How The Light Gets In - 14. Chapter 14

Friday morning at 8:45, Matt pulled up in front of the Health Services Building. Luc’s appointment was at 9.

“We’re a little early,” he said. “Wanna grab a fast coffee?”

“I’m good,” said Luc. “I’ll just wait.”

Matt looked at him in concern. Luc had had an hour-long session every morning that week, and now, hearing the weariness in his voice, Matt felt a swift and sudden empathy. Though the Quebecois boy hardly spoke of them and gave only the most oblique answers to his questions, Matt knew the sessions were difficult and painful. He’d been doing some research on the net, and had even talked to a med student he knew in Halifax.

“Ok,” said Matt. “But remember. Scott’s picking you up at two, ok? He’ll meet you in front of the Athletic Complex. I’ll be back for supper. I’ll pick up something–”

“I know,” said Luc. “Don’t worry.”

Worry?

Was he worrying?

Matt supposed he was. Or something like that.

Luc leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Matt studied him carefully, his gaze lingering on the soft black curls, the long, exposed neck, the line of shoulder, the length of his arm. Luc wore no gloves, and gripped a small rubber ball in his wounded hand, tightening and releasing his fingers against the firm red curve in time to some unheard, yet determined rhythm.

How could Matt not worry when he knew that every movement of those fingers was agony?

“I feel like I’m abandoning you,” he said, without thinking.

Luc looked up in surprise, and Matt–

Matt felt stupid.

Because the truth was, worry was just part of it.

The truth was, for some reason he didn’t really want to think about, he’d become protective of Luc over the last couple of weeks. He didn’t like the idea of someone else picking him up. Not even Scott.

Especially not Scott.

When Bran had called last night and asked him to drive Laura’s mother to the airport, he’d hated having to phone Scott to ask for the favour. But he couldn’t say no to Bran. Laura was finally being released from hospital, and he knew how much his brother wanted to stay with her. She’d been through so much - two surgeries, one to repair the damaged bone, and a second to deal with an unfortunate infection. Her father had only been able to stay in Halifax for a few days. Her mother, however, had been there the entire time, staying at a B&B that belonged to friends of Joshua’s.

So Matt had agreed, and made the hated phone call to Scott, and hated it even more when Scott seemed happy – too happy? – to do it.

It meant, after all, that Luc would be alone with him, and Matt wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. He still wasn’t sure exactly what the story was, but it was clear to him that Luc was too hung up on the big guy. It just wasn’t good.

It wasn’t that Matt disliked Scott. He didn’t. He couldn’t. There was… nothing to dislike. Scott, as far as Matt could tell, was exactly what he seemed to be: smart and kind and decent and caring. If anything, it was more like… Scott seemed to be the kind of guy who was just too good to be true.

And then there was the fact that he was in love with Joshua.

Joshua, who was too good to be true.

“I meant–” He stopped, felt his face grow hot. He didn’t know what he meant.

Luc’s laugh was soft and surprised. “It’s ok,” he said, chewing absently at his lower lip. “I know you’re not abandoning me.”

Matt searched the fine-boned face for signs of fatigue and found them – in the blue smudges beneath his eyes, in the fine lines drawn around the curve of his mouth.

“You’re sure you’re ok?” Matt asked. “You look tired. I know–”

Matt managed to stop himself before admitting that he knew that Luc had been up during the night. Luc was up most nights. Matt heard him. Long after midnight, he would slip out of his room to the piano. Alone in his room, Matt would have to listen carefully to hear the notes. The sound of one hand playing. It made him feel like a voyeur, listening in on some incredibly personal conversation.

Now he watched Luc lower his eyes, and he knew that the Quebecois boy was withdrawing again.

“I’m fine. I just need a drive.”

His voice was polite. Distant. But the fist on his lap opened and closed on the ball more desperately. Matt could tell he was gripping it hard, harder than he normally did, because he saw the soft curve of lower lip tighten in pain.

For a second, Matt gripped the steering wheel in frustration. This was pretty much how the last couple of weeks had gone – Luc stepping towards him, Luc retreating. It was hard. Even though Matt had no intention of getting emotionally (or, God forbid, physically) involved with Luc, he was doing his damnedest to be supportive.

Sometimes Luc let him.

Mostly, he didn’t.

Matt wasn’t quite sure how to deal with this. He would have said he was pretty well equipped to deal with Luc. After all, he got guys like this. He really did. He’d always been drawn to them, the quiet ones, the shy boys at the edges. He’d always found it so easy to reach them, to draw them in.

