by Lisa Henry
Matt dragged his fingers through his hair. “He’s having a bad week.”
“Mmm.” Grandad raised his eyebrows. “I’ve seen that look on blokes’ faces before. The thousand-yard stare. I saw it mostly in Vietnam.”
Matt dropped a teabag into a mug. “What’d you do for it there?”
“Waited until we were back at base and made ’em drink until they passed out, mostly.”
“And did that help?” Matt asked.
“Not for long.” Grandad stared past Matt for a moment, and then seemed to shake himself awake. “They sent you home to keep an eye on him?”
“Yeah.” Matt put Grandad’s tea on the table and sat down beside him. “He walked off a job today. A kid he knows hanged himself.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Matt said again, because what else was there to say?
It was the middle of the afternoon by the time Hayden woke. Matt had been sitting in bed struggling with his assignment for an hour or so—it wasn’t due for another month, but he was technically still on work time, so he wanted to do something work-related—when Hayden’s pattern of breathing changed. He rolled onto his back, and slowly blinked awake.
Matt set his laptop aside.
“Fuck,” Hayden whispered. He lifted a shaking hand to his face, and scrubbed at his eyes.
“Okay?” Matt asked softly.
“Mmm.” Hayden dropped his hand back onto the mattress. “I dunno. I fucked up big time, didn’t I?”
“You had a bad day.” Matt kept his voice level. “It happens.”
Hayden’s mouth quirked. “Sure it does.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” Hayden blinked at the ceiling. “Maybe just, um…” He cleared his throat. “Lie down with me?”
Hayden rolled onto his side again, facing away from Matt, who shifted so that he was lying behind him, spooning him. He slid a hand over Hayden’s hip, and Hayden tangled their fingers together and tugged his hand higher. Their clasped hands came to rest against Hayden’s chest, above his heart.
Matt brushed his nose against the fine hairs at the nape of Hayden’s neck. Then he tilted his chin up and pressed a soft kiss to the warm skin there.
“What were you doing?” Hayden asked after a moment. His voice was quiet, but Matt felt the vibration of it in his chest. “On your laptop.”
“My assignment.” Matt kissed the back of his neck again and squeezed his fingers.
“They give you guys homework?”
“Kind of. We have to enrol in this study program and do all these units before we qualify for promotions. So if I ever want to be a senior constable, I have to finish a whole bunch of these essays and shit.”
Hayden exhaled slowly. “And you do want that? To be a senior constable? To stay in the job?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“You think so?” There was something sharp in Hayden’s voice, something almost bitter, and Matt guessed they weren’t just talking about his job anymore. They were talking about Hayden’s too.
It was difficult to know how to respond.
“I don’t know,” he said at last, settling on the truth. “For now, I do. I’m good at my job, and most of the time I like it. That’s more than a lot of people can say.”
Hayden’s hand shook in Matt’s. “And what about the bad days?”
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “Jobs like mine—like yours—there are always going to be bad days. I think they might be easier to handle with someone by your side though.”
Hayden didn’t say anything for a long time. For long enough for Matt to worry he’d fucked up somehow. And then Hayden shifted slightly, pressing back against Matt. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “He didn’t believe me, the first time I told him I grew up in care.”
Isaiah.
Matt rubbed his thumb over Hayden’s knuckles.
“He thought I was bullshitting him.” There was the hint of a smile in Hayden’s voice, tempering his tone. “He didn’t think it was possible that kids like him could get out, could put it all behind them.”
“But you did.”
“Just as easily might not have.” Hayden shrugged. “I never knew my dad. Pretty sure my mum didn’t know him either. She was a junkie—that’s all I remember. They took me away from her when I was about five or six. I didn’t know houses were supposed to be clean. I didn’t know you didn’t just leave takeaway containers on the floor when you were finished eating.”
Matt’s eyes stung.
