December 19, 2005

And so I sat there, waiting. My polished black shoes gleamed, and no one sitting on those stiff, wooden pews would ever have guessed that they were too tight for me.

It was the same damn church. Every Blackworth had been married at St Anthony's. Fynn stood in the same spot I had eight years earlier when his exit from my life had been grotesquely paraded in front of me.

I was at another Blackworth wedding.

Sweet Mother of God.

Fascinated, knowing eyes devoured my back as I sat and watched the wedding unfold. News travelled in these circles as fast as the sports cars these people owned, especially anything that could resemble a soap opera. The sun piercing through the stained-glass windows reflected out the different coloured patterns onto my pants. I'd put my hand on my knee and watch the colours transfer onto it. Blues, greens and reds...all unmoving. No matter what I did, they would stay the same.

I was struck with a saying my grandmother instilled within me: 'Nobody ever made you feel inferior without your consent.'

Of course, it was a well and truly stolen quote. She wasn't a particularly inventive woman.

And that's what I did.

Not steal quotes...I mean the staring the world in the face thing.

People remembered me from Fynn's wedding. When I briefly pretended to exist in their circle, for his sake. They asked me where I had been, about the café business, told me that they'd seen the review, awkwardly avoiding the topic of Fynn, of Charlotte, of how long Fynn and I had been together. Pretty sure most had drawn their own conclusions. There were the golden boys that Fynn played tennis with, bawdy business partners, 'perfect' women and human adaptations of Scrooge McDuck. People that I could draw in a cartoon, but that I couldn't really remember.

The worst was the sensation that some of those people believed me to be a home-wrecker and they covered themselves with a veil far sheerer than Carla's.

Carla, my Carla.

The girl who'd forced her way back into my life, to catapult it out of orbit and then reign it back in.

As soon as the heavy doors were screeched open for her entrance, a collective silence dangled in the church. She was genuine perfection. Head to toe in lace, it was as if the other side of the door was 1920's Paris and she was lingering in the metaphysical limbo between the two worlds.

I turned my attention to Shannon. Shannon watched her with wide eyes as if to say 'I can't believe she chose me'. His goofy look could be our little secret. Shannon was born into the same sphere that Fynn and Carla were born into, but he wasn't smarmy, he wasn't false. He was a hard worker and refreshingly awkward. A book-smart kid that was good at his job, not just looking good at his job. His position wasn't gained through legacy like most of the guys in the room. I had always felt like somehow I just didn't belong with those people. As if every time somebody laughed, it was at me. Shannon was like me. And we loved our Blackworths enough to endure this type of world, however damn aggravating they could be.

There was no Vanessa beside me to feed her hand through mine, to tell me how brave I was today. There was no Mickey to make me feel like the toughest man in the world.

Fynn and I hadn't had any chance to speak that morning. He stayed at his parent's house the night before, got ready with the bridal party and left.

Would I be slotted in as the weird guy on the kids table? Or even worse...the dreaded 'singles' table of love's outcasts who wanted nothing but to not be singled out?

He stood up there, chin up, staring out at the crowd of well over 150 people, daring them to make a comment. He was facing family and friends, showing them that he was the same Fynn Blackworth that they all knew, despite their newfound knowledge. He presented himself proudly, with an unwavering silent dignity and grace that I couldn't dream of ever acquiring. I fumbled and stumbled my way through life. He glided. On a boat. Pushed by swans. If the swans were well, elegant.

You get the analogy.

When the service was over, everyone was ushered outside to throw snowflake-shaped confetti at the newly-weds. Fynn smiled for group photos before weaving through the crowd over to me, and with a sideways glance he hurriedly smacked a kiss on my cheek. At that moment we had become so aware of ourselves.

"Are you alright?" He asked me.

"Are you alright?"

He grinned, blankly staring out at the crowd around him.

"Fantastic. Although I don't know why women suddenly feel the need to discuss fashion or musical theatre with me as if I'm supposed to give a shit about it."

"It's because clearly that's what we're supposedly meant to enjoy, daaaahrrrling."

He smothered a chuckle and occupied himself by fixing my bow-tie. "Keep your voice down, Lucas."

We navigated our way through the crowd.

"You are ready for this, right, Fynn?"

October 30, 2005

So how did the genius go about this personal, life-changing, soul-defining moment?

An organised lunch with Mumsy and Daddykins at a nice restaurant. Splendid.

