Chapter Six

JAMIE EMAILED me.

Meet me at The Coffee Club. 11am. I’m dying for some pancakes.

I arrived first and ordered for both of us. Jamie wanted the pancakes, and he always drank mocha instead of real coffee, so I knew what he’d want when he finally turned up. I decided to join him and ordered myself some pancakes to go with my cappuccino. Jamie can never enter a room quietly. He arrived in a fluster of waving arms, bleached hair, and tight red jeans.

“Oh my gawd. You will never believe the morning I’ve had. Guess who we have tomorrow on the air? Declan Tyler. I’ve been in a flap trying to get all the information ready for Harry to interview. Oh my gawd.”

I sat back and listened to him go on. Everyone who was gay and knew a little bit about football knew who Declan Tyler was. He’d been the first AFL footballer to come out of the closet while playing at senior level. Okay, I conceded as I watched Jamie mimic strangling some unknown woman and then nearly took out the waitress accidentally with his gesturing hand as she brought over our drinks, Declan Tyler hadn’t so much come out of the closet as he was pushed out and exposed against his will.

The pancakes arrived. I smiled and started to eat. Jamie was able to talk and eat at the same time. I didn’t mind his chatter. It meant I didn’t have to think of anything interesting to say. Finally he wound down, tilted his head to the side, and demanded, “Now, tell me. What’s wrong?”

I was stunned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re quieter than usual. That means there’s something up. Is it something unimportant, like a character killed in a book and you’re mourning? Or do I need to be worried?”

God, I loved the guy. He was one of my best friends in the world. You would think the drama queen who never stopped talking and the bookworm who never opened his mouth wouldn’t be a good fit. But we’d been friends for more than half our lives. Jamie had kept many a secret.

But I’d never—ever—mentioned a word about Ambrose. Maybe that was what was missing?

“It’s my love life,” I confessed. “How do you stop your heart from yearning for the wrong person?”

Jamie blinked. “You cut it out of your chest,” he told me point-blank.

I chuckled. “Won’t you die, then?”

He nodded sharply. “Exactly my point. You can’t tell your heart what to do. It beats without you thinking of it. So it acts without you thinking of it. You have no choice, unless you want it to stop beating.”

“That’s rather morbid,” I commented.

“What? You want me to write a sonnet about it?”

“No,” I said sulkily. “I want what you and Liam have. Love.”

Jamie reached out and grasped my hand. “Then it takes patience, understanding, and a little bit of daring. And all without any guarantees.”

I felt my mouth turn down at the corners. “You and Liam have it perfect. I mean, I look at you guys, and you’re great together. I can see just from a glance that Liam loves you. And you love him.” I gave a chuckle. “It’s not like you’ve ever hidden it.”

Jamie looked at me with compassion, and for once he didn’t say anything. He let me speak.

“I want that, Jamie. I want someone who adores me for who I am, not someone who likes some of me, or most of me. I want the same love that’s between you guys.”

“And this person you yearn for? He doesn’t like all of you?” Jamie asked with sympathy.

Well, now. That was the hard bit. “He’s never said. Never said yes and never said no.”

A knowing look came over Jamie’s face. “Ahh. The inability to communicate that the male of our species is said to have. I’ve never understood that. I have absolutely no trouble communicating. I mean, people seem to imply that I communicate too much. I’ve tried to work it out. Is my ability to communicate and my fellow males’ inability to communicate because of their gender? No, because I’m definitely male. Is it because I’m gay? Well, no. Because you’re a case in point. You’ve just said you haven’t been communicating with this other male. True it could be his fault, but I’ve always thought you need to speak up more. But that’s neither here nor there. Anyhow. Moving on. I’ve also wondered if my ability to communicate more than other males comes from the fact I was mostly raised by a single mother in a house with two other sisters. But then there was my stepfather for some time and—”

“Uh, Jamie?”

He stopped and got the point immediately. “Oh. Right. Shane’s problems, not mine. So this mystery man of yours hasn’t said if he likes all of you, but obviously he likes some of you, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So I guess it would also have to do with when he has the opportunity to speak to you.”

I screwed up my nose. One text message in five months wasn’t really communicating.

Jamie went on. “I also have to wonder about his identity, because I don’t think he’s a part of our social circle, not unless one of our friends is cheating, and that would be heartbreaking. Of our group, the only single ones of us are you and Hiram. And I don’t think any sort of sparks have kindled in the past seven years?”

I shook my head. Hiram had actually joined our group as my boyfriend, set up through a friend of Jamie’s. Hiram had been new in town, and Jamie sent me on a blind date with this unknown guy. We’d clicked and managed to talk our way through the date and found lots of things we had in common.

So we started dating and became an item. The sex—and I gave a bit of a shudder when I had to recall that we’d had sex, as it was something I liked to forget—had been perfunctory. Nothing bad, but nothing good either. But we persisted. Having a boyfriend was better than not having one.

Hiram was the mature one to sit down and say, “There’s no sparks, are there?”

Since then, Hiram had simply kept coming along to our social gatherings as Hiram, not Hiram, Shane’s boyfriend. For a while the group continued to ask, “Still no sparks?” But then gradually I think most of them forgot we’d been together once upon a time. Hiram was great, just not for me.

“Still no sparks,” I told Jamie.

“Then it must mean there’s someone at work,” he declared, and I frowned. He saw. “Oh. If you don’t want me to know exactly who, then that’s okay. When you’re ready to tell me. But if he’s not a part of your social circle, then he has to be someone at work or someone you see in the course of your working. Tell me his initial.”

“A.”

“Okay, A. Andy? I like Andy. I always hoped I would get a boyfriend who was a Handy Andy, if you know what I mean.”

I fought the impulse to bury my face in my hands. It was an occupational hazard of being a friend of Jamie’s.

“So this Andy probably doesn’t have much of a chance to communicate with you over dusty files and moldy maps.” Jamie had a weird idea of what I did for a living. “So what you need to do is get him to a nonworking environment. Have you asked him on a date?”

“No,” I replied truthfully. Ambrose and I had never been on what you could call a date.

“Then you need to ask him on one,” Jamie cried with a flourish of hands.

I winced. “I don’t want to go on a date with him. I want to forget about him.”

“Ahh,” Jamie said knowingly. “But you can’t because he’s still around at work, right?”

It was sort of right. “I can’t really avoid him.”

Jamie nodded as my phone buzzed in my pocket and I fished it out. It was a text from Ambrose, although the name flashed up as AJ on my phone. The message was accompanied by a photo.

Last look at my knee without scars. Tomorrow it will be different.

I tucked the phone away and vowed not to answer.

“Then your best bet is to replace him in your heart with someone else,” Jamie declared.

I groaned and slumped in my seat. “Vinnie tells me I’m not allowed to use Grindr. Something about me not handling it.”

“Oh, darling,” Jamie purred, “Vinnie is right about that. The right guy is out there somewhere for you. Do not despair. I will hunt him down for you.”

Then he glanced at his phone, which sported a bling-encrusted cover. He screeched. “I have to get back to work. I owe you for the meal. Later.”

He dashed off with a wave in my direction, and I pulled my phone out again. I looked at Ambrose’s knee. As an old friend—a school friend, a childhood friend, a friend of the family, whatever—I was sorry he had to go through this pain, and I hoped he’d be okay. But as a….

I hesitated. What was I to Ambrose? A friend with benefits? A sex toy with a heartbeat? Something more?

Whatever I was to Ambrose, the fact that I loved him had to come second to the fact that I’d been his friend for over twenty years.

I typed, Good luck. It will be fine. I know it.