William

by Anyta Sunday

  But she took the box and slipped it back in the space it’d come from. “Come on, I expect at least pikelets before I forgive you for kicking me—”

  “It’s a shame,” he interrupted her, “but I didn’t actually get to do the kicking part in the end.”

  She scowled at him and then dropped it, staring over his shoulder blankly as he continued, “Besides what do I get for the night of hell you put me through, huh? And, Candice, even if I wanted to cook for you, which I don’t, really I couldn’t—I’m a terrible cook. My last partner would testify to that. In fact, he might go so far as to crusade to the ends of the earth warning people never to eat anything I make, for their own safety.”

  His voice cracked a little at the end and his gut gave a small twist. Karl. Sometimes he wanted so badly to close his eyes and picture the man, remember how it felt to run a hand over his jaw, his kisses following soon after, how when Karl touched him he always felt like singing with the thrill.

  He shivered. No, he wouldn’t let himself go back to those memories. Wouldn’t let himself give in to their haunting. Things were what they were. He’d lost Karl. Maybe even before his big mouth ruined it completely. He should and would count himself lucky they’d at least been able to reconcile.

  Shaking the thought off, he said, “What on earth are pikelets, anyway?”

  Candice, now with a smile on her face, was still looking over his shoulder. A funny swooping thing happened to his gut and he didn’t want to turn around. Because he already knew what she was staring at. Who she was staring at. And he wasn’t ready to see Heath again so soon.

  Well, yes, in one way he was, because he had a shit load of questions, but he couldn’t ask any of them with Candice around. So now wasn’t a good time—he was sure if he looked at the guy, he’d be swamped with such a stuttering confusion that Candice was bound to just know something was up.

  And if she looked very thoroughly at him, she’d really know something was up.

  Candice blinked and looked at him. “Pikelets are basically pancakes but smaller,” she said. “And thanks for the warning about you being a terrible cook—after the car incident last night I’m going to take you seriously. So,”—she rolled up her sleeves—“we’ll follow the recipe.” She looked behind him again, raising a brow. “There’s bound to be an Edmonds in this kitchen, right?”

  There was the scuffle of feet and a cupboard door squealing open behind him. Then before Will knew it, Heath stood in front of him, dressed in a shirt and dress pants, hair still wet from a shower, pushing a yellow and orange spiral-bound book into his hands. “Page twenty.”

  They only shared a glance and it was enough to have his blood spiraling every which way. He thought he detected a glimpse of hunger in Heath’s eyes—and not the pikelet-desire type either—but if he did it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

  Candice nudged between them, pinching the cookbook. “Sweet as,” she said. Then, to Heath, asked, “Did you want to join us for breakfast?”

  Heath looked away from him, shaking his head and stepping backwards toward the door. “I’m getting Mum up and taking her out for brunch.”

  Will frowned. “I thought she was still sick.”

  “She is,” he said, “But I think this will help.” Then he twisted, his broad shoulders and long legs too quickly sliding out of sight. His footsteps were heavy on the stairs as he went up.

  “Now that is a guy who is hot and cold,” he murmured to himself.

  “Sorry, what was that?” Candice asked.

  “Nothing. It’s nice how much Heath cares for his mom.”

  “It says a lot about a guy.”

  Breakfast was made like a snap of his fingers. Thanks to the fact he let Candice do all the work. Actually, he could barely concentrate on anything except to stop Candice from cutting up banana on top of his pikelets and then from pouring Golden Syrup on his plate. But she didn’t frown or even seem to think it strange at all, just smiled and yapped about how tedious she found Sig’s supervisor.

  “It must be strange for them sitting here,” she said suddenly, eyeing the chairs around the table.

  Will looked around, not following. The ceiling groaned with footsteps above them. He’d thought Heath and Vicky would have left already, but apparently not. In a low voice he asked Candice, “What do you mean it must be strange?”

  “Well, you know.”

  No, no he didn’t. “Know what—?”

  “I said I’m not going!” came Vicky’s shrill cry from upstairs. Will jerked in his chair. A door slammed. More muffled cries could be heard.