“It’s not like this tragedy or anything,” Hayden murmured. “People think kids like that sit around all day looking sad and big-eyed like the ones they use on charity ads. It’s not like that though. You don’t know you’re missing anything because you never had it. It’s just, it’s just normal, until you realise it isn’t.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Hayden made a small, dismissive noise. “It happens to a lot of people.”
And Matt knew not to press this. Not now, and maybe not ever. Because it was important to Hayden that he framed it as not a tragedy. Not a tragedy, Matt guessed, meant that Hayden was not a victim. And Matt could understand why he wanted that. Why he didn’t want to be pitied. Except to think of Hayden, six or seven, living in a dirty house with an addict for a mother and not knowing any different, made his chest ache. Made him want to heal the wounds Hayden would never admit to having in the first place.
Made him feel like a hypocrite too, because he’d never wanted to do the same for Isaiah, had he? Matt saw abused and neglected kids every week, if not every day, and he didn’t feel the same ache for them.
Couldn’t.
Couldn’t, or he’d burn out in a year.
You had to build walls. Had to become cynical. Had to use that hard-won experience to hone some sharp edges, or it would all become too much.
Or was that just an excuse?
Matt couldn’t tell anymore.
“I know it happens to a lot of people,” he said. “But I’m still sorry it happened to you.”
He felt some of the tension Hayden was carrying in his shoulders ease. Matt might have been content to lie like this for hours yet, but after a moment Hayden pulled away. He sat, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and putting his feet on the floor. He stretched, raising his arms. The muscles in his back shifted under his skin.
“Fuck.” Hayden dragged his fingers through his hair. “I have to call John, don’t I?”
“There’s no rush.”
Hayden twisted slightly to look back at him. He still had shadows under his eyes. The delicate skin there appeared almost greenish, like a days-old bruise. His eyes were bright though, and the quirk of his mouth was wry. “Yeah, there is.”
He was right, of course. Hayden’s boss would want to know that he wasn’t still in the middle of a breakdown, or on the way to getting dragged forcibly up to the secure mental health unit at the hospital.
“Where’s my phone?” Hayden asked, rising to his feet.
“On the desk,” Matt said. He’d plugged it in to charge. “You need to call Kate too, if you’re up for it.”
“I’ll probably just text her.” Hayden crossed to the desk and picked up his phone. He glanced up from the screen, and flashed a quick, brittle smile in Matt’s direction. “I don’t really want to...” He shrugged.
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” Hayden curled his fingers around his phone. “No.”
Matt nodded. “Anything you need me to do?”
Hayden shook his head, and looked back down at his screen.
“Want me to wait outside?” Matt asked softly.
Hayden lifted his gaze. It was naked, vulnerable. He shook his head again, a tremor running through him.
Matt rose to his feet and closed the distance between them. He drew Hayden back over to the bed, and sat with him on the end of it while Hayden stared down at his phone. His hands were shaking.<
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Matt rubbed his back.
Hayden unlocked his screen and navigated to his contacts. He selected one, and held his phone to his ear. Hunching over a little, he swallowed and closed his eyes. “John? It’s, um, it’s Hayden.”
Matt could hear the low murmur of a voice on the other end of the call, but he couldn’t make out the words. He traced small circles on Hayden’s back, his touch leaving warmth on Hayden’s cool skin.
“Yeah,” Hayden said, sagging slightly. “I will. I’m sor—” He was cut off. Colour rose in his cheeks. “Understood, boss, yeah. I’ll call them, yes.” He listened for a moment longer. “Yeah. Thanks.”
He ended the call and dropped his phone onto the bed.
“Okay?” Matt asked.
“Still got my job.” Hayden sounded shaky. “I’m not even in any shit, as long as I call Priority One and talk to them. I’ll probably end up with a referral to a psychologist or some bullshit, I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t sound like the end of the world.”
Hayden’s fingers clenched and unclenched. “Lots of bloody hoops to jump through.”