Robot mode: Booting up.

"So they can't make a scene."

"And what if they do?"

"They wouldn't risk losing face," He sneered.

We remained quiet for the duration of the car ride. He was always, always eerie when he was silent. Like a great white shark – darkened eyes, strong body moving stealthily, silently. You wouldn't feel the jaws until they were protruding through your chest from your back. A manipulator never ceases manipulating and even when you think they have, it turns out they are just manipulating themselves. Their opinions might change, but they don't. His bottom lip remained sandwiched between his teeth for the entire drive.

Oh god I didn't want to be there.

I was stronger than this. Better than this. It was an act.

Who am I kidding?

I was talk, no action. If I were in a street-fighting gang, I would've been dead before we even got to the fight. I would've been dead before we even had an enemy. Before we could've even been Sharks or Jets.

"Ready, Lucas?"

"Do gangs have theme songs?"

"Pardon?"

"I think I would be a Shark. I have the look."

"Lucas..."

"You'd be a Jet. It would be very tragic."

"Lucas. You coming?"

I turned to him and there they were. Those pleading eyes that screamed out, betraying a mask of confidence. This was what I'd always wanted. This was what should've happened nearly ten bloody years ago. Everything in my head that told me to back out got drop-kicked out of the way by the everything in my heart that said Fynn is not getting out of this. Not this time.

The restaurant was everything that was typical of the Blackworths: precise, big menus with big names and giant plates with a mouse's portion of food. Because it got a good review, 'sweeeeetie'. Don't get me wrong, as a man of the hospitality industry I was very intrigued about the restaurant and the way it was run. But this restaurant was where you went to be somewhere special away from home; my café was where you went to be home.

Mrs B sat opposite me, in a sea-green fitted dress. Her sandy blonde hair was cropped into a sleek bob that framed her strong jawline. A jawline I'd often seen tense up with disapproval behind her smile. Fynn had inherited the same 'politeness'. Carla had inherited Daryl's frankness.

It was all small-talk around the entrées. About Carla's wedding, about how not much can beat a really good Pinot Gris in the summer months, about my café, about Daryl's new diet and exercise plan, about people I didn't know. I smiled, and laughed and played along like a good little robot, terrified about how calm Fynn was. The circling shark before the attack.

Oh shit, he wasn't going to do it.

A dryness injected itself into my mouth, and I washed it down with Mrs B's 'delightful' choice in a 1995 Gris.

We finished our main courses. Daryl had ordered everything without sauces, Mrs B had ordered the dish she'd read about in the review, Fynn had ordered a gnocchi with I don't know, unicorn urine probably (whatever would jack it up to a forty-five dollar dish), and I'd ordered an eye fillet. You could never go wrong with that.

The words repeated themselves in my head the whole time we ate. He wasn't going to do it. He wasn't going to do it.

"So I do have news." Fynn casually threw in, folding his napkin and plopping it down on the table in front of him.

He wasn't going to do it.

"Good news? " His mother asked.

"I've been seeing somebody."

Her eyes snapped to her husband then back to her son. I even looked at him with surprise. Tact, Fynn, use tact.

"That's wonderful, Sweetheart. I'm so thrilled! Finally, we can forget that whole fiasco with the Herrin girl. Now I am by all counts a lady, but if I saw that girl again I woul-..."

She froze when she saw that Fynn's hand had slipped into mine. Our entwined fingers sat there on the table, doing the talking for all of us. He stared at his parents firmly, prepared for the worst.

But no one was saying anything.

Daryl stood up and walked out to the front of the restaurant, requiring 'air'.

Fynn followed his father, leaving me with Mrs B.

The bastard.

Her eyes remained blankly focused on the space where our hands had told our story.

And it wasn't the self-affirming, soul-stroker that movies and teenage tv dramas had promised it would be. My stomach was in bloody knots.

Her gaze then shifted to me, then to outside the window where her husband patted his son strongly on the back as if they were completing a business transaction. Her mind was still connecting all the dots and she ended her glass of Pinot in one fell swoop, refilling it herself before the waiter even had a chance.

I wasn't good with silences. I wasn't really good with words, either. It would probably be better if I just communicated with a series of clicks and grunts.

After what felt like a lifetime, she finally spoke. Her voice hoarse, strained.

