The first—the sudden and harsh rejection in the flowerbed—he could put down to the man’s genuine confusion about the mixed messages
he
probably put out. Although Ollie said he wasn’t gay, he could see, if he tried really, really hard, that occasionally he might make this claim difficult to believe. He
might
make a straight guy think he was up for it—some no-strings-attached, I’m-not-gay mutual manhandling. This was not an unusual occurrence for Ollie, and such things had been happening to him since a rather squashed-in-a-toilet, welcome-to-your-new-school meeting with the prefects eighteen years ago. It had certainly happened at Cambridge a lot. But that was probably just Cambridge. All that mellow stone and punting. And possibly the Pimms. But the second event—the savaging of that poor carrot was hard to explain. Well, not the actual carrot, of course, but the weird and highly charged thrust into the refrigerator that had precipitated its demise. Ollie wouldn’t stake his life on it, but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t rage that had been demonstrated in that move. Well, clearly anger was mixed in there somewhere or he wouldn’t have heard the milk bottles topple over as their bodies had rocked the solid metal structure. What was Tom angry about though? That was what needed pondering, as Ollie dried himself off and then rummaged through his shirt collection. A lot of his clothes appeared as desperate to get out of the closet as he sometimes felt.
Why was Tom so upset about him dating?
Guys.
Because although Ollie was feeling slow (it was the lack of sugar), even he could see that it was the gay thing that was upsetting the other man. Maybe it was that simple. Tom was a self-loathing straight guy who wanted to experiment, didn’t have the guts to, and so hated the fact that Ollie did. Have guts. And hopefully other bits and pieces that would work quite fine if called upon. Not literally
called on
of course. He didn’t intend to shout for little Ollie when he was required. That would be excessively weird and probably end the date faster than actually being himself normally did.
James.
He looked very nice.
He was Jonas and Luke’s choice, and Ollie had taken their advice for a first foray into this exotic and exciting world. It was like selecting wine from a shelf—easy, intoxicating, but possibly very bad for you. Although Ollie would never admit this to anyone, he always chose wine for its label design. If it had a cute animal on, it was his. Well designed leaves would do at a pinch. What the wine tasted like was utterly immaterial to him—it all went the same way and did the same thing, after all. He also only bought bottles he thought of as having shoulders—the ones that went straight up and then in quickly. Long sloping ones made him feel quite nauseous. You had to have some preferences, picking wine, and, so it seemed, men.
James was from Wanaka, which you had to laugh at to start with if you mispronounced Wanaka, which Luke obviously did. James was twenty-eight and a vet. He loved animals. Luke said this was very good indeed. Ollie thought the guy might mean he’d been to war and was into bestiality. Tom had refused to engage in the interesting selection process at all, but he’d not left the kitchen while the decision-making had been conducted.
Of course, a few guys had been immediately rejected. Anyone over forty had been declared too old. Under twenty, likely to want help with their homework. Ollie had insisted on some level of literacy, which had seen Jonas make a caustic comment about Tom, but fortunately he’d said it in French, so only three of them present had understood it, although Ollie had seen a slight frown cross Tom’s gorgeous face as the relatively universal words
beau soldat
had been murmured.
Facial tattoos had gone the way of illiteracy. Luke had then helpfully reminded Ollie that he was going on this date as research for a humorous book, and wouldn’t an illiterate gay Maori teen, therefore, be far more
amusing
for a first date than a handsome veterinary surgeon? Even if he was from somewhere that sounded like something you should only ever do when alone. Or possibly with a very good chum.
Ollie disagreed and said research had to be worked up to slowly. And as he almost had a PhD from Cambridge in unravelling the exile motif in the editing of Chaucer’s Renaissance, he knew about slow research.
So, why Tom was annoyed by him dating James the vet with possibly a very cute collection of things made of fur was a mystery to Ollie.
Did designer jeans, linen shirt, and leather jacket say gay date?
Ollie thought they did—very nicely.
John Wick, eat your heart out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ollie supposed no date could start out well when you had to introduce the minders you’d brought with you.
