“He had no idea who you were?” Hayden leaned closer to Drew at the tightly packed bar.
When they’d first stepped into the Churchill, she’d been agape with wonder. The outside of the building was draped with Christmas trees. “Eighty of them and eighteen thousand fairy lights,” Reid had shared. From that point on, the place had fascinated her.
Hanging from the ceiling were numerous beaten-copper pots, pans and lights, and at one point she spotted a guitar case and even an accordion. As its name suggested, the Churchill was dripping with memorabilia, in memory of the man after which it was named. The walls were wooden and dotted with framed photos and paintings, the tables and chairs well worn from plenty of use.
“There’s no better place to be than Church on Christmas Eve,” Reid had told Tate, looping a brotherly arm around his neck as he’d dragged him inside.
Hayden was ridiculously happy for Tate. He had a fun, boisterous, lovable family. She could see clearly that his mother had wanted to accompany him out tonight only to be close to him awhile longer. And who could blame her? The woman had gone decades believing her other son was deceased. In the end George had wrangled Jane in, encouraging her to “let the lads and lasses have their fun.”
Drew circled the straws in her club soda with lime before confirming Hayden’s question. “Reid had no clue it was me.”
“Then what?” Hayden was on the edge of her seat hearing how Drew and Reid had bumped into each other at a work conference. She stirred her own club soda with lime, content with the mocktail and Drew’s company. She listened intently as Drew told her about the huge crush she’d had on Reid when she was sixteen years old and how running into him again was her very narrow window to properly seduce him.
“So I’m lying in his hotel room bed fast asleep and he does this—” Drew snapped her fingers in Hayden’s face “—and literally scolds me for not telling him who I was!”
Hayden laughed. It’d be a story for the grandkids, without a doubt... An edited version, but still.
Drew was beaming, glowing. Even though half her story was shouted so as to be heard over a rowdy group of lads chugging down their ciders and ales.
The patrons of Churchill had worn their Christmas finery. For most of the ladies, sparkly dresses—one lass wore an elf costume—and the guys, including Reid and Tate, wore funny hats. Reid, a court jester hat and he’d talked Tate into the one shaped like a giant pint of ale.
“He’s doing well, Tate,” Drew pulled her eyes away from their guys to say. “I’ve been trying not to watch him with George and Jane, but it’s so beautiful to see them together. And when Reid joins the mix...” Her eyelashes fluttered. “Sorry. Hormones.”
“You don’t have to explain. I’ve felt that same sort of emotion being around them. Tate’s doing amazingly well.”
“I remember the first time I had that look in my eye. It’s unique to a woman falling in love.”
Hayden tried not to overreact, but she was relatively certain her shocked expression rivaled the one she’d worn when she stepped into Church for the first time tonight. Except instead of awe over garland and pinecones, flickering candles in lanterns and sleigh bells strewn hither and yon, her shock was due to her inability to agree with her new friend.
“It’s not love.”
“Oh.” Drew was uncharacteristically chagrined. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume...”
Hayden waved a hand to cut off Drew’s needless apology. “I can see how you’d draw that conclusion. We have a great time together. He asked me to come here and support him, and I couldn’t turn down a friend.”
Though friend seemed a lame word for what they had been doing together in bed every time they were alone. It sounded lame saying it out loud, too, but if Drew noticed, she was too polite to point it out.
“I’m glad he has you. No matter how you define it. And there’s no need to define anything, is there? It’s Christmas!” Drew lifted her glass, and Hayden tapped her own against it.
On the other side of the bar, the guys sat close to the fireplace, glasses of bourbon or some kind of brown liquid in hand. Reid tossed his head back and laughed, his throat bobbing, and Tate swiped his eyes as he laughed along with him. Hayden was hit with the oddest sense of pleasure at seeing Tate happy. And not the way she might mildly appreciate someone enjoying themselves. More like she was invested in him. Her assuredness about not being in love with him didn’t stop her from having feelings that were, while not love, definitely love-like.
If there was a real fiancé in Hayden’s life, Tate would be the ideal candidate.
Tate sat by the fireplace while Reid fetched refills at the bar. On the way he stopped and placed a hand on Hayden’s shoulder and smiled down at her. When she replied with an eye roll, Reid winked.
They’d accepted her, his family. His parents, his brother and Drew. The same way they’d accepted him into their lives. There were rough patches, of course. Awkward moments where the air was stale and no one spoke. But ultimately someone thought of something to say, and it was always in order to help Tate feel at home.
His mother had been asking about wedding plans almost nonstop. “Let me know the date as soon as you’re certain,” she’d said. “I’ll book a flight.”
