Chapter Five
Madden
It tingled, but he ignored it. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, but if he didn’t acknowledge it, he could pretend it wasn’t happening.
A man of his age, a man established in society and on the cover of business and tech magazines around the world, would never, not in a million years, feel nervous when making a call.
And he wasn’t feeling nervous, not at all, simply because he refused to admit it.
The phone rang once, twice. No answer. He wanted to scratch the back of his neck, where the sling was rubbing awkwardly, but his hand was busy holding the phone.
He should put it on speaker, he told himself, but he did nothing of the sort.
Not to mention, the itch on his nape was nothing compared to the discomfort of the monumental cast that wrapped around his upper right arm.
At the third ring Madden wondered if Adryan hadn’t seen the name on his screen and was choosing not to pick up. As he waited, he found himself checking the time repeatedly, making sure it wasn’t too early. But it was Monday morning, and already nine thirty, nobody would be in bed at this time.
‘What?’ came a very thick voice on the other side of the line after the fifth tone.
‘Adryan?’ he asked, not sure he recognized the voice.
‘What?’ he snapped again.
‘It’s Madden,’ he tried, his voice sounding sheepish. What the fuck. Had he lost his mind? ‘It’s Madden,’ he tried again, hardening his voice.
‘What do you want?’ He heard the grunt of annoyance.
‘Am I bothering you?’ he asked, mildly annoyed himself.
‘Worse, you woke me up.’
‘Who is still sleeping on a Monday after nine?’ Disbelieving.
‘People who face a twelve-hour night shift, Madden, that’s who.’
Madden didn’t know what to say to that. In his urgency to find himself an errand-boy, he had forgotten the would-be errand boy had an honest-to-God job that was quite demanding and required a lot of stamina.
Errand-boys who were not, actually, errand-boys and had no time to be running around on his behalf.
‘Never mind, get back to sleep,’ Madden said, annoyed at himself.
‘What? You woke me up and now you’re not even gonna bother telling me what for?’
Madden had a flashback to his conversation with Vicky, and closed his eyes tight.
‘I was…’ He cleared his throat. ‘I was looking for someone to help me out with things while I was stuck in here,’ he said, his voice sounding less firm than he would like.
‘Things like what?’ he heard the ruffling of fabric on the other side of the line.
‘Like…’ He didn’t know how to say it. He felt out of place and embarrassed. ‘Like going to the shop or finding technical help for me. Things like that.’
There was a silence on the other end of the line, and an unnatural tension in the air, considering the other man was nowhere near him.
And then the silence broke by an explosion of laughter on the other end.
‘You need an errand-boy?’ Adryan asked, still laughing.
‘Well—’
‘And you called me?’ He kept laughing.
Madden frowned, annoyed. His shoulders seized with tension and his jaw locked, so tight it hurt.
He should have expected this. He had let Adryan’s good humor and pretty smile make him forget all the shit they had put him through.
For a split second, he had allowed in the belief that they had grown up.
That Adryan had grown up at least, that he was a responsible, maybe decent adult, but the way he was laughing at him made it clear things had not changed.
‘I’m sorry I called,’ he said, stiff and unnatural, and hung up.
He sat there, staring at the wall, feeling like an idiot.
When his phone rang, he jumped in his seat, the bed screeching under his weight.
Adryan’s name flashed on the phone, and his heart pounded with anxiety. He felt like a child again.
But he wasn’t a child, and he had agency over his own actions, and as such, he pressed the block button.
In normal circumstances, he would go for a run, or to the gym, or indulge in a generous portion of carbs, just because he could, but here, now, with his head throbbing and his arm movement restricted by a cast the size of a piece of armor, the only means of escape he had was work.
He turned to his emails once more, opening reports and projections, answering the urgent ones, making calls, and avoided any thoughts of big blue eyes, sharp jaws or high school bullies.
It was only when his alarm rang that he realized he hadn’t moved from the bed to eat, drink or even take a leak.
He resented the sound for pulling him out of his work, but had no choice.
He needed to get dressed, somehow. Reception could surely call a taxi for him.
That these daily hospital checkups were a waste of his time was not debatable.
But the doctor had also made his point and hadn’t left him any room for argument and, while Madden was always determined to get his way, he was also determined to do so without ending up being arrested.
It didn’t play well, in the business world, to make the headlines handcuffed in the back of a police car.