James had appeared surprised to meet Tom and Leticia, but then he could merely have been relieved that anyone had turned up at all. It had all been pretty short notice, and Ollie’s profile on the dating site was still flagged with a small red smiley face not smiling—to indicate apparently that he was a newbie with no dating record, no testaments to his virtue, one way or the other. No guarantee he’d actually appear at all. It was a little like buying on an auction site. He hoped James would give him good feedback so he could turn yellow, and smile a little more.
So, the first introductions in the car park of the bar had been a little tense, but to give Leticia her due, being co-opted into a spurious date with a man she didn’t know, and faking to another man she knew even less that the man she was pretending to know quite well was dating him genuinely, hadn’t seemed to have thrown her unduly. Ollie sensed that if you could lie about Norse you could pretty much lie about anything.
Tom didn’t seem to like James, which amazed Ollie. He thought he was perfect—for a research date, obviously.
James had a rugged, outdoors-y look, which was explained when he confirmed that he was an animal vet and that he mainly did farm work. His partner, Jessica, handled the small animal side of the business. Ollie wondered what they did with the little farm animals—
baby
goats, lambs…did they argue over who got them, like children in a sandbox? James apologised for being late, even though he was there before they’d turned up in a taxi, as he said he’d been called to an emergency just as he’d agreed to the date. Hence the corduroy trousers and flannel shirt. And possibly the smell. Sorry.
He was splendid. Not only had he started Ollie’s first gay date oddly dressed and looking a little like Boris Johnson, which had to get anyone brownie points on the amusement scale, he spoke about emergencies! Ollie immediately had a vision of himself living with James, bravely waiting at home eating sugar whilst James strode off into the night for
emergencies
. How could anyone who vicariously lived such an exciting life not write a novel? Almost like living with…well, a soldier, Ollie assumed. But with less being ordered about.
Tom was dressed in the blue jeans with Ollie’s favourite strategic rip, a white shirt and, like him, a leather jacket, only Tom’s was old and battered and hadn’t been bought by his mother for him in Florence. Ollie wrinkled his nose, shrugged further into his lovely Italian lambskin and shook James’s hand, making a mental note to wash his immediately. He wanted vicarious emergency, not crisis germs on his hands!
James had sandy hair, not Boris’s Nordic blond, but a face that made you want to smile in a jolly way. Ollie couldn’t even begin to imagine being mean to him, and was very glad now that Tom
had
joined them to fulfil that role.
Tom was buying a round of drinks now. Ollie was studying him as he was listening to James say something or other he wasn’t paying attention to. Then he felt suddenly guilty and remembered Tom’s nickname. Drinks were not cheap in Queenstown.
He made a mumbled apology to Boris and Letty, suggested they discuss where they wanted to eat later, and rose and joined Tom at the bar.
“I’ll get them.”
Tom curled his lip and obviously wanted to tell him to fuck off, but the till said sixty dollars, and the barman had his hand stuck out. He nodded sourly and let Ollie hand his card over. “Shouldn’t you be chatting up your…date?”
It was a weak jibe but Ollie gave Tom some leeway. It wasn’t everyday the person you were apparently babysitting had to pay your way for you.
“Have you told him yet that this is all nothing more than a joke to you?”
“I haven’t told anybody I think everything is just a joke, so why start with poor James?”
Tom’s lip rose a little more. “What if he falls in love with you, Ollie?”
Ollie snorted then saw that Tom was serious. He flicked his gaze to the earnest, slightly ruddy guy with the flannel shirt and wayward hair. “Why would he do that?”
Tom plunged his face into his hands. “Oh God, oh God, are you so fucking blind? Seriously, can you not see what is right in front of your face? You are such a total arse!”
“Well, yes, I only hope James thinks so…later.”
Before Tom could reel away in disgust, Ollie caught his sleeve. “Look, I’m going to buy him drinks and then treat him to a meal in an expensive restaurant. Where’s the harm, Tom? Seriously—where’s the harm in that? People do things like this! Hell, I’ve just bought your drink. I’ll pay for your meal, too. What’s the difference?”