"I knew he wasn't happy. I knew he was hiding. A mother knows her son. He always thought he was so good at hiding. He'd hide things all the time and I'd pretend I didn't notice. Cookies in his pockets when he was 6, magazines when he was 13, cigarettes when he was 15, grades when he was 17, speeding fines when he was 22 and I'd always have the same thought, every time, I'd think Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because he doesn't want you to see him as anything but the perfect son." I found myself replying, gently.

"How could I see him as anything else?" She practically whispered back.

She became distracted as Daryl and Fynn re-entered the restaurant, her hand fluttering to her throat as if clutching non-existent pearls. The persona slid back onto her like a 100 percent silk slip.

"So, aside from the obvious questions your father and I are going to ask darling, what on earth do we tell everybody?"

Oh, Mrs B. You always spectacular.

We got back to Fynn's apartment. His new apartment. A foreign place that was white-walled, clean, crisp and empty. I was scared to breathe too loudly, just in case it echoed or I set off some alarm. It seemed wrong to go back to my place while we were trying to start something new. I'd held off on most intimacy until I felt sure of him, until I felt like I could wake up tomorrow and he'd still be there.

I stood, drinking in the space he existed in. It was practically a museum. I heard him walk up behind me behind me. Hands squeezed my arms and a warm body pressed against my back, a chin rested on my shoulder.

After all these years, even if I'd forgotten his voice, I could still remember the sensation of his touch. I could remember the way his finger would trace my lip and draw circles on my chest and the icy trickle down the back of my neck when I could feel his breath as he spoke in my ear.

He did it.

I turned around to him and fiercely pulled him into me.

There were hands, there was clothing...then there was less clothing, there was heat, breath, sweat. There was a pulse.

There was just the two of us.

His hands fumbled eagerly with my pants until I just tore them off myself. Whatever was quickest.

With a fistful of his hair in my hand, I pulled his face close to mine, our mouths hovering just apart. I wanted to see him.

8 years of thinking, wondering, forcing myself to forget. Here we were, on the carpet of his apartment, emotionally bare, a pulsating jumble of arms and legs.

Even after we were done, I kept him there for a moment. With me.

"Holy shit." Was all he could pant out for a few moments, before he rolled off me. We lay on our backs, apart and studied the roof.

He reached over to grab the woollen throw blanket off the couch nearby, and in a strange, endearing act of modesty, pulled it over his waist. I shuffled over, and feeling obliged, pulled the blanket over myself too, although it didn't really make sense to me.

December 19, 2005

He extended his hand out to me and I scoffed it away.

"I'm not dancing, Fynn. I draw the line at some things."

The night was drawing to a close, bow ties had been loosened, shirt buttons had been increasingly undoing and jackets had gone.

"Then will you dance with me?"

Carla.

"For you, Mrs Sole, I will."

As we took to the floor, she grinned at me. She was still so gentle in my arms and I was reminded of the little pixie girl that had danced with me on this same dance floor all those years ago. Little did I know the pixie girl was the Puck to her self-created Midsummer Night's Dream, casting spells on the lovers she'd known. We'd only danced a few moments before Shannon and Fynn cut in between us.

"Gotcha." Fynn said, high-fiving Carla like the schemers they were.

And I humoured him. I danced for one song before we realised that dancing was an argument-inducing activity. I couldn't dance unless I was leading, and Fynn was no follower.

But, during that one song, amidst the bickering, his defences lowered and he leaned forward to kiss me in front of everything that he'd ever known.

Maybe it took us a while. Pride and fear had a way of doing that to people.

And hey, who knew if we would be happy?

But damn it, we would be happy enough.

August 17 1995

It wasn't excruciatingly busy. Grant and I were onto roughly our 43rd round of Connect Four and we had sort of given up on customer service. A group of teenage girls tried to hire 'Se7en' and 'Scream' and couldn't produce i.d proof that they were over 15. I felt like a god, being able to deny them. And also possibly because they referred to Grant as 'the cute one'. If they hadn't have been rude, I would have gladly turned a blind eye.

Friday night was regulars night.

We expected Mr Cho, who'd spend an hour in the adult section before choosing some slapstick family-friendly comedy instead. We expected Margaret, who would scoff at our 'small-mindedness' for having such a tiny foreign and arthouse section, although I'd never seen her hire anything that was neither foreign nor arthouse. We expected giggling teenagers and parents renting cartoons for their kids so they could have their 'alone time'.

