayden laughed. “What? You’re expensive. You’re an expensive habit.”

  “I’m a habit?”

  “That’s the polite term for an addiction these days, isn’t it? Coke habit, junk habit—Jayden habit.”

  Jayden smirked, vaguely mollified, and started rubbing his thumb around the edge of his wine glass, and watched Darren’s eyes follow the motion. Erectile dysfunction or not, some part of Darren’s libido was just fine. “You’re addicted to me?”

  “Well, I was trying to say it in a less cheesy way, but yeah. Kind of am. Seven-year habit, this.”

  “Didn’t think the police hired addicts.”

  “Addiction to a bloke is apparently some protected characteristic thing.” Darren waved the hand again. “Human rights or something, I don’t know. It’s discrimination if they sack me for this habit, so I’m told.”

  “Mm, sounds dodgy.”

  “Well…”

  Jayden laughed as the waiter approached with their starters. “Love you,” he said quietly and let go of Darren’s caught hand to let the plates go in their correct places. The waiter gave them both a look that seemed to be somewhere between pleased and jealous, and he raked Darren with his eyes once before turning away. Jayden recaptured the hand, just in case, and Darren smirked.

  “I saw it too,” he murmured.

  “Yeah, well, sucks to be him,” Jayden retorted. “I’ve got you and whether you want to be or not, this is as good as married.”

  “Good,” Darren said simply and picked up his fork. “And by the way, Ethan sent me a picture of the newly-amended suit I have to wear to his shindig.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Well.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m not sure you’re going to survive this wedding.”

  Chapter 20

  The phone started ringing halfway through the piano ‘lesson.’
(It had actually devolved into Rachel demanding to learn the opening to Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles, and Darren deciding instead to teach her some of the bawdier drinking songs he’d picked up over the years. Jayden didn’t want to know where he’d picked them up, but he blamed Scott in lieu of actual knowledge.)

  “Can you get that?” Darren called from the piano bench as Rachel mangled a set of chords. Jayden winced and picked up the kitchen cordless.

  “Jayden Phillips,” he sighed, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder. He had some work to do (for work too, typically enough) before next week. The wedding was fast approaching—they’d gotten their invitations in the post on Friday—and he hadn’t been able to get more time off for it than the day itself and the day after, and only then if he could finish this posts going forward for Gina to just slap up onto the paper’s website for him…

  “Hey, Jade!”

  “Hi, Paul.”

  “What’s that noise?”

  “Piano.”

  “…Piano?”

  “Yeah, Darren’s trying to teach Rachel.”

  “Thank fuck for that, I thought it was him having a seizure!”

  “Um…well…she’s, um…improving.”

  “Shit, that’s an improvement? Never mind,” Paul interrupted himself, and Jayden smiled faintly. “Is Daz doing better now?”

  “Yeah,” Jayden said and smiled properly. He hadn’t quite gotten over that realisation yet—that Darren was back, and the new pills were helping, and…he’d even been a bit moody on Monday, a little bit darker than he should have been, but the episode never built up into anything. The shadow just…slipped away again, as quietly as it had arrived. Darren had even described it like that, when Jayden had worked up the nerve to ask.

  It had been fine.

  “Yeah?” Paul echoed doubtfully.

  “Yeah,” Jayden confirmed. “The new drug is working properly. He’s still a bit prone to falling asleep if you let him lie down for more than ten minutes at a time, but he’s…he’s doing better. Much better,” he added and grimaced as Rachel jangled several notes that even to Jayden’s untrained ear should not have gone together. The slap of paper from the next room indicated Darren had hit her with a magazine. “He’s being…Darren again,” he finished hopefully. “He’s being normal.”