It isn’t, Matt thought, not really. And he had no doubt that Hayden needed to talk to a professional about Isaiah, and about Zach, and about the week from hell. Cracking under that sort of pressure wasn’t shameful. Given Hayden’s fatigue, it had been inevitable. Matt couldn’t imagine any half decent psychologist would disagree with that.
And better to deal with the fallout now, than to let it fester.
Hayden rolled his shoulders. “Sorry. About all this.”
“For what?” Matt asked.
“For dumping all this on you.” Hayden pressed his mouth into a tight line. “For making it all complicated.”
“You didn’t dump anything on me,” Matt said. “I’m your boyfriend. I care about you.”
Hayden shot him a sideways look he couldn’t quite read. “It’s as simple as that, huh?”
“Why not?” Matt remembered what Hayden had told him all those weeks ago at the Coffee Club. That he’d never done the boyfriend thing before, and that he was probably doing it wrong. And Matt had said “Same.” He had no way of knowing if he was doing it right either, or if he and Hayden were just the blind leading the blind. But he liked Hayden. Whatever it was they were trying to do here, wherever they were trying to be, it was worth working at, and nothing that had happened today had changed his mind on that. “Why shouldn’t it be simple?”
“Dunno.” Hayden shook his head slowly. “I dunno.”
Matt leaned in and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. No way was Hayden in any condition today to discuss their relationship, and what it meant. He had bigger stuff to deal with at the moment, to work though. “Want to stay here for a few days?”
Hayden threw him a narrow glance. “So you can make sure I’m not going to top myself?”
Matt’s stomach clenched. “Is that something you’re thinking about?”
Hayden’s gaze was blank for a moment, and then he snorted. “No. But I’d hardly tell you if I was, would I? We both know how to follow that script, Matt.” His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “I’m just tired still, and I say dumb shit when I’m tired.” He shook his head. “I’m angry too.”
Matt curled his fingers around the back of Hayden’s neck, and hoped that his touch was warm. Hoped that it anchored him in some way.
“I thought he was listening.” Hayden’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “We talked about how he could finish school. Or get an apprenticeship. Or go somewhere else when he aged out, and start fresh.” His mouth twisted. “And I thought he was listening, but he wasn’t, was he? He wasn’t fucking listening.”
Maybe he tried to listen, Matt thought, but he just couldn’t hear your voice over all the other noise in his head.
It would be no consolation right now, so he didn’t voice it.
“It’s just…” Hayden shook his head. “Fuck, Matt. It’s just been a really shit week.”
And that summed it up, didn’t it?
“Yeah.” Matt put his arm around Hayden’s shoulders. “It really has.”
“I want to rewind a few days,” Hayden murmured. “Start over. Because it’s fucked up. Everything’s just fucked up right now, and I’m just waiting for the next thing to happen.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.” Jesus. As if Matt could even make a promise like that. It was hollow, and they both knew it. “Stay here. I want you to stay. I don’t want you to be alone.”
“Okay,” Hayden said softly.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” Hayden leaned against him. His eyes were closed. “I’m tired, Matt, and I don’t want to be alone either.”
A shiver ran through him, and they sat at the end of the bed together for a long while, Hayden’s phone discarded beside them.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Saturday dawned overcast. The clouds pressed down over the city, hugging Castle Hill and, in the distance, Mount Stuart. The clouds pushed the heat low, and held it there. The city sweltered. Hayden woke to discover he’d kicked the sheet off as he’d slept, and even the chill of Matt’s new air conditioner couldn’t stop him from sweating. He thought at first that the heat must have woken him, and then became aware that Matt was moving around the room.
Hayden groped for his phone, and squinted at the screen. It was just past five. “Hey,” he rasped, blinking up at Matt. “You going to work?”
