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Bonnie Tyler was holding out for a hero when Julio Spring was making his way through his fifth G&T of the night. He found himself in the belly of a whimsically converted barn on the outskirts of Welwyn Garden City. Slouched, somewhat precariously, on a bar stool, he was surrounded by twinkling fairy lights and the faint scent of varnished wood, punctuated by the occasional waft of sweat from the mass of bodies euphorically jiggling about on the dancefloor. His drink was more water than spirit, and he was starting to feel the urge to leave.
Nick and Charlie had just tied the knot, delivering a fairy tale ending that had felt preordained ever since they began dating in high school. Julio could have sworn that it was only a few months ago that Charlie awkwardly announced he was going out with a rugby boy. And now, just like that, they were husbands. He loved Nick. He could have wished for nothing more than for his son to find someone who made him happy, and he knew that Nick would have Charlie’s back through all the difficult bits. He was glad his son had found a partner he could truly rely upon. This didn’t stop Julio from being worried, however. They’re just so very young. He’d kept quiet when the idea of the wedding was first floated, aware that any concern he might have voiced could easily be misinterpreted as bitterness, especially now, in light of his own recently iced-over marriage.
He was good at keeping his mouth shut anyway. It was probably just that he didn’t really feel like celebrating two people getting married. Nick and Charlie had conceded that the timing was less than ideal, but after nearly two years of engagement, it had to happen eventually. So, an April wedding it was; unpredictable rain storms and all. Jane had loved it, actually. “It’s the closest to a proper dream wedding I’ll ever get from one of my children,” she’d said with the kind of wistful sigh that left Julio wondering if he was somehow expected to provide an alternative, though he’d long since stopped being the kind of person who could orchestrate any dreams for anyone. That had been made clear by the “amicable” end of his marriage.
They had managed to be very civil, and, really, it was better that way. The children were out of the house, and they could both ‘find themselves’ again, though Julio still hadn’t figured out what he was supposed to find. Whatever it was, it wasn’t at the bottom of this glass, that much he knew. He took another sip of the drink and wondered if maybe the only thing he was holding out for these days was a stronger cocktail. He was well and truly about to call it a night when someone slid into the seat next to him.
He braced himself for another round of small talk, the kind he’d spent the whole wedding dodging. But then a hand – large, warm, a little rough – landed on his shoulder, lingering there before sliding down his back with a kind of casual intimacy. The softness of the touch caught him off guard. Although the hand pulled away to rest on the counter, the warmth remained.
Stéphane. Given that the man had agreed to cover most of the day’s expenses, they’d both kept in touch through various family WhatsApp groups and email threads in the months leading up to the event. But Julio hadn’t had a proper chat with him since the wedding had kicked off.
“These boys finding love…,” Stéphane started as if continuing a conversation Julio wasn’t aware they were having. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“Think about what?” Julio replied, too tired to bother with pleasantries, especially with this man, who always seemed to drift a little too blithely through life.
“About… lots of things,” Stéphane shrugged.
“Mmh.” Julio’s noncommittal utterance lingered in the air as he began fidgeting with the golden signet ring on his pinkie. The engraving on the small piece of jewellery now so faint it was no longer legible. He had bought the ill-fitting piece on a whim a few years ago while on a trip to Madrid. Not because he needed it or because it suited him particularly well, but because the old shopkeeper in the antique shop had spun a nice story about its origin. Something romantic, probably a little sad. He felt a momentary connection to the woman and the object, so he had indulged.
“Weddings tend to do that,” Stéphane continued, shaking Julio out of his reverie. “Make you think about how people grow together and then apart. Or things you stop doing because you think that’ll make life easier. Or people you’ve disappointed, whether you meant to or not. Or the things you deny yourself because of what’s expected of you.”
Julio looked up, a little surprised at the unexpected gravity of the comment. Stéphane’s face, often lit with a grin Julio found maddening, had settled into something more tired. Heavy lines cut through the grey stubble around his mouth, and circles hung under his eyes.
For once, Stéphane looked… real. A person who understood the weight of all the things he had barely acknowledged when he maybe should have.
“I guess,” Julio said, with only a vague sense of where Stéphane was going with all this and no idea why he was saying it now.
“I heard,” Stéphane said, “about you and Jane.” Ah. “And we haven’t really talked since. So I just wanted to say in person…I’m sorry things went that way. I really am.”
“Don’t worry about it. It was all very amicable,” Julio recited the well-rehearsed line. The bar stool was getting uncomfortable, and he began sliding around in the seat.
“Oh-,” Stéphane paused as if searching for the right words, “-how do you guys say…bullshit!” He leaned into his French accent for effect, and Julio snorted. Maybe this guy wasn’t entirely oblivious after all. Or not tonight anyway.
“It’s never amicable, really,” Stéphane said as if he were the world’s expert on divorce. Julio thought that, with two broken-down marriages, in a way, he was.
“Yeah. Well,” he said lamely, turning back to his drink. A waiter had started clearing the champagne flutes left abandoned half-drunk around the barn, piling them into a glasswasher behind the bar.
