Page 65 of Just for Me

“I don’t know,” Luke admitted.

“You don’t want to invite your rugby teammates?” Hayden asked. “Our friends here? Have a party, with dancing and all, now that we know how to do the tango? Admit that you were created just for me?”

“Well, yeh,” Luke said. “But …”

“How about if we embrace it?” Hayden asked. “Go on and be, you know, out and proud. Ask some of the big queer mags if they’d be interested in sponsoring it, maybe. First major international rugby player to come out while he was still playing, getting married with his teammates from three countries cheering him on? That’s a story. Also much cheaper.”

Luke had to smile. “I know I’m marrying a Kiwi now, anyway.”

“Family’s the people who want you,” Hayden said. “Not the ones who don’t. If your parents think our big, glam gay wedding is disgusting and rubbing people’s nose in our fabulous gayness and they’ll never be able to show their faces again, or if my dad thinks so, isn’t that their loss? You know Nyree and Kane and Zora will be there. So your dad won’t drive a few hours from Dunedin. So we never spend Christmas with your family again, or with my parents, either, though my mum’s going to put her foot down about that, it’s pretty clear, and drag my dad along whatever he says. Don’t we want to have Christmas, and our wedding, too, with the people who actually love us? Loving somebody isn’t accepting them only if they live the way you want. If we …”

“If we what?” Luke asked. He wouldn’t say he was comfortable, exactly, but he was riveted. Hayden had that effect on him. It was like his world had opened up. Like you’d got specs for the first time and could see all the colors and the leaves on the trees.

Now, Hayden was the one who wasn’t looking comfortable. “Well, I want to say it, so I’m going to say it. What are we, if we’re not honest?”

Luke covered Hayden’s hand with his. “Some people have said, since I came out, that I’ve got mana. I don’t have half the mana you do. Go on and say it.”

“If we ever want to have kids,” Hayden said. “Adopt, use a surrogate, whatever. Isn’t that what we want to show them? Would we only love them, accept them, if they turned out to be queer?”

Luke sat stock-still. “No,” he said.

“No?” Hayden rocked back a bit, then rallied. “OK, then. Just an idea.”

“I don’t mean—I don’t meanno,”Luke said. “Not that I don’t want to do that. Maybe I’d want to, if I knew how. If I thought I could love a kid right, and have a … a happy home. I mean, no, of course I wouldn’t only love them if they played rugby, or loved the right person, or were as clever and beautiful as you, or whatever you’re thinking. Though I think that if we go for surrogacy, we should use your sperm.” He tried to smile. It wasn’t easy. “They’d be prettier, anyway.”

“But if they had yours,” Hayden said, “they’d be strong. Never mind, we don’t have to decide now. OK, then. Back to this glamorous wedding that’s going to set the world alight.” Trying to be brisk, to be funny, as if he’d opened his heart too fully.

Luke loved him so much, it actually hurt. He remembered that cold, rainy Christmas, when he’d run through Newcastle with Kane, day after day, unable to visualize life in New Zealand with only his dad for company, the bleakness in his heart matching the weather. He’d tried to imagine what happy families did at home, how they spent their time, and failed. Now, he knew. “I want to do what makes you happy,” he said. “If that’s a big wedding, that’s what I want. And I’d like to dance with you.” He could see it, suddenly. He could see the photos, and the emails from teenagers, the ones that said, “Thanks for letting me know it’s OK.” The ones that told him those kids didn’t feel so alone anymore, because there was a rugby star who was like them.

Now, he stood beside Hayden in front of the lake and the mountains on a warm December afternoon, two years to the day after they’d met, under a floral arbor that Zora and Rhys and the kids had spent the morning decorating, all crimson, white, and gold. Everything about them saying, “We’re here, we’re doing this, and we aren’t one bit ashamed to tell you so.” Wearing charcoal trousers and a white dress shirt so fine, you could pass it through his wedding ring, looking at Hayden wearing the same thing, and not worrying about how many rugby players were watching him do this, or that his parents weren’t happy, even though they’d come. Just grateful that the people he cared about most had decided they wanted to be here.

He was getting married to the love of his life.

Pretty awesome, really.

* * *

Sometimes,you couldn’t be insouciant.

The celebrant started to talk. Hayden knew what he was going to say, because he’d written the service, with help from Luke. They’d written their own vows, too, so he knew his already, though he didn’t know what Luke had done. Something simple, probably. He knew what their rings looked like, brushed platinum from Tiffany, each boasting a discreet, inset baguette diamond, and he knew what the inscription inside his said.

To H from L. Love you forever.

And still, his cold hand shook in Luke’s.

The day was warm, the sun glorious, the lake sparkling blue beneath the mountains, the videographer recording for posterity and somebody else paying for the whole thing, and still, his hands were cold.

Luke looked at him, and Hayden wondered how he’d ever thought Luke was guarded, because there was honesty in that look that made his knees tremble. Luke told the celebrant, “One sec.”

Wait,Hayden thought in a sort of daze.What?

Luke said, low enough that the crowd of two hundred-plus couldn’t hear him, “We’ve got this. I just need you to hold my hand, and we’ll do it together. OK?”

“Yeh,” Hayden managed to say. “OK.” And was grounded again.

The celebrant’s words, going by in a kind of dream, Hayden’s vows, which he somehow dredged up from memory, and then Luke’s.

“I promise to love you,” the big, bearded man opposite him said, the flush rising all the way to his cauliflower ears. “To hold you when you need me, and to let you hold me when I’m the one who needs it. I promise to walk with you until the end. I promise to care more about you than I do about myself, and to give you everything I have until the day I die.”

Hayden thought,Oh, my God. I cannot believe this is happening. I can’t believe you’re mine.And then Luke went on, a twist of a smile around his mouth, his hand around Hayden’s like he’d never let go. “I told you this once before, and I’m going to say it again. It seemed to work pretty well the first time, and you know I only have so many words, so here it is. I’m not quick or clever, and there’s nothing flash about me and never will be. I’m strong as oak, though, and I’m steady as hell. I don’t hurt, I don’t lie, and I don’t cheat. I stand solid, and where I stand, I stay. That’s a promise.”

You could call that a vow.

Hayden had always had a hopeful heart. Finally, the hope was justified.

Finally, the hope was here.