No matter how backward, middle-of-nowhere town Troham was, when it came to this sort of thing, the tabloids found you like a pig finds truffles.
Resigned, he pushed himself off the bed, and wobbled onto his feet.
His head swayed for a moment and he kept perfectly still, willing the sensation to go away.
After a few seconds, he tackled the next task.
Getting dressed. The hospital had helped him the previous night and now he realized he had taken it for granted.
Sure, they had cut the sleeve of a T-shirt to slip it through his arm and the cast, but he hadn’t considered, at the time, how he would do any of that by himself after. Now, he faced the impossibility of it.
He rubbed his face with his free hand when a loud bang came from the door.
‘What the hell?’
Another one.
Tense, Madden made his way to the door and pulled it open. On the other side, Adryan stood with a smile on his lips and hands busy with bags.
‘He…’
Madden slammed the door in his face.
‘Come on!’ Adryan’s voice came from the other side. ‘I’m sorry I laughed, ok?’
‘Fuck off,’ he grunted loudly at the door. If the quality of the rest of the hotel was anything to go by, that door wasn’t thick enough to stop the sound of his voice from getting to Adryan.
‘My mom sent food,’ he heard the other man’s voice, tentative.
Adryan could have come with a meal from a three-Michelin-star restaurant, and he would still not have opened the door, but if it was Mrs. Hayes’s cooking, that was another matter altogether.
Still, it was Adryan.
That such a wonderful couple like Mark and Julianne Hayes had produced a jerk like Adryan was a mystery no one would ever decipher. They had always treated him so well the few times he had been over, all while Adryan pretended to be an angel.
Well, it’d be impolite to Mrs. Hayes to refuse her food, he told himself. Frowning, he opened the door.
‘What are you doing here?’ He couldn’t help the annoyance in his voice.
Somewhere, deep in his mind, he could still hear Adryan’s laughter.
The sound mixed with images from his youth.
Adryan standing right by Michael’s side.
Adryan slapping Michael in the back in good-humored camaraderie.
Adryan, laughing at him, in whatever misery Michael and Shane were putting him into.
‘I told you, my mom sent you food,’ he said, bringing the bags inside.
‘Hmm, I don’t think it’s all going to fit in here,’ he said, considering the mini fridge.
He bent down to check the contents of the small appliance and Madden’s eyes were pulled like a magnet by the way Adryan’s jeans tightened around his ass.
Shaking it off, he forced himself to look away.
‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘Where else would you go in this town?’ Adryan asked, his voice muffled as he rearranged the contents to allow the food containers in. ‘You’ve only been here for a day and this place is a mess already, Maddy—’
‘Madden,’ he corrected.
‘What?’ Adryan turned to him now, big blue eyes and golden skin. Was he this handsome when he was in high school? Well, he was handsome. Michael, Shane and Adryan had all sorts of girls hanging from their arms, while walking the corridor like the kids in teen movies.
‘It’s Madden.’
‘Ah,’ Adryan said, rubbing the back of his neck.
He looked around, quiet for a moment, as if he didn’t know what to say.
Madden knew exactly what to say. Any variation of ‘thank you for the food, but now fuck off,’ would do, but before he had a chance to say any such thing, the man settled, his shoulders squared and his jaw tensed.
‘Look, about this morning…I’m sorry I laughed. I didn’t mean to, it was just so unexpected… And I’m not even so sure I was awake. I’m not the best in the morning.’
‘Sure. It’s not like I was surprised anyway. I had just expected you to have grown up since school, but if Michael hasn’t changed I suppose there is no reason for you to have matured either.’
Adryan’s face fell into a mask of hurt. His lips moved for a moment, and Madden felt a tinge of guilt for snapping back with that comment, but not enough to say anything.
‘I suppose I deserve that,’ he said, his head hanging low, pretending to stare at a spot on the carpet. ‘For what it’s worth, I know I was a jerk and I’ve always felt horrible about all that shit.’
Madden looked at him in disbelief. After a moment, he couldn’t help but laugh.
‘I’m not sure if your laughter is a good sign or a bad sign, man,’ Adryan said with a nervous chuckle.
Madden could say so many things just then. He could remind him of the time they beat him under the bleachers for telling someone Michael was his brother. That was early on in high school. He hadn’t even come out yet.