  Candice bowed her head over her plate, only picking at the pikelets with a fork. He felt in an instant how uncomfortable Candice was—heck, he was feeling it himself.

  “So,” he tried to change topics, “Sig, eh?”

  She mumbled a ‘yeah’, still listening as Heath cried, “Please, Mum. Just—I’m doing this for you.”

  Thirty seconds later, the front door banged open and then the Commodore growled to life.

  Candice got up, clearing away her dishes. “Thanks for letting me crash with you, Will,” she said.

  He nodded and after she found her car keys and backpack in his room, she pecked him on the cheek and she and her Honda drove off.

  An hour later, he hovered outside Vicky’s room with a plate of leftover pikelets. He would have knocked, but he could hear her on the phone. And he was too nosy to walk away.

  “. . . trying and failing,” Vicky spoke, “Heath’s right though, sooner or later I need to move on. He’s so strong and I’m just . . . not.” She sighed and her voice grew more, well, confused, Will decided. “Everyone tells me it was a mistake, but I thought having him here would make it go away somehow. And sometimes it does, and then . . . and then sometimes it doesn’t.”

  Will frowned, wondering how it didn’t help her having Heath around. Sure, the guy frustrated him, but he’d only ever done anything Vicky asked for and they seemed to get on well. Really well.

  Save whatever happened this morning, of course.

  “. . . I want us to speak again,” Vicky choked into the phone. “So when you get this message, please call back.”

  Will crept back down the stairs and placed the pikelets on the bench. Picking up a pen and scrap paper he wrote her a note, urging her to eat breakfast and telling her he’d left for a run.

  Two hours of running later, Will came back, rivulets of sweats working down his neck and back and legs, and feeling as haggard as ever. It’d been good to clear his mind of Heath and Vicky as he pumped his legs up and down Maori Hill. For sure. But now, combined with practically zilch sleep, he was about to fall flat on his face.

  Ugh, if it weren’t for the desperate need of a shower, and the fear Murky would find and start licking—or worse, gnawing on him—he would’ve done it. Face planted into the carpet, in that nice stretch of sunlight there by the lounge, and just zonked out.

  With a groan, he dragged his limbs into the shower and scrubbed up.

  Chucking on fresh clothes, tee-shirt on inside out, he stumbled into the hall. Vicky was coming down the stairs. She had her face all done up. Lipstick and everything. She smiled at him.

  “Looks like you had a hard night last night,” she said.

  He blinked. She’d certainly livened up in two hours. Had he imagined the small breakdown in her bedroom?

  He rubbed his head with the back of his thumb, catching a drop of water running from his hair. Huh. Maybe he was just really tired and this morning hadn’t been such a big deal. He’d probably misunderstood it or something. Weren’t all families full of such moments? God, if he thought of his own crazy family—brothers and sisters fighting at every meal, the sound of the door slamming just background noise, really—then Heath and his mom were perfect. Honestly, he ought to take notes and fax them home.

  He searched inside for a grin to give Vicky, but crap, he was just too tired. “Yeah,” he said, “certainly not the night I thought it would be that
’s for sure.”

  “Well, go catch some rest, William,” she said, rubbing a hand over his back lightly as she passed him, “and later if you don’t have any plans, let’s go to the beach and get a couple of ice-cream cones. There’s . . . there’s something I’d like to talk to you about. Sound good?”

  Sounded good.

  * * *

  The walk at the beach happened, and Vicky’s mood picked up even more—she really was back to her chipper-self—but whatever-it-was she wanted to talk to him about didn’t happen.

  Oh, he could see her trying to talk about it; she’d pause suddenly in their conversation and look out over calm St Clair, sea grayish blue in the overcast afternoon, lips twisting as if figuring out the words, but then she’d bite her lip, or shrug and talk about the beautiful shells you could find, or how the kelp that washes up after storms was great for gardening.

  And he didn’t push, no matter how much he wanted to understand what was up, why Heath wanted him out of the house so badly, and what all Candice’s cryptic comments were about.

