He walked into the theatre and knocked on Lexi’s door. She answered it a second later, strands of her mahogany-coloured hair sticking out sideways, and her hand strangling a red pen.
‘Everything alright, Lexi?’
She sighed, brushed her fingers through her hair. ‘Oh, fine, just … this play.’
‘Words not flowing?’
Lexi had taken the difficult path of producing the play in stages and workshopping it as it went along to tease out the salient points of Ron de Vue’s life before and after Brachen. She’d wanted to make the play really special for the bicentennial. Nothing like setting yourself a challenge.
‘Something like that.’ She led him into her office.
‘Mark not sitting in for this?’ Mark Conroy, Brachen’s CEO, had been seconded to the theatre to breathe down Lexi’s neck. He was an alright guy, genuine, but his appearance on the scene had provided another level of anxiety for Lexi.
‘No, we came to an arrangement.’
Thank God. He didn’t want to have to stand on ceremony. Bruce dropped onto the sofa and the strain of the long days and short nights scuttled through his body. He slouched, something he rarely did, but it had been ages since he’d stopped and sat in something more comfortable than his car seat. He could curl up on this couch right now and fall asleep.
When Sofia knocked on the door, he barely had the energy to turn his head.
Please God, let this be a quick meeting.
Then he’d go home, sleep and recharge himself. All he needed was six hours of shut-eye to buttress his strength and reinvigorate his spirit. A few hours of unconsciousness where he wasn’t harried by his problems. But when the door opened and Sofia shuffled in, her cheeks gaunt and shadowed, his guilt was slicker than the meat pie’s gravy. Here was someone with real problems. He still had his health.
Sofia gave them a hello, and he bound out of his seat to help her in.
‘Good to see you, Sofia. How are you feeling?’ He kissed her cheek and forced some levity into his voice.
She took his offered hand. ‘Oh, you know, Bruce. Shouldn’t complain.’
His jaw tightened and fixed his smile in place. Sofia and Lexi greeted each other with hugs and kisses before Sofia took the couch. A cough behind Bruce turned his head.
Gabriel stood in the doorway, close enough that he had to look up at Bruce: those brown eyes peering through under long lashes. His expression was neutral, but his eyes smouldered with an intensity that dried the saliva in Bruce’s mouth. He didn’t know what to say—didn’t know if he could say anything. That look didn’t mean anything. Gabriel always walked a balance between unaffected and incendiary. Bruce nodded and stepped aside. As Gabriel passed, his eyes pinched and he pursed his lips. What had he expected? A hello hug?
‘Hey, Gabriel,’ Lexi said. ‘Didn’t realise you were joining us.’
He stopped mid-step and looked to Sofia.
‘I hope that’s okay,’ Sofia said.
‘Of course! It’s lovely to see so much of Gabriel again.’
He ducked his head and sat next to Sofia. Bruce pulled up a chair and Lexi brought hers in so they formed a tight circle. A couple of inches separated him from Gabriel, a slight movement of his knee and they’d touch. Not that he wanted to. Not that he had any desire to go back to when he and Gabriel used to be close. Not that they’d been too close. If they had been, then Gabriel wouldn’t have slept with Jason behind his back.
Bruce shut his legs tight.
‘So, I’ve finished the set designs and I think you’re going to be really pleased,’ Sofia said.
Only if they’re a couple of planks of wood and some supports.
She opened her sketchpad but Gabriel was quick to take it from her hands and hold it for everyone to see. Gabriel tilted at the hip, his body rigid and back straight, muscles tensed. He was by no means a body builder but he was lithe and sinewy, his biceps compact and round, the kind that made Bruce’s jeans uncomfortable. And as Bruce leaned in to see the designs, a trace of crisp sandalwood whirled into his nose and kicked the embers of his old desire.
He shut his eyes and breathed deep to regain his composure but that only brought in more of Gabriel’s scent, warmed his skin and threatened to make him combust. He forced his eyes open and down at Sofia’s drawings.
‘I thought for the Brachen scenes, we’d show the passing of the years with a mix of mechanical elements and lighting.’
She indicated the placement of the backdrops and the way they moved, the shimmering of night and day across the pastures and the shift from the lush spring into fire-prone summer. But her descriptions became a hum as he tallied the metres of wood required, the nails, the bolts and screws, the hinges and pulleys. Sofia continued through one scene after another. He tried to appreciate how good they were—and they were good—but struggled to see beyond the increasing hours and supplies and his decreasing hourly rate.
From Brachen to North Africa
