The Best Man: Part Two (3 page)

It’s a bold statement, and it holds no weight, but he doesn’t like thinking of Patrick all alone, for the rest of his life. Patrick deserves someone who’ll make him happy. And someone deserves Patrick, and his body, and that voice, and the way he looks at you, makes you feel like the only person in the room.

Patrick raises an eyebrow at him. “Make it a thousand and you’ve got a bet,” he says, offering his hand.

Noah huffs a laugh. “All right.” He shakes Patrick’s hand. “Deal.”

Patrick’s grip is firm, and he squeezes a bit, pulls Noah in so he can drop his voice, get a little dramatic. “Better start saving, kid.” He releases Noah, leans back on the couch, coolly confident in his own inability to never fall in love. A heaviness settles in Noah’s gut, something like sadness. “You’ll be paying me that grand next time we meet.”

He wonders when that will be; how long it’ll take after he goes back to the States for Noah to see him again. Wonders if Patrick’s looking forward to leaving, getting away from all of this, away from him.

He doesn’t think so. A part of him, the most secret part, knows that Patrick likes being around him, more than he should. As long as no one says it out loud, there’s no problem with it.

“Not unless I win,” he says, and he’s firm with this. Patrick might be confident, but Noah’s certain.
Someone
out there will catch Patrick’s eye enough to help him fall.

The idea of it doesn’t make him as happy as it should.

Patrick’s brow is furrowed as he looks at him now. “What’s your issue with this?”

“I just don’t think it’s possible that you’ll never fall in love,” Noah says, shrugging, and Patrick’s expression changes to that of curiosity, intrigue.

“There’s a lot of sentimentality in you.”

“Yeah,” says Noah, smiling, giving Patrick a little poke on the thigh. “Maybe I should lend you some.”

Connor comes back before Patrick can respond, and he doesn’t look happy.

“Babe, listen,” he says, slumping into the couch opposite and scrubbing a hand over his face in frustration. “I’m sorry. I can’t go with you to get the rings tomorrow.”

“What? Why not?”

“This thing’s come up, I have to deal with it.” He looks at Noah with eyes full of apology. “Can you go on your own?”

“But it’s London,” Noah says weakly. He’s never been out of the city on his own before, let alone trying to navigate the capital.

“Why the hell are you buying your rings from London?” Patrick pipes up from beside him.

“Connor wanted them custom designed.”

“Of course he did.” He shoots Connor a look of fond exasperation. “Look,” he says to Noah, “I’ll drive you down there.”

“No, it’s fine. I can deal with it.”

“He’s right, Noah,” Connor says, nodding and sitting forward in his seat. “You’ll only get lost.”

Noah tutts, going faintly red. “Oh that’s nice, thanks.”

“Well I’m not wrong, am I? You got lost in Debenhams the other week.”

“It’s got a funny layout!”

“I’ll take you,” Patrick says, authority in his voice, leaving no room for protests. “I’ve got nothing else on tomorrow.”

It’s either that, or Noah’s on his own. And Connor’s not wrong—he does get lost in department stores.

“Fine,” he grumps. “Whatever.”

But it means a whole day with Patrick away from the town, away from Chester, away from people who know them. A whole day with Patrick and no one else.

He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about it, but he’s pretty sure quietly excited isn’t it.

* * * * *

“Why are you always up?” is the first thing Patrick says to him when he comes into the living room at gone midnight later that night. He’s wearing loose sweats and a white vest, bare feet, because apparently he listened to Noah—he hasn’t been out tonight, stayed in to have dinner with them, watch telly with them, went to bed at a decent hour.

But like Noah, the early nights are always just good intentions.

“I’m a bit of a night owl,” Noah mumbles. “What’s your excuse?”

“The entertainment business for the past ten years,” Patrick says dryly. He sits beside Noah on the couch, Noah lifting his feet to make room for him. But his toes are cold tonight, and he immediately wedges them under Patrick’s thigh.

“Right,” says Noah, while Patrick takes a moment to tug the material of Noah’s trousers down over his ankles from where it had ridden up in the movement, then he lifts his thigh a little to tuck Noah’s feet in further against the cold.

“What time do you want to head off tomorrow?”

“Dunno,” Noah says around a yawn. “About ten? We can park in King’s Cross and then get the Tube.”

“Good plan, Batman.”

They sit in silence for a minute or two. Patrick’s hand is still wrapped around his ankle, gentle and unmoving. Noah wonders if he’s aware, if it’s deliberate.

“There’s a restaurant there I’d like to take you to,” Patrick says suddenly. His tone indicates he’s been building up to the statement.

“What?”

“I don’t get to go to London often these days,” Patrick explains, looking at Noah with soft eyes. “But there’s this Italian restaurant in Kensington that serves the best carbonara I’ve ever had.” He pauses, and then adds, “I want to go there tomorrow for dinner. With you.”

It’s a request rather than an order, and Noah finds there’s nothing within him that wants to refuse. “Okay.”

“Okay. Good.”

A thrill of something races through Noah’s chest, makes his stomach lurch. Patrick’s looking at his mouth again, and it takes him a moment to tear his gaze away.

“Where are we tonight?”

“Liverpool.”

“Oh Jesus.”

* * * * *

He’s being gently shaken awake, and he stirs into consciousness slowly, blinking into the dim light and then into Patrick’s face from where he sits on the edge of his bed, the white vest he’s wearing exposing his muscles to Noah’s view, the tattoo on his bicep.

It’s too early to be faced with this image, and Noah scrunches his face up, rubs his fingers into his eyes.

“Come on,” says Patrick, voice low.

Noah yawns. “What…what time is it?”

His brain’s struggling to focus properly, and he’s stuck on how it feels to wake up to Patrick beside him, looking into his face, his eyes soft.