  Ohh, Candice’s comments!

  Maybe he should have pushed.

  When they got back, Vicky took a look at the clock on the microwave and gave a start. “Crap!” she said, snagging the keys she’d dropped on the bench after coming in. “Heath’s game starts in half-an-hour. I forgot.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Want to come?”

  Will shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Got to ring my family tell them I’m still alive, catch up on emails. . . .”

  “All right then,” she said. “Later, William.”

  Two-and-a-half hours later, and refusing to let Murky’s presence running free in the back yard put him off, he turned on his laptop at the dining table, opened the browser and accessed his email account. There were three messages in there—and, he paused, one of them was from Karl.

  Sucking in a breath and holding it, he tried and failed to shove away the tingling hope Karl would be writing to him with a sudden epiphany that it was him that he wanted, that deep down that’s what he’d always wanted. That he hadn’t been able to get Will out of his mind since they’d met for dinner six weeks ago, and—

  He shook his head. Wasn’t going to happen. Karl was with Paul now. He was happy. That was what mattered most, what he’d always wanted for him anyway.

  Will swallowed the lump in his throat and with it the lie. He clicked on the mail and read. It was nice. But nothing more. The mail asked how things were for him in the land of the Kiwi and whether he would pass him on a pavlova recipe if he came across one that was any good. And that was it, friendly, brief. The end.

  The End. Get it through his head already!

  He rested his forehead on the edge of the table, letting the wood bite some sense into him or knock out his jealousy. It wasn’t that he was jealous Karl was with Paul. It was that he was jealous Karl had a Paul. Had someone who cared, who loved him back.

  A groan slipped out of his throat.

  “Whoa, Will, man. You okay?”

  He stiffened at Heath’s voice, unable to lift his head. How had he not heard them return? Yep, it was official. He wasn’t a fan of the world and its workings. This wasn’t the way he’d ever have wanted Heath to find him.

  There came a hesitant shuffle and Will saw Heath’s basketball shoes and corded calves come into view.

  “Ah, Will?”

  When Heath crouched, Will finally looked up, coming eye-to-eye with a sweat-matted Heath, his cap on, but not too low to mask his face.

  Heath frowned, glancing at his laptop. “So, you’re okay?”

  Yeah fine, just pining away for being alone. He shut his laptop screen. “Fine.” Then after a pause, and just as Vicky came in totting a New World shopping bag, he added with a laugh, “Why would you care if I wasn’t?”

  “Well, because . . . ” he trailed off, looking from him to his mother putting milk into the fridge.

  Murky barked suddenly and Will practically jumped out of his chair. Paws scratched at the window followed by a few more excited barks. The dog had obviously noticed Heath was home.

  “Take it for a walk,” Vicky muttered over her shoulder, and then smiled at Will. “Hey, William, did you get all your calls in?”

  “His name is Murky,” Heath murmured, but not loud enough for his mom to hear. He straightened from his crouch. “Go, Will,” he said not looking back as he moved to the sliding door, “I’m letting him inside for a bit.”

  * * *

  Sunday morning he should have slept in—should have indulged in the warm blankets that were finally all his once again. But he couldn’t relax. Couldn’t get Heath, damn him, out of his mind. He’d tried jerking off—twice—during the night, but it wasn’t bringing the relief he was looking for.

  So that’s how he ended up going for a jog at eight in the morning.

  He wasn’t half way up the hill when a car beeped at him. Startled, he narrowly avoided stumbling and face-planting onto the side walk. “Shit.”

  Turning, he flipped the car the bird, quickly jerking his hand down when he stared at the Commodore. Heath leaned over the passenger seat, winding down the window. Murky was in the back, sitting on the seat.

  “Get in,” Heath said.

  “What?” Couldn’t he see he was running here?

  “Just come here, Will.”

  He found himself threading past two parked cars and opening the door. With a nervous glance at Murky, he looked at Heath—dressed in shorts, tee-shirt and sneakers. Much the same as him. “What do you want?”

