Chapter 10
Nathan
Sometimes, morning demands a fancy coffee with flavoured syrup and perfectly steamed milk and chocolate dusted on top even though it’s a latte, not a cappuccino.
Nathan knows he can’t really justify it, cost wise. Last night didn’t earn him much, especially with the hour-long break in the middle of his shift.
Will was worth it, though. So worth it.
Even if their reunion wasn’t everything he’d imagined it might have been.
He’d imagined Will climbing into the car so many times. The job earns him a little extra cash, yeah, helps him stretch his earnings a little further, but he didn’t start driving for the money.
He did it for Will. Hoped that one day, the algorithm would intervene and reunite them, or at least send him around their hometown enough that he’d catch a glimpse of him on the street.
It wasn’t the best plan in the world, but it was all he could do without doing something horrible like using his father’s connections to get intel on Will’s life, since the Saveas had clearly moved house while he was away.
The plan was designed for the happy accident kind of reunion.
He’d dreamt about watching Will melt from surprise into happiness, hoped that would lead to Will melting into his arms. Watching those familiar brown eyes widen in shock was a punch to the gut, the worst-case outcome he never imagined.
With hindsight, Will’s reaction makes perfect sense.
He must have felt like he saw a ghost in the rear-view mirror.
It never occurred to him that Will might think he was dead.
“Large caramel latte with extra caramel and chocolate for Nathan?”
“Thanks!”
He slips the coffee into a cardboard sleeve and turns to go. The gym’s only a five-minute walk away, but if he gets there early maybe there’ll be time to squeeze in a few sets before his first client.
“Nathan? Nathan Warner?”
He turns automatically and does a double take. “Miriam?”
“Oh my god, it’s really you!” She pushes her way through the caffeine-deprived crowd and leans in for a hug.
The woman in front of him bears so little resemblance to the girl he briefly dated at school. Not least because she’s very pregnant. “Wow, you’re…?”
“Yeah. Our second.” Miriam grins, curving a hand over her swollen belly, a pair of diamond rings catching the light.
“You and Fin?”
“Of course.” She says it like anything else would be unthinkable, which it absolutely would be, given that she and Fin bonded not long after Nathan ended things. “It’s been so long! How are you? What happened? One day you were there and the next you were gone and Will was an absolute mess.”
Nathan tries and fails to suppress his wince. “Yeah, I… My dad. He took me to live with my uncle.”
“Because you and Will bonded, right?”
“Yeah. It happened pretty fast.”
The barista calls Miriam’s name. Nathan steps forward to collect her drink for her, half consideration and half instinct to escape.
“Thanks. When did you get back?” She lifts the cup to her lips, shivering happily as she sips.
“Couple months ago. Not long.”
“Tell me you guys got back together and live in a cute apartment with an adorable dog?”
Nathan frowns, insulted by the stereotype and the assumption. “Uh, no.”
“Oh my god. Seriously?” Miriam raises an eyebrow. “Wow. I couldn’t stand to be separated from Fin. He’s my whole world. Him and Toby. What happened?”
He can’t remember if she was always this nosy. “I… it’s complicated. When are you due?”
“Seven weeks! They say second babies are usually early, we’ll see. Toby’s so excited about having a little sister.” Her face lights up, eyes sparkling.
“Ah, one of each, cute.” Nathan makes a show of looking at his watch. “Anyway, I better get to work. I’m a personal trainer, first client’s due in half an hour.”
“Oh, you didn’t use your Gift? Fin chose a different direction too. He’s a lawyer. We’re all so proud.”
He takes a half step towards the door. “That’s great, congrats.”
Miriam follows him into the cool autumn air. “Thanks! Listen. I think you should find Will.”
“Um… okay.”
“He was a wreck when you disappeared, honestly. Like, incredibly sad but still determined at the same time? He had all of us trying to contact you. Trying to figure out where you were. He was still looking for you when we left school.”
Nathan shifts his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “He never found me.”
He’d always hoped Will looked for him, trying to close the gap between them the way Nathan tried to find ways to get around his father and his uncle.
After a while, after… the worst of it, he stopped thinking he deserved to be found.
He gave up, relinquishing his iron grip on the belief that love could conquer all.
The memory chills him, hot sweet coffee doing little to chase away the cold.
“I hope someday you find each other again. It was good to see you.” Miriam smiles, reaching out to pat him gently on the shoulder before she turns and walks away.
