Rhapsody on a Theme (33 page)

“Shitting himself,” Paul said and cackled. “You’d think he knocked her up and his father-in-law’s waiting with a shotgun. He’s terrified. I’m on Ethan-duty; Darren’s getting ready upstairs. Here.” He towed Jayden into the kitchen and shoved a paper plate into his hands, piled with assorted biscuits and cheeses. “Take that to him. Ethan’s old lady wants everyone to eat something before we go, as the reception meal isn’t until like three.”

“Did he take his pills this morning?”

“Ah, dunno,” Paul said apologetically. “He was up well before me—I know, I know, but it’s cool, he was working out. I have a rowing machine.” Jayden relaxed again; Darren getting up early to work out was common enough. He did it when he was on lates sometimes. “His overnight bag is up there with him, though, so you can check.”

Jayden nodded, taking the plate and heading for the stairs. He glimpsed Ethan in the living room, standing waiting for some aunt or other to tie his cravat for him, and looking pasty-white and shaky. “Congratulations!” Jayden called to him as he went up the stairs, and Paul dived into the room to begin what sounded like
yet another
pep-talk.

Jayden had never been to Ethan’s London house before, but thankfully it was small and all the doors were wide open in deference to the bustle. A master bedroom had a bed covered in ironed suit jackets and waistcoats; the bathroom was occupied by a lanky girl whom Jayden very vaguely remembered as one of Ethan’s cousins, applying her makeup. The third room had a closed door, and when Jayden knocked, a deep and familiar voice called for him to come in.

Jayden swallowed at the sight of him and closed the door behind him with a sharp snap.

“Hey,” Darren said, buttoning the collar and smoothing it down. He’d just finished getting dressed, by the looks of things, and Jayden’s mouth went dry as Darren smoothed down the shirt, spread his hands slightly either side of his hips and said, “Well?”

“Um,” Jayden replied.

“What do you think?” Darren prompted.

Jayden opened his soundless mouth, and dropped the plate unceremoniously on the dresser. What did he
think
? Darren was wearing a loose white shirt, buttoned to the throat, with long sleeves and silver cufflinks, tucked in and held tight to his wide-shouldered body with a pale grey waistcoat, a matching grey tie disappearing into it at the breastbone. The trousers were two shades darker, perfectly tailored to those narrow hips and lean legs, and a suit jacket was slung onto the bed, obviously ready to complete the picture. The stunning, sexy, completely untouchable picture of handsome and messy and…and…

Jayden viciously thought that Darren had been right. This wedding—or rather,
Darren at this wedding—
was going to kill him.

“I think you look amazing,” he croaked.

Darren’s mouth twisted in a smile. “Yeah?”

“Oh shut up,” Jayden said and seized his head in both hands to kiss him soundly. Darren made a pleased sound, cupping Jayden’s elbows and pushing against him until Jayden’s back hit the door and Darren’s tongue was relearning his tonsils. He was fucking
gorgeous
, absolutely fucking
stunning
, and Jayden had had no idea he could still tidy up so
beautifully
, and he was going to get under that suit and…

“
Oi
!” Paul thumped the door from the other side. “Stop shagging and get a move on, before the pussy bails on the whole damn thing! You got half an hour!”

Darren broke away and laughed breathlessly; Jayden kept hold of his head and began to kiss his neck hopefully. They’d only need ten minutes. Maybe five, if he offered to blow him instead? Darren was really easy to bribe, he wouldn’t say no to that, they could…

“I promise,” Darren whispered, low and husky and so fucking
sexy
that Jayden was already half-hard in his trousers, “that you can mess up this look all you like after the whole shebang…”
he said bang!
the little voice in Jayden’s head shrieked encouragingly, “…but
later
, okay?”

“Promise?” Jayden murmured, biting his earlobe and running his hands down to Darren’s arse. Oh dear
God
, there was no slack whatsoever in those trousers, Darren wanted this just as much as he did, and…“I don’t think I can last a whole wedding.”

“The reception’s in a hotel and I have our room key already before I get drunk,” Darren said enticingly. Paul hit the door again on his way back downstairs, and Jayden groaned, blood throbbing in his crotch.

“Fine,” he whispered. “But only until after the photographs. Then I get to take the whole suit back
off
again.”

“Fine by me,” Darren murmured lowly, rubbing one last deep, hungry kiss into the seams of Jayden’s mouth and around his teeth before stepping back. His pupils were huge, the green almost completely obscured. “You need to get changed.”

