Vivaldi in the Dark Box Set

Chapter 9-1

Chapter 9

Jayden was terrified.

It had started with Charley coming over at two, rejecting most of his wardrobe, only leaving his hair alone because it had to pass her approval for school as it was, and spending a good couple of hours deciding (rather than helping him decide) what outfit would look best. Or as Charley put it, what outfit would knock Darren senseless with lust.

Jayden wasn’t entirely sure that was the route he should be going, or if it would even matter. Darren had, after all, watched him wash hot chocolate and cream out of his hair in a public bathroom.

It had gotten worse when he’d made a salad for dinner and ducked out of Mum’s usual offer of letting him get a pizza on Saturday nights when she and Dad went out. He didn’t want to taste of pizza and garlic bread on his first ever date, especially when he was ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain Darren was going to kiss him again.

“What’s going on?” Mum had asked. “You’re all dressed up.” She couldn’t talk. She and Dad had been going out for Saturday night ‘dates’ ever since Jayden was old enough to be left with a babysitter without kicking up a huge fuss. And they had to have somewhere special in mind tonight, because she was wearing those ugly feathery earrings that Dad liked.

“Going out,” Jayden had said. “With Charley.”

“She was here earlier.”

“Um, Lucy’s got her boyfriend over, so, you know, she wants Charley out of the house for a bit.” He’d made a mental note to text Charley his story.

“Mm,” Mum had said. “Well. Where are you going?”

“Just town. Maybe see a film if there’s anything good on.”

“Right.” She hadn’t believed him in the slightest. “Well, stay safe. You’re taking your phone?”

“Obviously, Mum.”

“Be back by eleven.”

Mum seeing right through him had made him doubly nervous, because it just hammered it home. He’d never lied to Mum about where he’d been going or who with, because he’d never needed to. He’d never had to text Charley with a made-up cover story for her to spout if anyone ever asked, because he really had been going out with Charley before. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone out to town with someone and Charley not being there. Maybe it had never happened.

He walked into town. It was freezing cold and already dark by the time he set off, but it gave him time to talk himself into a state of relative calm (read: come down from sheer panic) and by the time he reached the bottom of the high street, he didn’t feel like throwing up, running away, or both.

Darren was waiting at the end of the row of bus stops that lined one side of the high street. He was already a familiar figure, cut out in the gloom by his wild hair and that hedonistic way he had of lounging against walls, one knee bent and the foot flat up against the brickwork. He peeled himself off in a lazy roll when Jayden reached him, and Jayden’s nerves tripled when he saw that battered leather jacket.

“It’s…kind of odd, seeing you out of uniform,” he offered. In truth, the jacket hid most of the difference, although Jayden was relieved to notice that private school didn’t mean Darren wore black suit trousers all the time. His jeans were about as battered as the jacket.

“Same for you,” Darren said. “I can’t make any promises about my behaviour, though. Your uniform hides a lot.”

Jayden flushed. “Um…”

“C’mon.” Darren jerked his head up the road. “I’ll kiss you hello once we’re inside.”

“Is, um, is that a good idea?”

“Nobody cares in Milzani’s. The owner’s a lesbian.”

“An Italian lesbian?”

“Nobody said she was Italian,” Darren said, “but nobody’s going to go to a cafe called Backingwater’s, are they?”

Jayden’s anxiety loosened as he laughed. Partly because this was Darren, and it didn’t have to be awkward, and partly because maybe he didn’t have to worry about being seen by homophobic d***s after all. Maybe they could just be.

Milzani’s was a large coffee-shop-s***h-bakery-s***h-alcohol-free-bar that was jammed into the space between an estate agent and a travel agent. Its neighbours were closed, so its bright lights and the low hum of music spilled out invitingly into the street. When Darren held the door, Jayden felt nervous all over again.

A space for the band had been set up, but they hadn’t started. The cafe was three-quarters full, mostly with clusters of friends, but the odd table occupied by a couple. Straight couples.

“Relax,” Darren said, and then suddenly his fingers were sliding between Jayden’s. His hand was cool from the late October evening, and his palm dwarfed Jayden’s by a long way, but Jayden clutched back all the same. Darren had calluses, and they scraped lightly against Jayden’s skin. He couldn’t help but imagine how that would feel when…if…

He concentrated on breathing.