He feels strangely hollow inside for the first two sessions of the day.
The clients don’t seem to notice, thankfully. They accept his instructions and offer light, meaningless chatter in between sets. For many of them, exercise is an escape, a way to return to the simple joy of manual movement when modern life puts so much emphasis on using your Gift.
Looking back, Nathan barely recognises himself in the boy who gave up. The man who eventually emerged from the fog had a different kind of focus, the kind that pushes out the hard questions. The boy who gave up feels like a stranger.
With the benefit of hindsight and the remnants of the conversation that brought him home, all Nathan feels is regret.
At least Will messaged him. Late last night, only an hour or so after Nathan dropped him home. His name on Nathan’s phone hit like a spark of electricity, jolting his tiredness away and brightening the night.
An apology was the last thing he had expected. An invitation to meet up, a distant hope.
They agreed to grab coffee in the park between two of Nathan’s freelance sessions.
It would be naive to hope that their meeting will end with Will falling in his arms, but maybe they’ll decide to see each other again.
Get to know each other all over again, discover all the things that have changed and all the things that haven’t.
Nathan can’t wait.
At lunch he hits the treadmill, working off some energy the best way he knows how.
The speed and incline ramp up quickly, an intense program designed to challenge.
The rhythmic whine of the machine is calming, as is the smoothness of the motion of his limbs, body taking over from Gift and mind alike.
Training his Gift was always hard, always like swimming against the current wearing a full set of clothes, but training his body is as easy as floating in the calmest of waters.
When the lactic acid builds, it washes his thoughts away, leaving a serenity that’s as meditative as it is addictive.
But today, it’s not enough to banish Will.
Long hair suits him. His brown skin is still annoyingly glowy. And he’s still tall.
Nathan laughs at himself as he pushes the speed up a little more. People don’t shrink until they’re old. If there’s one thing he shouldn’t be surprised by, it’s Will’s height. He always did tower over him.
Will’s body looks a little bulkier than it used to be.
Not much, just enough to hint at a physical job or an interest in the gym.
He was wearing a nursing uniform under his jacket; does that rule out the kind of career that would build muscle through the work?
If it does, maybe Will goes to the gym. Maybe he goes to Nathan’s gym.
Maybe they’ll bump into each other. Maybe Will might let Nathan give him a few pointers. Or maybe they could run side by side, facing the mirrors so Nathan can sneak the odd subtle glance.
Gorgeous. Will Savea is still gorgeous, like take your pick of any hot guy at the club gorgeous. And he still doesn’t seem to really know it.
Nathan wonders if he’s single. Isn’t quite sure what he’ll do if he isn’t. The faint memory of the connection between them makes him briefly, irrationally possessive—mine, mine, mine—even though he knows he has no claim on Will at all.
He shakes his head and grabs his water bottle, gulping down a mouthful as if he can wash the jealousy away.
A few button presses turn an intense program into a gruelling one, feet speeding on the belt until the sounds of the gym fade away.
Thoughts drift lazily through his mind, and he’s deep enough, relaxed enough that he lets them pass by without deeper inspection.
Eventually the beeping of the machine yanks him back to reality. He begins the cooldown program, sweaty and tired and rested all at the same time.
The rest of the afternoon passes quickly enough, two PT sessions and a spin class.
He’s walking down the corridor that leads to the locker rooms when one of his regulars walks through the doors.
“Nathan!”
“Hey, Chris.” He smiles, slipping into trainer mode easily and hoping he hasn’t missed a last-minute addition to his schedule. “Great to see you. Did our session move?”
“All good mate, I’m here for a run.”
“Nice. Don’t push it too hard, tomorrow’s leg day.”
Chris laughs, pushing a hand through his thick blonde hair. “No worries. New gear?”
“Yeah. Not sure about it, to be honest.” Nathan shifts awkwardly, reminded of just how much he hates the new uniform.
The black shorts are the same, loose enough on the leg that most employees wear leggings underneath, but the top is new.
It would be best described as skimpy. The women have fitted T-shirts with cleverly coloured panels which hint at a strong physique while offering plenty of coverage.
But the men’s top is a vest, the kind that has both a low scoop neck and low sides, and Nathan feels a little exposed wearing it.
He’s comfortable with his body, likes it even, but he doesn’t like the way that some of the gym’s clientele leer at him when they think he’s not looking.