Mended with Gold by Lee Welch

Author:Lee Welch [Welch, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: MLR Press
Published: 2017-09-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

A couple of weeks later, Alex took a call from Chris, an old friend from London. Chris and his partner Miguel were in Sydney. Coming to New Zealand for a week. Could they stay a couple of nights? The trip had been planned for the last year. Finally, it was happening. Chris proposed going out on Friday night—dinner, the theatre—then back to Alex’s.

“Sure,” Alex said, “I’ll make bookings.”

At the studio, he started to buy tickets for a play at the theatre down on the Wellington waterfront, something about love in the age of dating apps. Three tickets. But why not four? Why not invite Joe? Alex had told Joe he had friends coming to stay sometime soon. Joe had been happy for him. So, Alex reserved four tickets, and four for dinner at Logan Brown, one of the fancier restaurants in Wellington.

That evening, he almost overshot Joe’s driveway and had to brake hard to make the turn. He’d decided it would be better to invite Joe in person than to trust to patchy mobile reception, but his stomach was churning and his hands were slick on the wheel.

Always, in the past, Alex had slept with guys first, and sometimes fallen in love afterwards. To be in love with someone who wasn’t already a lover felt ridiculous, immature, like lusting after someone in high school. It was the traditional way straight people did it: get to know the person, fall in love, have sex. Did it always feel this excruciating? How on earth had he allowed it to happen? Normally, he managed his love life better than this. Though of course, since Laos, his love life had either been non-existent or a disaster.

Blue strolled over, reaching his head over the fence for a pat as Alex got out of the car. The problem was, Joe wasn’t just another potential lover. Even the phrase ‘love life’ felt reductive when he thought of Joe. Because being with Joe wasn’t some compartmentalised thing that Alex did in his spare time. It was everything.

Being with Joe made him feel braver, kinder, more capable. And he admired Joe. Admired his dedication to comics and his determination not to be swayed by fashion or money or what was cool. It wasn’t that Joe was oblivious. He knew very well that his snowflake sweater was ugly, so he made it into a joke, but—and this seemed crucial—he wore it anyway. Joe knew his car was shitty and his hair unkempt, but he chose not to care so he could put his energy into the things that really mattered to him. Alex had met plenty of desperately hip people in London and New York who claimed never to worry about what people thought of them. But it was Joe, for all his shyness, who was the closest thing to free that Alex had ever seen.

He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“Want to come in?” Joe asked.

There was a faint smell of marijuana coming from him. Perhaps his shoulder had been aching.

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