Because beneath the shyness they had always been so eager.

Matt knew just how to get to them.

He knew how to smile, how to make eye contact, how to use his magazine good looks to attract their attention. He knew how to make them feel special. Then the shy boys would look into his eyes and fall. All he’d have to do was… catch them.

Matt shut his eyes for a second, remembering. Christ, but he’d loved to watch that – to see it in their eyes. He loved the way the very fact he’d noticed them would make them all warm and flushed and fluttery. He loved the way they were drawn to him, like the proverbial moths to a candle flame.

And he knew that Luc was not like the shy boys he’d seduced out west. Those boys had come looking for themselves, and god alone knew what they made of the answer they found in Matt’s eyes, under Matt’s hands.

But Luc wasn’t like that. Whatever he was looking for, he clearly didn’t expect to find it in Matt’s jaded baby blues.

Because if one thing was perfectly clear, it was that, physically, Luc was pretty much oblivious to Matt. Which was a good thing. Matt didn’t need the temptation of one more confused boy.

Matt climbed out of the car and walked around to the passenger door, opening it and holding Luc’s shoulder bag while Luc got out of the car. Neither said a word. Luc took his bag and headed up the stairs. Matt leaned back against the car door, and through the white cloud of his own breath in the frigid air, watched him go.

And thought about the fact that there was really only one shy boy who had ever resisted him.

Joshua.

Luc was not Joshua.

Luc was not hot and sexy and mysterious and sad and wounded and…

Fuck.

So what if the Quebecois boy was sweet and shy and sad and lovely?

He would not think about that.

He would think about how Luc was hurt, and about how he was there to help. Only that.

***

Half way up the stairs, Luc stopped, turned around. The car was still there, and Matt was still leaning against it.

For a moment, their eyes met and held.

A strange guy, Luc thought. So obviously sensitive, and so obviously determined to deny it.

Scott and Josh had both hinted that there was a story there.

For the first time, he found himself seriously wondering what it was.

***

Matt leaned against the wall, barely controlling his laughter as he watched Brandon try to impose some kind of order in the presence of two small and very determined blonde women. Laura was determined to prove to her mother that she was just fine and dandy and perfectly able to take of herself, thank you very much. Her mother, Elaine, was equally determined to fuss over her and treat her like some kind of fragile flower.

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right here?” Elaine demanded, glancing worriedly around the small room, which seemed even smaller, stuffed as it was with Laura and crutches and Brandon and Matt. She ignored the desk chair which Brandon had offered her, and did her best to pace.

“I’m fine, Mom,” said Laura, squeezing around her on the aluminum crutches. “Just fine.”

She opened the top drawer of her desk. “Tea. I know I have tea somewhere. Here it is. Who would like tea?”

“But how are you going to manage?” Elaine demanded. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“It’s right here,” said Brandon, opening the door beside the bed. “And I’ll be right on the other side of it. My room adjoins it as well. So even when I’m in my room, I’ll always be in voice range if she needs any help at all.”

Brandon and Scott had exchanged residence rooms so Brandon could help Laura.

Exchanged. Right. Like Scott spent any time in his room anyway. Matt didn’t think much of Scott’s stuff had actually made it to Brandon’s room. He was pretty sure most of Scott’s stuff had gone directly to Joshua’s.

Just one more thing for him to try not to think about.

Laura paused a second, balanced carefully on the crutches so she could free one hand to push her hair away from her face.

“I don’t think I have any cookies left,” she said. “I seem to have acquired a Cookie Monster.” She flashed a quick little grin at Brandon, and then she giggled.

Brandon’s responding smile, the way he looked at her, was so sweet, so familiar. Matt felt almost… jealous.

Laura pulled open the door of her little fridge that also served as a printer stand. “I’m not sure about this milk though. Let me just check–”

“Enough already!” said Brandon, laughing as he swept her up into his arms and deposited her, crutches and all, on her bed.

“Sit,” he said when she tried to move, grabbing a pillow from the end of the bed and placing it carefully under her ankle. “Now, stay!”

Elaine laughed. “Good luck with that,” she said, grinning at Brandon.

“Just watch me,” said Brandon. “I’m a lot bigger than she is. When I say ‘stay’, she stays – and with her leg properly elevated.”

Matt leaned back and watched. It fascinated him, how easily his brother had been accepted by Laura’s parents. Elaine had clearly adored Bran at first sight. And Laura’s father, Gary, a quiet, thoughtful man who was at once bemused by and lovingly indulgent of his wife and daughter, had made his respect for Bran clear when he returned home.