Sitting there rewinding videos was not how my life was meant to go. It's so easy to climb the ladder at a job, one minute you're fifteen and just needing some cash to mess about with, next, you're twenty- two and saying things like 'well five years ago this place was...' and 'When I started, there was work-ethic.'

Grant greeted the next customer.

"Hi there. I'm looking for a ...Ben that works here? Ben Jarman?"

I heard Grant smirk. It was the fake alias we'd created to give to people. .

"Dude, no one here is called that." He scoffed.

"That's the only name I got. Anyway, it's that guy there. The one pretending not to notice me."

As I prepared the ultimate connect-Four final slam-down move, memories of Vanessa's party last week filtered in. I spun around, peering up from behind the counter and there he was; a polite grin amidst a mop of wavy blonde hair.

"You." Was all I could utter.

"Me."

His hands dug firmly into his pockets as if they were the only thing anchoring him to the ground and if he took them out, he'd fly out the door. Grant took the hint and found something to do.

"You came."

"Yes, I did. Fuck knows why. This was stupid of me. I don't even know what I'm doing here."

"But...you came."

There was no conceivable way one could make a bright green 'VideoLand' shirt look attractive to the naked eye. Maybe he was colourblind? That would be convenient.

"What time do you finish?" He inquired hastily, "Do you have a break?"

"I don't finish for another hour, mate."

His shoulders dropped.

"I'll wait then."

"No, don't worry. That's um...cool...of you. A wee bit creepy also."

Fierce blue eyes searched me. We were trying to make sense of where we'd led ourselves.

"I'll wait."

Huh?

"You really don't have to. Go and grab a drink or something up the road. Pocket Bar. Ten-thirty. I'll meet you there."

"Will you stand me up?"

"If you keep acting creepy I will."

He grinned. My face was red hot. Red face, green shirt. How festive.

I don't think I'd ever closed up the store faster in my life. I disposed of my work-shirt in favour of my clean white t-shirt and tartan shirt. I stepped out into the chilly August air, tying the denim jacket I'd saved up for a month to buy around my waist. I was too nervous to be cold. What the hell was I doing?

I got to the bar, but it was shut. "Under-Construction" the sign read, mocking me and my attempt at being crazy, impulsive and spontaneous. Shit. There was an omen if I ever saw one. Good one, Lucas. What have we learnt about being spontaneous?

But then he emerged out of a car parked on the side of the street and leaned against the bonnet. The stranger, the Blackworth kid. Fynn. A name I'd repeated to myself since we'd met. He lit up as I walked over to him.

"Good choice of place. It's hoppin'. A real rager." He greeted, with a smirk.

"Why did you stay then?"

"I kind of thought you'd come anyway. How ridiculous, right?"

I smiled, my gaze not leaving him. "Not really. I am, however, glad to see you made it home safe after the party. You were in pretty good form that night."

"I wore sunglasses and pitched the idea of coffee as an intravenous drip to everyone that came in contact with me the whole next day." His eyes finally attached themselves to mine.

"Speaking of, there's a good coffee place just around the corner that'll definitely be open. I keep suggesting that they sell books and cds there but they don't want a bar of me. We could go there?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

The way his lips twitched to the side as he spoke, the dapper air about him made him seem like he didn't fit here. There was no Melbourne around us. A chill prickled my skin. The gentle wind made the waves in his hair dance around his winter-flushed face. He threw his finished cigarette and extended a hand out to me.

"I'm Fynn, in case you didn't remember. I didn't catch your name though. You gave me a false one which I assume was you trying to be funny."

I shook his hand.

"It's Lucas. And it was very funny. For me."

Our hands stayed connected and our eyes remained locked on each-other for far too long. There was something pulsing through me. An anxiousness, a sudden feeling that my skin was paper-thin. That this stranger knew me and above all, that something was beginning.

Finally he spoke, the words falling out as if they were winning in a race against his mind.

"This will be a total disaster."

And all I could come up with was: "Yep."

Phew! It's been a journey, and here we are. It may not be a desired ending (or it may be) but it's the one that has stayed with me since the day I started writing the story. The story needs a severe edit, as I cringe a little at my earlier writing.

It's such a strange feeling saying goodbye to these characters, they've been with mr for a long time.

Thank you to everyone that has read and reviewed. You've all contributed to this story more than you know.

Signing out,

Sundown

Xx