The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [51]
"Mm, you do like it," he said.
"I love it," said Nick.
When Pete came back in they were loafing round the room with their hands in their pockets. "You won't believe this," he said. "I think I've sold the bed."
"Oh yes?" said Leo. "Nick was just saying what a nice piece it was. But he says it'll take quite a bit of work, don't you, Nick?"
Their final few minutes in the shop had an atmosphere of ridiculous oddity. It was hard to take in what the other two were saying—Nick felt radiantly selfish and inattentive, and left it to Leo to wind things up. The furniture and objects took on a richer lustre and at the same time seemed madly irrelevant. It must have been obvious to Pete that something was up, that the air was gleaming and trembling; and it wouldn't have been beyond him to make some tart comment about it. But he didn't. It struck Nick that perhaps Pete was really over Leo, realistic and resigned, and he noticed he regretted this slightly, because he wanted Pete to be jealous.
"Well, we must get our lunch," Leo said. "I'm hungry, aren't you, Nick?"
"Starving," said Nick, in a kind of happy shout.
They all laughed and shook hands, and when Pete had hugged Leo he pushed him away with a quick pat.
So there they were, out in the street, being nudged and flooded round by the crowds, and heedlessly obstructive in their own slow walk, which unfurled down the hill to the faint silky ticking of Leo's bicycle wheels. It was all new to Nick, this being with another man, carried along on the smooth swelling current of mutual feeling—with its eddies sometimes into shop doorways or under the awnings of the bric-a-brac stalls. There was no more talk of lunch, which was a good sign. In fact they didn't say anything much, but now and then they shared glances which flowered into wonderful smirks. Lust prickled Nick's thighs and squeezed his stomach and throat, and made him almost groan between his smiles, as if it just wasn't fair to be promised so much. He fell behind a step or two and walked along shaking his head. He wanted to be Leo's jeans, in their casual rhythmical caress of his strolling legs, their momentary grip and letting go. His hands flickered against Leo time and again, to draw attention to things, a chair, a plate, a passing punk's head of blue spikes. He must have come first, out of all the men Leo had auditioned. He kept touching Leo on the bottom, in the simple pleasure of permission. Leo didn't reciprocate exactly, he had his own canny eye for the street, he even raised a sly eyebrow at the sexy shock of other boys going past, but it didn't matter because they were a kind of superfluity, the glancing overspill of his brimming desire for Nick. As they dawdled through the crowd Nick saw himself rushing ahead through neglected years of his moral education. This was what it was like!
Under the fringed canopy of a stall he saw the down-turned profile of Sophie Tipper, studying a lot of old rings and bracelets pinned on a ramp of black velvet. His first thought was to ignore her or avoid her. He felt his old envy of her. But then Toby rolled into view behind her, leaning forward with a little pursed smile of vacant interest—very like a husband. He rested his chin on her shoulder for a moment, and she murmured something to him, so that Nick had the uncomfortable feeling of peering at their own heedless self-content. They made a necessarily beautiful couple, somehow luminous against the dark jumble of the market, like models in a subtle but artificial glare. Nick turned away and looked for something he could buy for Leo; he longed to do that. He saw all the reasons the impending social encounter might not be a success. "Hey, Guest!" said Toby, loping round the stall, grabbing him and giving him a firm kiss on the cheek.
"Hi—Toby . . . " Their kissing was a new thing, since the party, somehow made possible and indemnified by the presence of Sophie. And it seemed almost a relief to Toby, as if it erased some old low-level embarrassment