Tom got up close and personal. Ollie wondered if James and Leticia were watching and how that conversation would go. “The difference is, I haven’t driven an hour over mountains to fucking get here. I didn’t answer your email five minutes after you’d sent it, agreeing to meet you, because clearly as a gay man in Wanaka I’m not lonely, and I didn’t take one look at your picture, which Luke so helpfully pasted on your fucking bio, and think all my Christmases must have come at once. And I’m not sitting over there wishing you were sitting next to me and that you might fall in love with me
because I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you
!”
Ollie opened his mouth for a clever comment but realised he was completely floored. He frowned, puzzling over this vast outpouring of confusing words. “You think he fell in love with me in the car park?”
Tom copied Ollie’s expression, only his bewilderment appeared more extreme. He suddenly threw his hands in the air. “That’s it. I’m done. Go for it. Go on.” He snatched up the drinks, managing to spill most of them when he waved once more at the couple left on their own in the corner. “Go. You’re on a date. Go and be whatever you fucking want, Ollie.
Go
.”
Ollie felt a little intimidated and wanted all his alcohol down his throat and not on the floor, so he did as commanded for once in his life and joined the other two at the little table.
He then discovered his drink had no actual alcohol in it. He didn’t know whether he was more impressed with Tom’s sneakiness or the sixty bucks he’d apparently been fleeced. He returned to the bar and clarified the issue with the barman, returning with a much more satisfactory little date helper. And one to go.
James and Leticia had clearly been getting on very well. She was that sort of girl, Ollie had to admit—well brought up and able to chat on almost any subject given her. Although the increasing problems with sheep dag on the hill stations did seem to be taxing her a little.
James broke off his fascinating explanation to accept his drink and apologised to Ollie, although Ollie had not been the actual recipient of the maggots and shit story. “It’s an occupational hazard. I’ll tell you about my favourite cow abscess next if you’re lucky.”
“Yes please.” Ollie smirked. “I have favourite cyst videos. Have you seen Kill George?”
James’s brows rose. “I’ll file that away.” There was a pause. Possibly slightly awkward. Ollie was regrouping and assumed James was too. Tom was ripping a beer mat into increasingly small pieces, and Leticia was texting. Possibly for help.
“So, what do you do, Ollie? You didn’t say. On your bio.”
Ollie hesitated, which wasn’t like him. His bio had been full of very interesting details—after all, it had been written by a famous gay writing duo that Ollie was fairly sure James would have heard of—until he’d deleted most of the salacious nonsense and put only his age and liking for shortbread. It had occurred to him that shortbread might be some kind of coded gay sexual position or preference, like chicken, and he’d worried slightly over this in the taxi on the way down the mountain. What if he got in a situation later, perhaps tied and gagged and facing some unknown instrument approaching his bottom, only to be reminded, when he started to scream (around the gag with muffled hysteria), that he’d said he
liked
shortbread? Still, even if this did happen, it was better than saying on your bio you were into eating cheese.
The tiny angst mountain being created was distracting Ollie from his thoughts and apparently from an answer to James, who was looking a little worried. “I’m supposed to be doing a PhD. I got…I had an…last year…I’ve taken a year off to get my focus back.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
Ollie turned to Tom. “You didn’t ask.”
Tom picked up another mat and replied slightly viciously, “Yes, I did.” This was true and exceedingly frustrating, therefore, as Ollie hated to be caught out telling the truth. It was excessively provoking. He returned his focus to James. “I literally emigrated. I think I did the distraction thing a little too emphatically.”
James laughed, and Ollie smiled back, and the second beer mat began a sad decline. Leticia suddenly rose and declared she’d be back in a minute. Expecting her to head for the bathroom or the bar, and not particularly bothered either way, Ollie was slightly surprised to see her exit to the car park. He leant over the table and twitched the curtain to one side and saw her hop in a car with David at the wheel.
This was embarrassing.
“I think you’ve been dumped.”
“What!” Tom leant over too, and their heads brushed together. Ollie could smell something very nice emanating from the warm skin. “That’s David! The bastard!”
“Was it the shit?”
They both turned back to James, and he clarified, “The sheep story?”