by Anna Martin
Getting my hair cut.
Alfred asked, “Who are you sending messages to like a teenager?”
“A friend,” I said, ducking my head.
“Oh, come on, boy, I’ve known you too long for you to be embarrassed. Tell me about her.”
Her. Her her her her her. Female. Er, no.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said honestly. Sort of honestly. There was nothing to tell about a “her.”
“I know when not to push,” he said, remaining aloof.
He didn’t push, to his credit, and I tipped him well for keeping his nose out.
My phone beeped again in the car.
Are we still on for tonight?
My heart hitched in my throat.
Yes, I am if you are?
I hesitated, my thumb hovering over the Send button for long moments while I contemplated the possible ramifications of my actions, closed my eyes, and pressed down.
There was no way I could drive until I had heard back from him. The mist of rejection hung heavy in the car, swirling around the air freshener and clogging up the rearview mirror. In an attempt at distracting myself, I pulled down the visor and checked out my hair in the little mirror, turning my head from side to side to get a better look. It was okay. Shorter at the sides than I’d worn it in a long time but still longer on the top and at the nape of my neck, folding back nicely from my forehead and held there with viscous gel that gave it a dull shine.
The phone beeped.
Sure. What time should I come over?
I took several deep, cleansing breaths.
Is 7 okay for you?
Yup. I’ll bring a movie.
With that decided, I swung by the supermarket on my way back to the flat to pick up the last of the groceries I’d need. Then spent a further twenty minutes roaming the aisles, trying to decide what on Earth to cook. I wasn’t a particularly bad cook, but I wasn’t Gordon Ramsey and never would be. I could make lasagna… nice, tasty, inoffensive lasagna. And ciabatta bread—not garlic. Just in case.
Popcorn, that rare Saturday-morning-pictures treat from my childhood, now readily available “pop in the bag” style, was added to my basket. Though I would mourn the loss of the sweetened kind we preferred in Scotland, I had nevertheless adapted to the buttered version here in the States. It would be ready, freshly popped in a bowl, for either pre- or post-dinner consumption.
The rhythmic task of preparing the food calmed me somewhat; it was a focus for my scattered nerves, which were being soothed by my favorite album by my favorite band, my cat’s namesake. Flea wound his way around my legs, crying for attention as I simmered the sauce. I scooped him up and gave him a tickle under the chin, then the catnip that was all he’d really wanted in the first place.
When the doorbell rang, I was freshly showered, the food smelled good, and the new shirt I’d bought with Jilly did, I’ll admit, look good. Better. Better than the last time he’d seen me.
I opened the door with a smile.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, leaning in to kiss me quickly. To my absolute disgust, my stomach fluttered at the gesture. Such a fucking girl. “This is for you.”
He was holding out a bottle of wine, a nice bottle by the looks of it, an Italian merlot that would be lovely with the lasagna.
“Perfect,” I said. “Thanks. Come in. Make yourself at home.”
“Thanks.”
I watched, all attempts at surreptitiousness failing miserably as he stripped out of his leather motorcycle jacket and boots, hanging the former on the coat hook and setting the latter down next to the door. Neatly. I was in love.
“I made lasagna, I hope that’s okay.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “Smells better.”
There was a glint in his eye that I recognized from the first night we’d met, something dark and humorous, dangerous, maybe, intensely… intense. Like a private joke he was unwilling to share. I cocked an eyebrow at him, questioning. He was still smiling as he took a step toward me again, bracing his palms flat on my chest as he leaned up and in for another, slower, sweeter kiss.
I let my fingertips feather through his hair; the lightness of it surprised me, as if the pale strands were somehow less substantial due to their lack of color.
“What was that for?” I asked as we broke apart.
Chris shrugged. “Because I wanted to.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
The dining table—such as it was; it only sat two people—had been set already, and I’d stuck a candle in an old bottle and let it burn down low. A little corny, maybe, but nice. I directed Chris to a corkscrew and wineglasses as I served up and placed a large bowl of salad on the table between us.
Fortune or fate had us sitting at the same time.
He raised his glass, the smirk back on his face, and I clinked mine against it.
“To….” I let my voice trail off, letting him finish the toast.
“To dashingly handsome Scotsmen and their sublime taste in men?” he suggested.
I laughed. “And to rather beautiful young percussionists who know how to flatter.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he said.
For all of my concern that the spark between us would have fizzled out, I needn’t have worried. He was still charming and funny and sweet; the conversation flowed between us like the wine from the bottle, which eased the conversation along nicely. It was only when the candle started to flicker, having burned down to nearly the end of the wick, that I noticed the time. We’d long since cleared away the plates and sat down again, hands cupping the bowls of our wineglasses to bring the rich liquid to body temperature. Our bodies were angled together over the table; the ledge dug into my stomach, but I wasn’t going to lean back. When he moved, I mirrored his actions. When I tilted my head to the side, he followed suit.
