Chapter 14
Nathan
The suit still fits, but only just.
Nathan casts a critical eye over himself in the mirror, adjusting the Windsor knot of the pewter silk tie until it lies perfectly flat.
The white shirt is fine, crisp and new to account for the extra bulk at the base of his neck.
The jacket is minutely too tight, stretched over his upper arms, and the trousers cling a little more snugly to his arse and thighs than they used to.
Only a discerning eye would notice.
Emily will notice. She notices everything.
A little hair wax swept through his messy strands, and he’s ready to go.
The restaurant is tucked away in a high-end hotel, the kind that murmurs its exclusivity in polished marble and heritage print fabrics. When he gives his name at the host’s podium he’s led to a private dining room, a familiar face standing guard at the door.
“Sameer.”
His response is as aloof as always. “Nathan.”
Sameer knocks twice on the panelled oak door and ushers him through.
The room is cosy, clearly meant for a small party.
The walls are panelled with bevelled dark wood, and Nathan’s steps are muffled by a thick Persian rug.
There’s another door at the other side of the room, presumably for the staff to slip in for service.
This kind of opulence used to feel familiar, part of the everyday backdrop, but the feeling’s already dimmed, giving way to a whisper of intimidated awe.
Emily rises to greet him, arms stretched for a hug. He steps in, eyes closing briefly as a wave of gratitude and comfort washes over him.
“Nathan, dear boy.” Emily beams at him, gesturing to the empty seat at the table as she settles back into hers.
“It’s wonderful to see you, Em. You look great.”
She wears familiar armour, non-threatening and bold in equal parts: a wool skirt suit in a rich jewel tone with a white blouse, a string of pearls gleaming from the collar.
Her greying hair is swept into its usual chignon, a small pair of diamond studs sparkling behind the strands left artfully loose.
“Thank you. That suit looks borderline inappropriate, you know. They’d turf you out of Parliament on suspicion of being a stripper.”
Nathan laughs. “Definitely not a stripper. Point taken, though. It’s a bit tight. I haven’t worn it since I left your staff.”
“Darling, you’re positively bursting out of it.
I assume you did take up personal training in the end?
” A soft knock at the door and a besuited waiter slips into the room with two menus.
“Ah, finally, here you are. Sparkling water, please, and a bottle of whatever Chablis the sommelier recommends. Nathan, you’ll join me in a glass? ”
“Of course. Thank you.” Nathan smiles at the waiter, already backing away on silent feet. “Yeah, I went into PT as planned. The qualifications were easy enough, and then after a month or so, I managed to get an in-house role at a new gym. Picked up a few clients on the side, too.”
“A success story, how delightful.” Emily smiles at him brightly; a real smile, not the variety pasted on for the cameras. “I’ve half a mind to contract you myself, drag you around the country to keep me in shape.”
“Still busy, then?”
“Oh yes. There’s rumour of a general election being called for May. Everyone’s out opening terribly dull civic amenities, kissing babies and bemoaning the state of the crime figures, trying to build up their profile just in case.”
“Explains the state of the news nowadays.”
“Some of that is poppycock, some of it’s true enough.
We do have the tiniest problem with a few ex-servicemen, as you’ve no doubt heard.
Always a circus when the high-level Gifted decide to make a scene.
” Emily picks up her menu and flops it open, glancing at it long enough to check there’s steak. “You know what you want?”
Nathan flips his own leather-bound folio open, eyes gravitating towards the salads. “I’ll have the goat’s cheese salad.”
She smiles at him indulgently. “Saving yourself for pudding? Some things never change.”
“Some things never will. I heard about the supermarket incident, by the way.”
“Ah yes.” Emily sighs, weariness spreading over her face. “Christopher was quite shaken. He was expecting a twenty-minute appearance with a pair of oversized scissors, not twenty of the highly Gifted surrounding the building.”
“One of my housemates is a drone camera operator, she was there. Said it felt intense, even though it was peaceful.”
“Peaceful?” Emily’s chuckle is still half snort.
“One of them broke into the service area, got halfway down the corridor to Christopher and his team. Luckily one of them had a taser. I suspect all security personnel will carry them from now on. Sameer already does. Some would say you left the business at just the right time.”
The waiter returns, filling their tumblers with water.
He pours a little golden wine into a crystal glass, displaying the label just long enough for Emily to taste it and proclaim it delicious.
As soon as their glasses are filled, the bottle is plunged into an ice-filled silver bucket, their orders are taken, and the menus are whisked away.
The food is good, understatedly simple but made with high-quality ingredients.
Nathan forces himself to eat slowly, alternating between a fluffy white roll slathered with butter and his salad.
The physicality of his job means that hunger sometimes robs him of the experience of eating, stuffing down food faster than he can taste it.
Breakfast feels like hours ago, and the salad merely takes the edge off his hunger rather than satiating it.
When their plates have been cleared and the dessert menu perused for a respectable amount of time, Nathan makes his choice. “I’ll have the sticky toffee pudding, please.”
Emily snorts with laughter. “Cheese plate for me. And bring him two helpings of the sticky toffee, he’s far too polite to ask.”
“Thanks, Em.”
“You’re very welcome, dear boy. Now, you haven’t mentioned your Will once. What’s going on? Did you find him?”
Nathan feels a smile twitch into existence on his lips. “Took a while, but yeah.”
“Did you win him back?”
The waiter approaches with their afters, sliding the gold-rimmed plates neatly into place before them. He pours the last of the wine into their glasses and glides away, closing the service door softly behind him.