“Nearly nine. You need to get up.”

“God,” he says, huffing. “Where’s Connor?”

“Left early. Here.”

And suddenly there’s a cup of coffee in front of him. He sits up, unaware of the blanket dropping down to expose his bare chest until he catches Patrick looking at it.

“Thanks.” He takes the coffee from him.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” Patrick says, getting up, “and then I’m coming in here with a bucket of water.”

Noah frowns, says, “We don’t even have a bucket.”

“I’ll find one!” Patrick calls back to him as he heads out to the living room.

Noah joins him in the kitchen some ten minutes later, and Patrick’s fully dressed now, a black top on over his white vest, artfully torn jeans hung low on his hips.

Noah passes by him leaning against the breakfast bar doing something on his phone. “You’re not wearing a suit today.”

“Stellar observational skills you’ve got there.”

Seeing him from the front now brings to light the low-cut vee of his top, exposing skin and hair and the hint of his pecs. Noah stares at it as he picks a couple of grapes from the bunch.

“What?” says Patrick suddenly.

Noah startles and looks up into his eyes. “Nothing.”

“Right,” says Patrick, clearly amused. He slips his phone into his pocket and reaches for his jacket draped over one of the stools. “Well when you’ve finished counting my chest hair, maybe we can get a move on.”

“I wasn’t counting your—oh fuck off,” Noah says, burning red, and Patrick laughs.

They get into the car and head out of the village, Patrick turning the heating on against the chill of the December air. It’s not until they’re cruising along the motorway that Noah’s struck with a sudden thought.

“I should take your number.”

Patrick glances at him out the corner of his eye. “You reckon.”

“Well what if we get separated in London?”

“Why would we get separated?”

“I dunno. You never know. Maybe you’ll get distracted by some hot young thing hanging around outside a bathroom.”

“Pretty sure I’ll be able to control myself long enough to tell you where I’m going,” Patrick says, smirking. “Although knowing you,” he adds, voice crawling to a drawl, “you’ll be in there watching.”

Noah blushes again, but he laughs with it. “Shut up.”

Patrick digs into his pocket for his phone, hands it over. “Here.”

Noah keys his number into the phone, then calls himself from it to get Patrick’s number. He goes back to the phone’s menu, and he’s about to lock the screen and hand the phone back, but the message icon is right there, staring at him, tempting him.

He clicks on it.

There’s only one message there, sent from Patrick to his friend Anne. All other messages, whether incoming or sent, have been deleted. The one message, sent less than an hour ago, says:

I don’t know, but I’m fucked if I’m not careful.

It could be about anything, and there’s no point trying to figure it out, although he can’t help wondering what the situation is, what has Patrick so worried.

“What are you doing?” Patrick asks him now, tone mildly curious.

“Reading your texts,” Noah mumbles.

“Anything good?”

“No,” says Noah, closing the message box. “You’re dead boring.”

He opens the camera and holds the phone up at arm’s length in front of his face, Patrick side-eyeing him with his brows drawn.

“What are you doing now?”

“Taking a picture for my caller ID,” Noah says, then snaps the picture. He puts Patrick’s phone down in his lap and retrieves his own phone, opens the camera and aims it at Patrick. “Smile.”

Patrick sticks up his finger. Noah takes the picture anyway.

“Nice,” he says, assigning the picture to the contact. “Says it all really.”

By the time they arrive in London, Noah and Patrick are deep in a discussion about Patrick’s past. He’s told Noah about his sister, a bright, bubbly girl he obviously misses, and the things they used to do together as a kid, getting into trouble with their dad, Patrick often taking the blame. He talks about days on the pier with his friends, and roaming the streets of Dublin looking for mischief, and running from the guards at least once a weekend because shoplifting and petty vandalism was how you earned your respect back then. Noah asks him about his mum, and his school, and the kind of music he grew up listening to, and it’s not until they reach King’s Cross, and Noah remembers why they’ve come to London in the first place, that he realises he’s not asked Patrick a single question about Connor, the one person who should have been at the forefront of his curiosity. Patrick grew up with Connor; he’ll know things Connor would never think to tell him. This was a missed opportunity, but he doesn’t feel as bad about it as he should.

They park at the station and go inside, purchase their tickets and head down to the Tube. The train pulls up almost immediately and they enter it, where it’s packed and hot and horrible, and he’s pressed against Patrick at his front and an old, sweaty, stinking man at his back, and he’s pushing forward to try to get away from the smell and the sweat, only there’s nowhere to go.

Suddenly Patrick takes hold of him, and he pulls him around and into the corner by the door, and he steps in close, crowding him, blocking him from the contact of other people and their filth. And all Noah can see now is Patrick, and he can feel his heat, and his soft breath on the side of his face, and he looks up into Patrick’s eyes, shrouded in the shadow of this train, and he feels warmth wash over him at knowing that this is Patrick protecting him, looking after him, shielding him from the touch of others.

When they get off the Tube, Noah’s almost crushed by the rush of the crowd and he panics slightly, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head as he tries to break through. Then Patrick’s hand closes around his wrist and Noah’s instinct has him shuffling in close, wrapping his other hand around Patrick’s bicep and clinging on, letting Patrick lead him through and out into the cold shock of daylight.

“Told you I could lose you here,” Noah says breathlessly when he feels like he can talk again. Patrick squeezes his wrist gently in reassurance, his thumb edging into Noah’s palm, rubbing it.

“I wouldn’t let it happen.” It’s another minute or two before he lets go.

They go to the jeweller’s, where they’re presented with the custom-designed rings sitting nestled in a black box.

“Nice,” says Patrick, and Noah nods, not feeling much of anything. They’re all right, he supposes. Rings are rings. He closes the box, gets ready to pay. Patrick stops him. “Don’t you want to check it fits?”