Matt leaned down and kissed him quickly. “Yeah. See you at two?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here.” Hayden dozed off before Matt left, and woke again some time later. The room was brighter now, and his phone told him it was almost eight. Hayden climbed out of bed and dug through Matt’s drawers for a pair of track pants and a T-shirt. Maybe he should go home and get a few sets of his own clothes…although to go home and then come back with an overnight bag almost implied permanence, or at least something more organised than what this was.
Whatever this was.
They were boyfriends. They liked each other. Did they have to know any more than that yet? At what point were they supposed to sit down and parse it out, check they were on the same page, or ask if there was a future in it? Was there a future in it? Hayden didn’t know.
And today wasn’t the day to make an issue out of it. Hayden needed to get his own head space figured out before he started worrying if there was room in there for Matt as well. Hayden felt cautiously hopeful that there was—he liked Matt, and Matt liked him, and Matt was a good guy. He’d proved that yesterday, and he seemed like the sort of guy who’d keep proving it in the future.
It was difficult to remember now how much Hayden had actively hated him—Constable Dickhead. Although, looking back, at least ninety percent of that had been lust. Maybe even ninety-five. Hayden liked him. That was the word they were throwing around, wasn’t it? Like. It was an inadequate word. Hayden liked a lot of people, and a lot of people liked him. But this thing between him and Matt was different than that. It was bigger than like. Why the hell wasn’t there another word between like and that other l-word?
Because Hayden wasn’t there yet, and he didn’t think Matt was either, but it was hanging there on the horizon, maybe, for the future.
Hayden wasn’t afraid of commitment, exactly. It was uncharted territory, but so what? No, it was the vulnerability that scared him. That moment when he’d have to open up, to show Matt Deakin all his weak points, and hope Matt didn’t laugh at him for it.
Stupid.
Hayden stared at his drawn face in Matt’s mirror.
Stupid, because Matt wasn’t like that. Matt was a good guy. The knowledge didn’t quell Hayden’s worry though. Didn’t soothe away his disquiet. Matt was a good guy and Hayden liked him; there had to be another step between that, and I love you.
Who said that? Who just came out and said something like that? Hayden…Hayden never had. He’d never told his mum that he loved her. He’d never been taught to say a thin
g like that, let alone feel it. And then there were foster homes, where maybe he’d come close to loving some of his foster parents—he hated some of the others—but you didn’t say those words. You didn’t let yourself fall for a feeling like that. Not when you could get moved at any time, for any reason, clothes and books and scant toys shoved in a garbage bag. Herded into the back of a car and driven to somewhere new to start all over again.
Hayden thought of walking on the beach yesterday, and feeling the dry sand shifting under his boots, falling away, eroding. Couldn’t build a foundation on that.
He stared at his reflection and it stared back until he didn’t recognise it anymore. Until it was a stranger’s face.
He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled breath into his lungs.
This was nothing more than the tendrils of yesterday’s day from hell reaching out for him. He was fine, and he and Matt were fine, and it was okay to not have all the answers right now.
Hayden scrubbed his hands over his face, and then left the bedroom.
Charlie met him in the hallway, tail swinging in a lazy wag, and then led the way to the kitchen, where Joe was sitting at the table with a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.
“Morning,” Joe said.
Hayden scratched the back of his neck, ducking his head a little. “Morning.”
“The jug’s still hot.” Joe nodded towards the bench. “If you want a cuppa.”
Hayden shuffled over to the bench. Was it weird that he already knew which cabinet the mugs were kept in? Which canister held the teabags, and which held the coffee? Because today was a coffee morning, definitely.
Outside, a low rumble of thunder sounded, and the day seemed to darken even further. A moment later a burst of rain hit the tin roof like a barrage, the roar of noise drowning out any other sound. Hayden looked out the window in time to see the chickens darting for shelter. Most of them vanished from his view as they got close, presumably ducking into the space under the house. One clearly miscalculated, and appeared at the top of the steps into the kitchen, squawking.
Charlie heaved himself to his feet, but before he could take a step toward the door the chicken flung herself back down the shallow steps in a flurry of feathers and indignation.