Nathan picks up the china jug of custard, letting the vanilla-flecked delight pool on top of the pair of puddings on his plate. His mouth waters as the combined scent of sweet sponge and creamy custard reaches his nostrils.
“Go on, dig in. If you look at Will the way you look at dessert, he’s a lucky man.”
Nathan looks up, catching Emily’s impish smile just before she pops a cheese-laden cracker into her mouth.
His spoon slides cleanly through the pudding, carving free a demure chunk dripping with custard. It’s delicious, toffee sweet and sticky with dates, the custard just the right side of too thick.
They eat in silence for a few minutes until the first pudding sits warm and heavy in Nathan’s belly.
“I’m still trying to win him back.” He takes a sip of wine, bright and fresh.
Emily pops an oversized grape into her mouth. “Oh?”
“He thought the bond disappeared because I died. Bit of a shock, me being alive and well.”
“I can well imagine.”
“We haven’t talked much about why I didn’t come back sooner.”
“Does he know about the depression?”
“Not in detail.” Nathan spoons another bite into his mouth, the flavour less appealing than before. “I’m a bit scared to tell him everything, actually.”
“If he cares about you, he’ll understand.”
The next bite tastes like nothing. “I know. It’s just hard, talking about it all.”
“It took incessant questions from a nosy old woman to drag you out of your cave the first time. Talking to someone you love is infinitely harder.”
Nathan looks up from the remains of his pudding, a tiny smile breaking through at the empathy written all over Em’s face.
Politicians may not be known for their kindness, but Nathan’s short-lived career protecting Emily taught him that at least some of them genuinely want the best for people.
She was the first person who asked him about the darkness that trailed him, pushing their professional relationship into the grey area of a personal connection.
Gently pushed him to seek help, encouraged him onwards when he struggled, working through the strands of his trauma.
The bond with Will and the agony of their separation, the sadness and shame that haunted him alongside the love he lost.
The apathetic capitulation of joining the family firm, Dad’s triumph like ash in his mouth.
The truth of what happened to Mum. New pain tearing open barely healed grief.
The weight on his chest lifted slowly, tendrils of darkness releasing him from their grip one by one until he felt ready to hope again.
“Daydreaming on the job again.” Emily shakes her head and spears the last piece of cheese on the plate.
“I was thinking about how much you’ve helped me, actually. I don’t think I could ever thank you enough.”
“Your happiness is thanks enough. So go get that man, or whatever it is you young people say nowadays.”
“Not quite that easy. He has a boyfriend.”
“Pah. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in life, it’s that sometimes one has to play the long game.
Give it time, be a devilishly good-looking shoulder to cry on when they inevitably break up, and perhaps he’ll come to you sooner than you think.
Make sure to send me an invite to the wedding. That’d be nice.”
Nathan laughs, lifting his glass in a toast. “Thank you, Em. If we get back together it’ll be because of you.”
She raises her own glass, crystal chiming softly as they tap together. “I think you’re overstating it, dear boy, but if it gets you there I shall acquiesce. Just remember that wedding invitation. Been a while since I had a reason to buy a really fabulous hat.”
The request rattles incessantly through Nathan’s mind for the rest of the day, following him back home, around the supermarket, to the gym.
He’s imagined what it would be like so many times.
Him and Will, a proper couple, doing proper couple things.
Proper grownup couple things like going out for dinner, or even better, staying in for dinner.
He knows imagining just makes him want it all the more, risking his heart in the process.
As much as everyone keeps telling him that true love will prevail, a tiny part of him worries it won’t.
He hasn’t dared imagine where their relationship could take them, if it were allowed to flourish. After Em, the idea of a wedding has wormed its way into his brain, refusing to be pushed out.
Nathan climbs onto the treadmill, his tank top already clinging to his sweaty skin. He chooses a gruelling program, building the pace steadily into the fastest pace he’s capable of, chasing the blankness.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, a vision of Will, dressed in a suit (black shirt, black tie, of course), curls trailing down over his shoulders one moment and wound back in a cute bun the next. His face lit up with a soft smile, bright against smudgy swathes of greenery and flowers.
A spring wedding. But maybe Will would prefer winter? The background shifts, glittering flakes drifting gently to kiss snow-strewn cobbles. Mulled wine instead of champagne for the toast to the grooms, their first dance in front of velvet draped windows looking out over a frosted landscape.
The vision flickers again. Autumn colours, crisp leaves beneath their leather-shod feet and more foliage than flowers. Summer, a riot of colourful blooms and white linen suits, in the city and then on the golden sand of a foreign beach, the sun warm on their faces.
Nathan smiles as he runs faster, muscles aching already, imagination pushing the real world into the background.
A succession of first dances. First kisses. First bites of wedding cake. Their first night as husbands, an act he’s imagined thousands of times before all the sweeter for the rings on their fingers.
All the firsts they should have had together.
All the firsts they could have again.
The treadmill beeps, slowing down as the program enters the cooldown phase.
Nathan finds himself dragged back to reality, feet slowing to match the new pace of the belt.
Suddenly his daydreams seem naive, overly hopeful for an outcome he’s still chasing, miles away from the finish line.
If the finish line even has a chance of existing.
An escape from a circuit of waiting and wanting, waiting and wanting.
The long game. He thinks back to Em’s advice, a simple reframing that settles the impatience in his stomach. He can play the long game.
Will’s friendship is enough for now.
His love—and Nathan hopes that one day he’ll finally know what it feels like to have Will’s love, blossoming into something gigantic and magnificent—his love is worth waiting for.