Jayden slung his overnight bag on the bed and stripped as enticingly as possible, Darren’s eyes tracking his every movement. He had only half-buttoned his shirt before Darren’s willpower buckled and those large hands unceremoniously pulled Jayden’s boxers to his ankles. Jayden groaned headily when Darren’s mouth sealed around him, unbelievably hot and almost painful with how fucking turned on he was, and the image of Darren on his knees in that suit and the sheer frustration in not having had proper, full-on,
real
sex in months meant it took very little and was over almost embarrassingly quickly.

Jayden covered his ears and groaned again when Darren swallowed—because he
didn’t
, he pulled off before or spat, he
never
swallowed it—and knew they were both in for a rough night when his dick twitched at the sound anyway. “That’s so stupidly hot,” he whispered hoarsely at the ceiling.

“You are, yeah,” Darren agreed, standing again. “But now you have eight minutes, and the door isn’t locked.”

Jayden flushed brilliantly at the idea someone might have walked in—or
heard
him, Jesus!—and scrambled to pull up his boxers and find his trousers.

“And for the record,” Darren continued, “this house has
no
sound insulation.”

Jayden went magenta, and Darren chuckled darkly. “You’re a bastard,” Jayden accused, and Darren shrugged.

“It’ll take the edge off for you. You might last until the ceremony now.”

“Yeah, well, I hope you brought supplies and you’re ready,” Jayden mumbled, and the moment he had tucked his shirt in, he reeled Darren in by that collar and kissed him, open-mouthed and messy, tasting himself on Darren’s tongue.

“Oh, trust me, I’m ready,” Darren said and freed himself. “Now come on, before Paul has an aneurysm. I swear he’s more stressed than Ethan.”

“I don’t know, Ethan looked kind of sick,” Jayden admitted and shrugged on his suit jacket. “Okay. How do I look?”

“Presentable.”

“Good. Shit, you look stupidly good,” Jayden breathed, eyeing Darren from head to toe. He could feel the lust beginning to bubble up again in his veins. “That’s…Lillian made these changes?”

“Yep.”

“She’s definitely a designer,” Jayden mumbled and blew upwards into his hair. “Right. Okay. Yes. You look…perfect.”

“No cum on my face?”

Jayden rolled his eyes. “
No
. God.”

Darren opened the bedroom door, bag in hand, and gestured for Jayden to precede him. “Can you take my overnight bag up to the hotel room? You’ll get there before us.”

“How? Taxi?”

“Nah, Lillian’s stepmother organised
buses
, couple of those ancient ones from the forties. All the guests go that way, but apparently I’m part of the groom’s entourage.”

“So…instead of ushers, Ethan has a pianist?”

“Bingo.”

“Not bad,” Jayden said as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and took Darren’s bag. “Okay, I’ll look after that. Give me the key too. I’ll come and find you after at the reception, then.”

“There you are!” Paul shouted for the second time and seized Darren by the elbow. “Right, come on, Ethan’s dad is taking pictures. You too,” he snapped at Jayden.

The back garden had been given over to photographs, taken by the enthusiastic father-of-the-groom, and Darren was promptly hauled into a collection of surprisingly formal photos with the groom and the best man. Jayden felt the odd echo of history as he watched the three of them line up in their almost-matching suits, men where he’d met them all as boys, and all simultaneously carrying both a gravity and a freedom that they had lacked all those years ago. They weren’t just lads anymore, and Jayden bit on the edge of his thumb until Darren was freed again, and Jayden could reach for him.

“You look gorgeous,” he said lowly, and kissed him chastely, one hand on his collar and the other on his jaw. Darren’s large hands came around to brace Jayden’s back, warm through the shirt fabric and half-hidden under his suit jacket. The kiss was long and gentle and affirming, somehow, Jayden drawing some silent promise out of it in the press of Darren’s nose by his own, in the smoothness of his lips, and in the steady surety of those huge and capable hands, pushing one of his own hands up into Darren’s hair and feeling the soft twist of those familiar curls around his fingers.

A camera flashed. Jayden didn’t mind.

* * * *

The ceremony was to be held in a grand church in central London, packed into a busy street, but cavernous and quietly peaceful inside. Jayden hitched a lift from Paul’s eldest sister Ruby, a beautiful woman with very long braided hair and a very imminent child, judging by the baby bump, but whom Jayden had never actually met. He rejoined Darren on the church steps briefly, was shooed away again when the official photographer showed up, and returned once he was done taking a hundred and five pictures of the groom’s family and friends.