“Tell me about Scotland,” he said.
I smiled sadly. “I haven’t been back in a long time.”
“How come?”
“It’s a long way away. I don’t really keep in touch with my family over there anymore, not past the annual exchange of Christmas cards, anyway.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Some days,” I said, sipping the wine. “I miss… the driving rain.” I laughed. “You’ve never seen rain until you’ve seen Highland rain. And the sense of history. Everything is so old.”
“I’d love to go there one day.”
“A lot of Americans do,” I said. “It’s very picturesque. All, you know, cobbled streets and medieval churches. Hundreds and hundreds of years of history and development and change. It’s easy to get lost. I heard once that Edinburgh defies all laws of geography and physics inasmuch as when you go somewhere, you go uphill. And when you take the same route home, you go uphill again. It’s true.”
Chris smiled and reached over for my hand. I let him take it. He stroked my wrist with his thumb for a moment, and then I flipped his hand over to reveal the bright skull tattoo.
“Tell me about this?” I asked.
“It’s a Day of the Dead skull,” he said. “It’s a Mexican Catholic tradition, honoring those who have passed. This one was for my best friend; he died of meningitis when we were seventeen.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “He was the one who got me into playing music. I wanted it on my hand so I could see it every time I play.”
“What about the others?” I asked, gesturing to his bare arms. Once again, Chris had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, showing off the collection of tattoos dotting his forearms.
“Oh, they look pretty,” he said, smirking again. He allowed me to turn his arm over, inspecting the stars, the roses on his elbows, knuckle dusters (of all things), swallows and a ship and an erotically twisted mermaid.
“Siren,” he corrected me when I asked. “She’s not a mermaid, she’s a siren. A warning to men at sea: don’t get too close.”
“There are many ways to interpret that statement
,” I said, laughing.
“And so you should,” he agreed.
“Are there more?” I wondered, thinking under his clothes.
“There are.”
“Can I see them?” I asked.
“I’m sure you will,” he countered. Winked. “I’m guessing you don’t have any?”
“Oh, God no,” I said. “My mum would kill me.”
Chris laughed, open, genuine laughter that crinkled his eyes and shook his chest. “Mine isn’t too fond of them. She likes this one, though.”
He pulled his shirt aside to reveal a heart and a banner with the word “Mom” on it.
“Very traditional,” I said, smiling.
He hummed in agreement. “I like the old Americana style. It’s so bright and vibrant.”
“Like you,” I said without thinking.
The smirk returned.
“There’s something else you should probably know,” I said, taking his hand and tracing the brightly colored skull on the back of it with my fingertip. I didn’t pretend to understand why he would want tattoos, but they were undoubtedly beautiful.
“Okay. Go on.”
“I, uh….” How to explain Chloe? “I have a daughter.”
My fingertip stopped its gentle stroking to give him a chance to pull away if he so wished. He didn’t. “Oh.” Chris turned to me with an amused grin. “You had sex with a girl?”
I felt the heat rising in my cheeks. “Yeah. Once.”
“Now that’s a story I need to hear.”
Sighing, I settled back into my chair. “Once upon a time, there was a confused young man and a very pretty girl.”
“Uh-oh,” he interrupted. “I think I know how this one goes.”
I laughed, relieved at his easy acceptance so far. “Maybe. Luisa was a very good friend of mine from high school. We went out on a couple of dates with friends, but I didn’t come out properly until I got to college. I didn’t want to humiliate her.”
“Understandable,” Chris said. I scowled at him. He mimed zipping his lips.
“The first Christmas we came home from college, she asked if I was sure. About liking boys. And I said yes. So she asked if I’d ever slept with a girl before. And I said no. So she said how could I be sure if I’d never done it before? So we did.”
“You got it up for her?”
“Yeah. Not saying it was easy, but I did it.”
“Close your eyes and think of England,” Chris said seriously.
“Exactly. So, when we came home again for spring break, she told me that she was pregnant, and I asked her if it was mine, and she hit me. Gave me a black eye. Then I had the humiliating task of telling my parents that yes, I’m still sure I’m gay, but I managed to knock Lu up anyway and now I’m literally and metaphorically screwed.”
Chris frowned and turned our hands over, taking mine in his. “What did you do?”
“Luisa had the baby in the summer between freshman and sophomore year, then went straight back to classes. Chloe was raised by her maternal grandparents for a few years while we both finished our education. Then the three of us tried to live together for about a year, but that was a complete and utter disaster, so I took a teaching position here.”
“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.”
“Tha
t’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.