I’ll book a flight had been Jane Singleton’s mantra since Tate arrived. She was anxious to come to the States, and when Tate agreed at lunch that he’d enjoy showing her around Spright Island, she’d promptly pressed her lips together to quell more tears.
Her crying over him made him uncomfortable, but he understood. He felt as if he’d been robbed, and yet at the same time he wouldn’t trade his childhood or his adoptive parents for anything in the world.
Hayden turned her head to look over at him and he waved. She smiled, demurely at first, but then her teeth stabbed her lower lip to keep away a full grin.
My fiancée, he thought when he returned her smile. What had he been thinking asking her to play the role? She was great at it, though. So great that it wasn’t hard to imagine her in that role for real. But the timing was so off it wasn’t even funny. He was scrambling to keep his life sewn together at the seams and Hayden... He kept referring back to their conversation the first night they were together. One night at a time had been the promise—a reprieve for them both.
Pretending was fine. Short-term. Fun. But reality came with an entirely new set of rules.
“Cheers.” Reid returned and handed Tate one of the drinks. “Hayden is gorgeous and funny and you’re not likely to do better.” Reid’s cheeks puffed as he held the liquor in them for a beat before swallowing and wincing. “Holy hellfire.” He coughed.
Tate opted for a sip rather than a gulp.
“I never saw myself married or a dad, but it’s about to happen for me. I’m one of those happy idiots I used to feel sorry for.” Reid was more careful taking his next drink. “And before you accuse me of trying to induct you into the married people hall of fame, just know that I have no agenda other than your happiness.”
Rare was the moment Reid was sincere, but he appeared so as he held his glass aloft. Even wearing the jester hat.
“I appreciate you looking out for me.” Tate sat back into the stuffed chair. “What Hayden and I have now, it’s working. It’s easy. Simple.”
Tate nodded, liking the sound of both of those words. Easy and simple wasn’t something his life had been lately.
“Simple has its merits,” Reid said, but it sounded like a line. Something to say to fill the air rather than the truth, which reflected in blue eyes that matched Tate’s own.
Outside the Singleton home, Tate stood in the backyard, a brisk wind stinging his reddened cheeks. He’d gone to bed around 1:00 a.m., after several glasses of the burning liquid Reid kept bringing him. He’d come back here, passed out and then woke at 3:30 a.m., his heart racing like it was trying to escape his chest.
After three big glasses of water—one of them with an aspirin chaser—Tate wandered outside. The in-ground pool was draped with a black tarp, closed this time of year. He had vague thoughts of swimming in it, of losing a toy and of his mother diving in after it wearing all her clothes.
He didn’t know how much of the memory was memory or how much was his mind desperately trying to connect the dots of his checkered past. Bits of information were missing and colored in with other bits from an entirely different life. He’d yet to piece himself together.
“Wesl—Tate,” came his mother’s voice from behind him. “Darling, what are you doing?” She bundled a thick parka around her. “It’s freezing out here, you’ll catch your—”
“Death?” he finished for her. “Too late.”
She gave him a light shove in the arm. “Comedian like your brother. Bloody hell! It really is freezing out here.”
“We can go in.”
“No, no it’s fine.” She assessed him, something sad in her eyes before she said, “Your adoptive parents contacted us.”
He felt the blood rush from his cheeks. He’d had no idea.
“Don’t be angry. We contacted them first, hoping if we reached out, they’d reply. I begged Marion—ah, your mother—not to say anything to you. By the look on your face, I assume she complied.”
“She didn’t tell me.” He felt his worlds colliding, fearing that collision and at the same time anxiously anticipating it. He couldn’t be two people the rest of his life. At some point he’d have to accept that he was Tate and Wesley. Son of Marion and William and son of George and Jane.
“I wanted to...understand, I suppose,” Jane said. “They’re lovely. And as much as I wanted to rage at the couple who kept my son from me all those years, I realize it’s not their fault they loved you so fiercely. At least that’s what my therapist says I’m supposed to feel.” Her mouth quirked. “But I love you, Wes—Tate. And that means I will prioritize your happiness above my own.”
A surge of emotion pushed against his rib cage. After a month of damming it up, only allowing it to release at a trickle, he was due for a tsunami.
His chin shook as another memory crawled out of the recesses of his mind. Jane jumping into the pool after his favorite stuffed toy. He hadn’t imagined it. It wasn’t made up. The memory was from his toddler-height point of view. And when Jane handed it back sopping wet, he’d cried more and George had helped Jane to her feet, his rumbling laughter encompassing them.
It was real, his life here in London. No longer a fuzzy impression he was trying to bring into focus.
“Call me Wesley, Mum,” he wrapped an arm around his mother. “That’s the name you gave me.”
This time when she cried, he held on and cried with her. For the many years they’d lost, and the many years, God willing, they had left.