He zoned out so hard that Darren ordered for him and pulled him to a spare table against one wall by that captured hand. “Sit,” Darren said and grinned when Jayden stammered an apology. “No worries. You’re cute when you get flustered.”

Jayden blushed again. Hard. “I, um…”

“Try that,” Darren pushed one cup towards him. “It’s an iced cappuccino with extra cream. I figured it’s time you started figuring out the coffee world, because you’re missing out.”

“I have no intention of doping up on caffeine like you do.”

“Only when the music calls for it.” Darren smirked.

“How long have you been playing?” Jayden asked, the curiosity overcoming his nerves, and Darren’s smirk eased into a languid sort of smile that was breathtakingly beautiful in the warm light of the cafe.

Talking to Darren was easy. It had been easy in The Brightside, and it was easy here, despite the warm weight of his hand over Jayden’s, despite the cut of his slightly-too-tight T-shirt once the heat got to him and he removed his jacket, despite the boot that slid between Jayden’s feet when Darren got their second round, swapping the slightly too bitter cappuccino for a variety of sweet tea with a Chinese name that was actually pretty good.

Darren, Jayden learned, had been a pianist since he was five and a violinist since he was ten. But he was also so much more. He was into rugby (Jayden mentally groaned) with a dash of football on the side. He’d boxed before his father made him give it up to concentrate on his studies. His parents wanted him to go to music college and become a world-famous violinist, but Darren secretly had brochures from high-ranking engineering schools. He broke out in freckles in the summer (and Jayden instantly decided they would be together in the summer, so he could see that.) His grandfather on his mother’s side was Iranian, hence the wild hair.

And he was the most gorgeous, laid-back, confident boy that Jayden had ever met. He just laid their hands out on the table intertwined, like he was daring anyone to say anything. When the band started up, he shifted his chair around to sit next to Jayden instead of opposite him and slung an arm around the back. By the first interval, that arm was around Jayden’s shoulders, relaxed and easy, and the warm weight of it was something almost dizzying in its casual intimacy.

Darren just didn’t care. He didn’t care if everyone else in the cafe realised they were gay. He didn’t care if anyone could walk by and see him with his arm around another boy. He didn’t fear anything, and Jayden was both desperately envious of his ability to shrug it all off, and completely won over by how normal Darren was acting. There was no secrecy, no sneaking around, no sense of something being wrong about the whole affair. It was such a far cry from the taunting at school and the rude introduction to the bins or the lockers or various classroom doors that Jayden pinched himself multiple times to check if he was dreaming.

“This is my first date,” Jayden admitted quietly in the hubbub of the interval. For a moment, he thought Darren hadn’t heard, but then the arm around his shoulders contracted lightly. “I mean it. I mean…there’s like no other gay guys at my school—okay, out ones, but still—and I always thought I’d go to university before finding anyone who wanted to date me, never mind…”

“Believe me, there’ll be some poor sucker in your place who wants to date you but is too afraid to say it,” Darren said. Jayden caught fire; Darren sounded so matter-of-fact he could have been reciting a laundry list. “Too late now.”

“Are you ever not stupidly charming?” Jayden demanded, and Darren laughed.

“Occasionally,” he admitted. “But I don’t usually spend a whole evening flirting with someone either. Or,” he added gleefully when Jayden felt his face head towards purple territory, “someone who reacts quite like that. That’s amazing. But chill out, you’re going to pop a blood vessel.”

Jayden hid his face in his coffee cup. Darren laughed quietly beside him for a moment before dropping his head onto Jayden’s shoulder and tightening his arm in a quick hug. His curls tickled at Jayden’s neck.

“Sorry,” Darren said, “but it’s just so easy.”

“You’re awful.”

“Mm.”

Jayden dared to slide a hand over onto Darren’s leg, resting it just above his knee as the band returned to their instruments and began to mess around with a couple of chords, warming back up. The denim was warm; the way that Darren simply let him, without comment or even a look, was calming, and as the music started back up, Jayden found himself rubbing circles into the worn cloth with his thumb, and wondering if Darren’s skin was the same kind of rubbed-down smooth as his jeans.