Darren took him inside to show him the piano. It had been brought in, clearly, sitting in front of the church organ, but it was an impressive black grand piano, gleaming in the sunlight pouring through the stained glass windows. Darren’s sheet music, still handwritten and looking so sketchy, was already set up. “You’re going to look amazing playing this,” Jayden murmured reverently, pressing a single key. A low C rumbled gently through the building.

“It’ll sound good, which is the important bit,” Darren said.

“Are you going to stay here for the entire wedding?”

“Yeah,” Darren said. “I play at the beginning, one song in the middle, and then the end.”

“The song in the middle…?”

“Just a hymn, boring,” Darren waved a hand. “The opening and ending music is what I had to compose. The ending is just the opening at a different tempo, though, with a bit of the wedding march chucked in for them actually walking out together.”

“You never played it all the way through for me,” Jayden said.

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

Jayden smiled. “Okay, I get it. Still,” he squeezed Darren’s elbow, “I’m glad you
could
do this. You’ve liked it, haven’t you? Being able to play something again?”

Darren shrugged. “Yeah, guess so.”

The church door boomed open, and Paul appeared. “Oi!” he called up. “You ready? We’ve said people can go in and get seated to the music.”

Darren gave him a thumbs-up and seated himself. Jayden stooped to kiss him once more, at the very corner of his mouth, before darting away to the main door and back out into the sunlight.

“He ready?” Paul asked as a couple of testing, tentative notes started up inside. They faded away again quickly.

“Yeah,” Jayden said, and Paul cupped his hands around his mouth.

“
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
,” he bellowed, and half of London heard him. Jayden grimaced. “If you could please go in and take your seats, the soon-to-be Mrs. Summerskill will be arriving soon and we want everyone
INSIDE
before she gets here! Move, people!”

A few laughed; an elderly lady, possibly a grandmother of someone, looked sour, and Paul beamed cheerfully at her. The piano started up in earnest as the doors opened, but it was nothing Darren had composed: Jayden vaguely recognised it as the piano version of
Clocks
. It bounced cheerily around the eaves and exposed rafters, rattled off the glass saints and wooden Jesus, and weaved between the pews as the guests picked their sides and seats and the noise began to quiet under the airy, casual might of the piano.

Jayden was shown to a seat only two rows behind Ethan’s family, and with a perfect view of that piano and its player. Darren ignored them all, his focus on the keys and the music, his beauty tempered by the ease and grace in his huge hands and the gentle sway of his upper body with the music.

Jayden had simply forgotten what it was like to watch him play.

When the piano died away, Darren left it briefly to approach Ethan, in place at the front of the church as the vicar arranged his books and notes, and clasped his hand, whispering some luck or congratulations in low tones. Ethan looked sick with fear, but gripped Darren’s hand back, and even gave in to a brief hug. Jayden simply smiled, and waved Darren back to the piano when he received a glance.

“Good luck,” he mouthed, and Darren grinned. The grin that Jayden remembered from The Brightside, all those years ago with that long-lost violin. The self-assured, cocky, confident grin. The mime on the stage for a mad character; the living prop. Darren at his best and brightest.

And most beautiful. He, and that play, had been the best idea that Jayden had ever had in his
life
.

The church quieted as a car pulled up outside, and the flash of photography punched sporadically through the doors. The vicar raised a hand to someone just beyond the doors and nodded to Darren. Ethan looked like he was going to hurl.

And Darren began to play.

Jayden caught his breath as the first strains of a light and beautiful composition, entirely original he was sure, floated from the piano as softly and gracefully as a breath of summer. It curled around the flowers and the vicar’s ankles like a friendly cat; it drifted into the air like smoke from a wood-burner, gentle and near-invisible. It was the slow burn of a lively spring into a heady summer; it was the wash and ebb of a still sea on a lonely shore. It was the stars coming out, one by one, and the silent reminder that they were there at all, unobtrusive and patient. It swelled in the middle, and thinned at the edges, like a universe of its own, and as the hushed murmurs and brilliant smiles followed the bride down the aisle, the music rose up to meet her, the edges of power curling around the sides of the beauty and shoring them up, like a ship sailing out for the horizon, or a shuttle coming in to land: unstoppable and enormous in itself, and yet silent and beautiful to the observer.