  Heath gave a frustrated laugh. “I want you to get in.”

  When he—subtly, he thought—eyed Murky, Heath practically growled. “He is not going to hurt you. And he’ll stay right where he is. Now get. Your arse. Into the car.”

  Heath’s voice got brusquer as he ordered, and yikes it was sexy. With a minimal gulp, Will slid into the car.

  “Lift, then pull,” Heath reminded him.

  Once Will had the belt at the lock-attachment-thingy, Heath picked up How to Defend Humane Ideals, by J. R. Flynn—a different book to the one he’d used the last time—and hammered the belt shut.

  He slid the book back onto the dash. “Need to get a hammer or something. That book’s good.”

  “You read a lot of philosophy and politics.” It wasn’t a question, more a statement. For someone who quit uni, Heath read a whole lot of publications and texts—Will had seen tens of books lying around the lounge, bathroom, car—and he didn’t think Vicky was reading them.

  “Interests me. I like it,” Heath said quietly, turning on his blinker before making a right.

  So why did you quit? “So . . . where are we going?”

  Heath shifted gears. “A better place to run. Ross Creek Reservoir, I go out here a few times a week. The course isn’t that big, but doing it a few times works. Nicer than the streets, anyway, and—”

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  Wow, that just burst out of his mouth. But damn, he really couldn’t hold on any longer. He wanted—no needed—to know.

  Heath said nothing, lowering gears as they went up a hill, so Will kept right on: “You were way too into it for a straight guy to be testing a theory.”

  They slowed at a traffic light and Heath looked at him, arms resting on his thighs with only his fingers touching the wheel. “Who said I was straight?”

  He shifted in his seat, an excited surge of blood rushing straight to his cock. Heath was gay? His body was definitely interested in that news. “But at the party . . . why, I mean you told me to leave—”

  “Yeah right,” Heath snorted, shaking his head. “My friends so don’t know. I only ever told my folks and a couple of years back there was a guy I was sorta interest in. But then . . . ” he trailed off, expression sobering. The lights turned green and he drove. “Rory can be a dick.” Heath glanced at him apologetically. “I didn’t want it to get uncomfortable for you. I told him to lay off, but he was a drunken arse. I can’t say he
’s my favorite person when he’s drunk.”

  “Much better sober is he?” Will only just held back from rolling his eyes. “Rory. Honestly. I can’t say much for your choice in friends.”

  Heath shrugged. “Sometimes you don’t choose. Sometimes life throws them at you.”

  “You always have a choice.”

  “Then I guess I would choose him.”

  Seriously? “Don’t you want to be able to be yourself around your friends?”

  Heath deflated. He lifted his cap and reset it. “Maybe you can’t have everything.”

  “You can damn well have better!”

  Heath rested back against the head rest, eyes glued to the road. “You just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well maybe if I got more than cryptic hints at things, I would.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Tell me what’s going on. Do you want me gone? Why? You are such an asshole to me, but I’ve seen you with your guard down, you’re a . . . teddy bear underneath it all.”

  He thought of Heath and his mom. Almost every time he came into the house, he’d kiss her cheek and ask if she was all right. Sometimes, he’d bring back a box of her favorite chocolates or a CD he knew she wanted. All just . . . because. There didn’t need to be a reason, he just did it. And there were other things too, like the time Will forgot to hang out his washing to find later it was done. He’d gone to thank Vicky, assuming it’d been her, when she’d thanked Heath for dealing with the washing.

  The car rolled to a stop in a parking space off the road. Heath tugged the handbrake and didn’t let go.

  “A grizzly bear more like. Yeah, I wish you weren’t living with us. But it’s not . . . I mean, it’s . . . Fuuuck.” Heath hit the steering wheel with a palm. “Why, William?”

  Will frowned at the emphasis on his full name. “Because I deserve to know.”

  But Heath wasn’t listening. His eyes were glazed, staring out the window at the trees and fronds.

  “Heath . . . ” But he drifted off. What more could he say?