“Do you know what he said to me when he left for the airport?” said Bran, just after Gary’s departure.

“What?”

“He said, ‘Take care of my little girl. I’m trusting you.’ And then he put his arm across my shoulder and kinda hugged me.”

Matt had been truly surprised that such a bond could be forged in just a few days. “He didn’t strike me as the huggy type. I guess you passed muster.”

“Yeah,” said Bran, chewing his bottom lip in that way he had when he was thinking seriously. “It was pretty amazing.”

“You’re pretty amazing,” Matt had told him.

And he’d meant it, too. He’d admired his brother for a long time, but the strength he’d seen in Bran since Laura’s accident, his devotion and his tenderness, had touched him deeply. At some level, he’d known that about his brother, but seeing it in his face, his gestures, was moving. He could see in every act of tenderness how deeply Bran cared for the girl now lying on the bed, pouting up at him playfully. He knew how much Laura meant to Matt – and so, how much her parent’s regard meant. He’d felt very proud of his baby brother in that instant – and very happy for him.

But he couldn’t help but think that it was so easy for Bran, to be part of a couple, to be accepted by a girlfriend’s family.

Everything was easy when you were who and what was expected. When you were straight.

****

“Finally,” said Brandon, closing the door and throwing his jacket over the back of the desk chair. “I can’t wait to hear how Matt makes out after two hours cooped up in a car with your Mom.”

“He’ll have confessed all his deep, dark secrets,” Laura said.

Bran laughed. “I sincerely doubt it. Matt’s not the confessing type.”

When he entered the room, Laura was still lying back against the pillow, just as he’d left her. Now she sat up, and with both hands lifted the hard plastic boot that encased her leg from knee to toes. One of the other gymnasts had brought nail polish to the hospital and painted each tiny toenail pink. The process, so silly and so feminine, had fascinated him, and he now felt a totally ridiculous urge to take each little toe into his mouth.

“Yeah, well, he can be as secretive as he likes,” Laura said, “But it won’t work with my Mom. People tell her things. She’s just – like that.”

Though Laura was smiling, her voice trembled with fatigue, and her smile didn’t reach her eyes. As Bran watched, she determinedly managed to manouever her leg so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed, but it took a lot, and her shoulders slumped with exhaustion.

He took the three steps needed to cross the room and dropped to his knees beside the bed. He took her face in his hands and tilted up her chin, kissing her mouth so quickly, so gently, that it was more breath than kiss.

“You ok?” he asked softly.

She tilted her head, pressing her cheek into his left hand, then turning slightly, kissing his palm. But when she looked at him, he could see the exhaustion.

“I’m so tired,” she said. “I… I can’t smile anymore, Bran. I don’t have anything left. Right now I’m too tired to be brave.”

Once more, a little more slowly this time, Bran brushed her mouth with a kiss that was air and breath and tenderness. Then he slid his hands across her shoulders, down the sleeves of her sweater, and around her waist, enveloping her in his arms. The blonde head nestled in under his chin, against his throat, as she slumped against him. He could feel the little catches in her breath, warm and damp against his skin.

“You don’t need to prove how brave you are to me,” he said, smoothing her hair, then dropping his hand to caress the length of her spine, with slow, soothing fingers. And as his hands whispered over her, so small and fine and beautiful, he found himself wishing there was some way this touch could heal her, free her. He found himself praying desperately that she could feel how he felt, in his soft, soft touch.

“I know how brave you are,” he said against her ear.

He felt a small, sweet kiss on the most fragile part of his neck, just there, beneath his Adam’s apple.

He trembled. He couldn’t help it. His entire body responded instantly, yearning. How could a touch so small, so tender, awaken such need? She was tired, so fragile right now. She needed his strength, not his desire. So how could such a small touch suddenly make him this hard, this desperate?

On his knees beside the bed, he took a deep, deep breath, forced himself to keep still. His hands continued their soft, soothing movements.

“I think that maybe you should sleep for awhile,” he said. “It was a long trip from the hospital.”

He felt her nod.

“Come on, then,” he said, easing her gently away from him, instantly mourning the lost warmth, the lost contact. “Let me help you lie down.”

She looked up at him with wide blue eyes that were sad and hurt and so very, very tired. “Jammies,” she said. “Can you get my jammies? They’re in the suitcase. Mom bought me some new ones that will go over robo-boot here.”

She knocked at the black plastic cast.

