Chapter 6
Declan
Idon’t know what I’d been thinking. I began to sweat as I got out of the car and found my balance. This was a date, wasn’t it? I’d bought Sonny on a date to the lake.
We’d been friends forever and I had risked that by bringing him on a date so he would know that I liked him and wanted to be with him forever.
Sonny bounded round the car to stand beside me. Even wrapped up in all his layers, he still managed to radiate excitement so strongly that I could feel it from a foot away. I swear he warmed me up just by looking so happy and excited.
Although, speaking of being warm…
“Sonny, where’s your scarf?”
His hand flew to his bare neck to touch it, as though checking he really didn’t have it on.
“Oh yeah. I don’t know. I guess I forgot it?”
I’d known he would. He always did, and the only reason he’d never caught pneumonia before was that I’d always been around to lend him one of mine, which I kept in my car specifically for him. I didn’t have a spare, though. This wasn’t my car. Mine had been completely written off for scrap.
Sonny shrugged. “I’ll be okay.”
I reached up to unwind my own scarf from around my neck, saying, “Here, you can wear mine,” but Sonny reached out his hands to stop me.
The moment he touched my hands, I froze.
Even though the air was chilly, biting at my exposed skin, the simmer of warmth in my belly was growing hotter and hotter at his closeness.
Damn, I’d forgotten just how beautiful Sonny was.
The warm tones of his red jacket suited him, and I couldn’t think what to say.
My concentration was broken suddenly by a familiar voice behind me. Erik.
“Evening, Declan. Sonny.”
Sonny and I broke apart as though we’d been caught doing something we shouldn’t be, and I couldn’t tell which of us was more startled.
Sonny said, “Erik?”
Erik smiled and held out his hand for Sonny to shake. I watched their hands touch and was it me or was there something weirdly erotic about that? Their hands clasping together right in front of me, touching, looking so delicate and dexterous.
I cleared my throat and Erik said, “It’s good to see you again. Are you here to skate?”
“Um,” said Sonny. I’d been arguing with him all the way here as he insisted that he didn’t need to skate but I knew he loved it and wanted to have a go.
I took his hesitation as my opportunity.
“Sonny loves skating,” I told Erik. Again. But Sonny didn’t need to know that.
Erik held up a pair of skates. “Me too. I’m not very good yet. I’m still learning. Want to join me for a while? I could use someone to hold onto until I get my balance.”
Wow, Erik was making this sound so natural. I stared at him, wondering whether he really meant that or not. It was impossible to tell, with the way Erik smiled at us both, looking for all the world like he’d just happened to come across us here in the car park.
If Sonny thought it was an unlikely coincidence, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he stuttered, “Y-yeah, sure, I can hold onto you.”
He ducked his head and fussed with his sleeves for a minute and I wondered whether he was blushing or whether the cold wind was making his cheeks rosy.
Before we moved off, Erik unwound his scarf from his neck. It was a rich red colour that somehow made his plump little lips look more red and ripe than ever. I stared at those lips, and saw Erik’s mouth move to form words.
It took a while for the words to sink in, though.
“Put this on. You don’t want to get cold.”
Erik was already wrapping the scarf around Sonny’s neck by the time I realised what was happening. He stood close and fussed with it, making sure Sonny was wrapped up warm.
Sonny just stood there and stared down at Erik as though he couldn’t work out what was happening, either.
“There,” said Erik at last. “Much better.”
He licked his red lips, making them shine.
Sonny said, “Won’t you be cold?”
“No.” Erik pulled the roll-neck of his sweater up. “This’ll keep me warm.”
Sonny pressed a hand to his borrowed scarf. His words were faint. “Okay.”
“Shall we?” asked Erik, and gestured at the lake. There were a few people skating round, a gaggle of children all slipping and falling and squealing with laughter, and a couple skating in a slow, steady loop, arm in arm.
I found myself between Erik and Sonny as we walked. I left my crutches in the car, apparently suddenly over-confident that I’d be fine between them.
As we walked, Sonny breathed out, “It’s so pretty here, right?”
He was taking in the scene with a soft little smile on his face, as though remembering all the times we’d been there together as children, and was swept up in the romance of being here again while the snowy hill sparkled in the late afternoon sun and the icy lake shone like a blade.
I desperately wanted to hold his hand. Because he was right, it was pretty here.
“Yes,” I croaked.
Erik said nothing, and I wondered whether he was just giving me and Sonny some room. I had said it was a date, after all.
We reached the lake and Erik said, “Shall we skate now? Then you two can leave when you’re ready and take a walk or something. I’ll be here, on the lake.”
He met my eyes as he said it, and I understood what he was saying. You and Sonny can go for your romantic walk. I’ll be nearby in case you need me.
I nodded. “Yes, that sounds great.”
Erik smiled and nodded. He looked around for a bench and we headed over there. Already, I was glad to be able to sit down, even though I’d only walked from the car.
As I eased onto the bench, Sonny plopped down beside me and put his skates on. He stood, wobbling on the path and laughing. “It’s been so long since I skated, it might be Erik holding me up.”
I smiled, couldn’t help it. Sonny wobbled closer to the lake and stepped onto the ice. He stayed near the edge, waiting for Erik, taking a few first long glides up and down.
Erik sat beside me and fastened his skates. As he bent his head down, he spoke. Nobody else would see him or hear him, except me. “Don’t sit in one position for too long. Move your body around so you don’t get stiff. It’s cold and this bench isn’t designed to support people’s backs.”
Even when he wasn’t working, he was working. Looking after my body.
I heard Sonny call, “Evening, Mr Parker.”
Looking up, I saw Sonny waving as he skated past the older man, who was corralling his grandchildren away from the lake again. As he passed me, he stopped.
“Evening, Declan. Back again, I see.”
“Yes, Mr Parker.”
“Enjoy your date with your young man, Declan. It’s a fair romantic spot, this.”
I opened my mouth but the words didn’t come out.
Because my instinct had been to deny that I was on a date.
Because Mr Parker had nodded at Erik when he’d spoken, as though I’d bought Erik on a date.
I wanted to correct him and say we weren’t here together, not like that, but…
weirdly, that felt like a lie. We had been here together, alone, and it had felt…
well, date-like, if I were being honest.
Which is why I’d been freaking out ever since, obviously.
I stared mutely at Mr Parker, who luckily didn’t notice because one of his grandchildren chose that moment to beg, “Can we stay another five minutes, pleeeeease?”
“No, sweetheart, it’s time to go home.”
He rounded the children up and ushered them back to the car park, and the lake was suddenly quieter, nearly deserted. There were only the other couple, skating in wide circles, completely absorbed in each other.
Sonny came back to the edge of the lake with a scrape of ice, stopping right at the edge.
“Did you see Mr Parker?” he asked me.
I nodded.
Erik must have noticed that I was having trouble speaking because he said, “Do you know him from when you lived round here?”
“He was our primary school teacher,” Sonny told him. “He’s the one who taught us to skate, with the rest of the class.”
Sonny might have been talking to Erik, but his eyes were fixed on me. There was something odd about his expression. His eyes weren’t alight with joy the way they usually were. The way Sonny was designed to be, always and forever.
I wanted nothing more than to keep that light in his eyes, and my stomach suddenly felt as though a rock had plunged into it.
“Come on.” He held out his hand to Erik. “Get on the ice.”
Erik took Sonny’s hand and, with a last, strange glance over his shoulder at me, Sonny drew him out onto the lake.