Their conversation led them into safer territory after a while. Stéphane asked how the traffic was on the way up here. When Julio recounted how he got stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 near Epping Forest, Stéphane suggested he should always opt for the scenic route. They talked about Nick and Charlie’s various pets (“A puppy and a kitten, mon Dieu!”). The catering (“The broccoli was overcooked, non?”). Work (“Too many spreadsheets. C’est nul”). When Stéphane pretended to be scandalised at the somewhat chaotic Best Person speech into which Darcy had incorporated some frankly outrageous photos (“God, I hope that really was a spilt milkshake!”), Julio couldn’t help but laugh. Bit by bit, the tension drained out of Julio’s body as their conversation meandered through more unremarkable topics.
“They’ll be fine. Our boys. They’re not like us,” Stephane suddenly said in another apparent non-sequitur.
“Jaded, you mean?”
“Yes, they’re not jaded. Or repressed,” he added, tapping his glass against Julio’s with a quiet clink.
“Speak for yourself!” Julio shot back. Why was he suddenly bantering with this man? He looked down at the remnants of his drink. The condensation from the ice had left water rings on the counter, and his fingers were grazing the rim absentmindedly as if his subconscious was trying to distract him from the warmth creeping up his neck.
“Ha! In that case…” Stéphane leaned in, his shoulder brushing against Julio’s. “How many more of these will it take for you to feel bold enough to call this a date?”
“I’m probably about two drinks shy of some reckless decision-making,” Julio said.
“Bien!” Stéphane hummed and Julio felt the flush rise to his cheeks.
“You’ve got some nerve, honestly,” Julio said, clearing his throat.
“I don’t know… I think I’ve mostly stopped caring. Everyone already thinks I’m an asshole.” Stéphane moved one of his hands over to where Julio was clasping his glass on the counter and then deliberately dragged a finger through the small pool of water there.
“So you just lean into it?” Julio asked.
“So I just lean into it. When…it suits me.” Stéphane confirmed and huffed out a laugh. “You should try it sometime.”
Julio looked around the room and tried to make out whether any of the other people there were taking note of their absurd little standoff, tucked away as they were in the half-light of the bar. But the couples on the dancefloor simply kept twirling to the terrible pop blaring from the speakers, and the other guests stayed huddled around the various dinner tables. No one paid them any mind. The barstool scraped against the floor when he finally shifted his weight out of it.
“Alright.” Julio took the last swig of his G&T, set the glass down with a kind of resigned finality and looked over at Stéphane. “It’s late,” he said, the words hanging in the air between them. Stéphane raised an eyebrow. It was the face of someone who’d just tripped over his own feet and decided it was funny.
“Well,” Stéphane said, unable to hide the small triumph in his voice, “perhaps we should go somewhere quieter then.”
“Are you staying in the barn hotel with all the other guests then?” Julio asked.
“Ah, non. I’m actually in the Travelodge near the station. I left booking a little late,” Stéphane admitted.
“That tracks.”
*
It took no time at all for the Uber to arrive and for them to pile into the backseat. As they moved through the night, with the trees outside flickering past his vision, a restless thrill settled in his chest. His unsteady breathing filled the quiet – how had they ended up with the one driver in the world who didn’t have Magic FM playing too loud? Stéphane touched his hand for just a moment when he noticed that Julio had started fidgeting with his ring again.
“Relax,” he said, the ‘r’ catching in his throat with that particular roughness French accents lend to English. Julio didn’t relax exactly, but the touch jolted him into the reality of the moment. The fact that he was here, with someone. And maybe he had started to welcome whatever this thing was that they were about to do together.
“I’m not surprised you’re so calm. You must do this a lot more often than I,” Julio said, and then added with a quick glance: “...which is never, by the way.”
Stéphane had smiled at that but turned to look out the car window. They had stopped at a junction, and the indicator sounded loudly. After a few moments, everything set into motion again, and they rounded the corner.
“Nearly there now,” was all Julio got in response.
They arrived eventually. When he got out of the car, Julio realised that it had started to rain; the night was pleasantly cool now. He looked around again and saw that puddles were already beginning to form on the pavement. The car pulled away. Apart from the two of them, the street was now completely deserted.
The entrance to the hotel was just a few steps away, but Julio lingered on the wet pavement. He closed his eyes and turned his face up to the sky. For a few moments, he teetered as if on a precipice, the urge to leave tugging at his resolve to know more. A few steady breaths tipped the balance, his uncertainty slowly washed away by the light but insistent patter of rain. His skin bristled with anticipation as he became aware of Stéphane stepping next to him and touching a hand to his cheek. He opened his eyes and found the other man looking at him intently. His gaze instinctively flickered down to Stéphane’s mouth. The sight of it! He was struck, as if by lightning, by an intense need. When Julio finally closed the distance between them, the tingling rush went all the way from his temples down to the soles of his feet. Their lips and tongues met gently, like in a subtle flicker of lights; the kind one sees at the edge of a storm brewing in the distance.
Stéphane’s fingers were warm at the back of Julio’s head, and he pulled him closer until their bodies were flush against one another. Their kiss had tethered the unlikely pair together for a few moments only.
“Come,” Stéphane finally said and tugged him gently under the small canopy of the hotel entrance. “Are you up for more?”