He brushed a curl that had escaped its elastic, and allowed himself one more soft kiss, this time to her forehead.

He searched through her suitcase, finding several new pairs of pajamas. When he looked up to ask her which she wanted, he almost gasped aloud.

She was taking off her sweater.

He watched, awestruck, as she raised her arms, pulled it up over her head. Beneath it, she wore a little undershirt thing, pale, pale pink, with lace at the edge, that looked … unbelievably soft over small, perfect breasts.

He wasn’t sure he had ever experienced anything that beautiful. He clenched his fists, forced himself to breathe.

“Pink or yellow?” he managed to asked.

She looked at him and smiled a small, exhausted smile.

“Pink.”

So he got her the pink ones. She pulled the top over her head. Only when the small, perfect breasts disappeared did his breathing ease – and only for a second.

Because then it got worse, much, much worse.

He was mesmerized, helpless, as she struggled to remove her very baggy sweat pants down and over the hard black plastic that encased her foot. Just for a moment. Then he swallowed hard and helped with that too, removing them carefully, the backs of his fingers awed and helpless as they traced the warm, warm line of her bare legs. Her thighs curved so sweetly, and so, too, the mysteries that beckoned and promised, hidden now beneath the chaste pale pink of her lace trimmed panties.

Finally, it was done, and she was safely hidden away. He lifted her, held her with one arm as he pulled back the bedclothes of narrow bed with the other, then settled her in.

“Bran?”

“Mmmm?”

“Will you hold me? Like you did that night? Just for a few minutes?”

Forever, he wanted to say.

But he didn’t. He just smiled down at her.

“Not a lot of room in there, with a munchkin and a robo-boot,” he said, scooping her up in his arms once more. She giggled sleepily as he repositioned her close to the wall.

He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to slip into her clean bed in his jeans and ancient hoodie, but he didn’t want to get in beside her so hard and wanting either. But there wasn’t much to be done about it. Finally, he just shrugged them off, and lay down beside her in boxers and a t-shirt, hoping she didn’t notice.

How could she not notice?

But if she did, she said nothing, just curled up against him and sighed. He breathed in the sweet, sweet scent of her as she settled into sleep.

***

Matt had come home to find Scott in the condo with Luc, sitting on the floor by the piano bench, listening, as Luc had never allowed Matt to listen. Luc had stopped playing as soon as Matt came in, and soon after, Scott had left. All evening, Luc had been quiet, withdrawn.

It was almost midnight when Matt came out to find him standing at the living room window, staring out through the floor-to-ceiling glass at the darkness that was the ocean. The living room was dark; the only light came from the hallway, and Matt could make out the lines of Luc’s body, his face, but Luc’s expression was reduced to line and shadow. Matt stood still for a moment, uncertain whether to speak to him, or to leave him alone.

Finally, he crossed the room to stand beside and just behind him, looking out into the black.

“You ok?” he asked after a few moments. He decided he’d just go back to his room if Luc withdrew further.

Luc said nothing for a long while. Matt watched his profile, but there was no movement, nothing at all. He was turning to leave when Luc spoke.

“Have you ever known someone you felt so drawn to, so committed to, that you just couldn’t believe you weren’t meant to be together?” Luc asked.

Matt thought of Joshua. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Then imagine waking up every morning feeling like that, with that certainty, that knowledge in your heart. Imagine that every morning you wake up knowing that there is a man who is yours, that you are his. Imagine the certainty.”

Matt felt an enormous sadness. He felt so bad for Luc. He found himself reaching out, laying a hand on his shoulder. Luc did not react to the touch at all.

“Then imagine,” he said, his voice flat and empty. “That, as you wake fully, you remember that you are wrong. Completely wrong.”

“Luc–”

“You remember that person is no more. That he is dead and it’s your fault. He’s dead because you loved him. Dead, because he – he loved you.”

Matt wasn’t sure what to think, what to do. When Luc had started talking, Matt had assumed he was referring to Scott. Now he knew that was impossible. There was someone else in this lovely boy’s past. Someone else who had gored his heart.

For a moment, Matt stood motionless behind him, staring out over his shoulder. Then, answering some strange certainty, he found himself slipping his hands around Luc’s waist and resting his chin on Luc’s shoulder.

The lovely Quebecois boy didn’t react at all. But he didn’t stiffen, nor did he pull away. Matt just stood there and held him for a while, aware of his own heart beating.

“Tell me,” Matt said, finally, against Luc’s ear. “Tell me.”