Chapter 298

“And for the record,” Darren continued, “this house has no sound insulation.”

Jayden went magenta, and Darren chuckled darkly. “You’re a bastard,” Jayden accused, and Darren shrugged.

“It’ll take the edge off for you. You might last until the ceremony now.”

“Yeah, well, I hope you brought supplies and you’re ready,” Jayden mumbled, and the moment he had tucked his shirt in, he reeled Darren in by that collar and kissed him, open-mouthed and messy, tasting himself on Darren’s tongue.

“Oh, trust me, I’m ready,” Darren said and freed himself. “Now come on, before Paul has an aneurysm. I swear he’s more stressed than Ethan.”

“I don’t know, Ethan looked kind of sick,” Jayden admitted and shrugged on his suit jacket. “Okay. How do I look?”

“Presentable.”

“Good. Shit, you look stupidly good,” Jayden breathed, eyeing Darren from head to toe. He could feel the lust beginning to bubble up again in his veins. “That’s…Lillian made these changes?”

“Yep.”

“She’s definitely a designer,” Jayden mumbled and blew upwards into his hair. “Right. Okay. Yes. You look…perfect.”

“No cum on my face?”

Jayden rolled his eyes. “No. God.”

Darren opened the bedroom door, bag in hand, and gestured for Jayden to precede him. “Can you take my overnight bag up to the hotel room? You’ll get there before us.”

“How? Taxi?”

“Nah, Lillian’s stepmother organised buses, couple of those ancient ones from the forties. All the guests go that way, but apparently I’m part of the groom’s entourage.”

“So…instead of ushers, Ethan has a pianist?”

“Bingo.”

“Not bad,” Jayden said as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and took Darren’s bag. “Okay, I’ll look after that. Give me the key too. I’ll come and find you after at the reception, then.”

“There you are!” Paul shouted for the second time and seized Darren by the elbow. “Right, come on, Ethan’s dad is taking pictures. You too,” he snapped at Jayden.

The back garden had been given over to photographs, taken by the enthusiastic father-of-the-groom, and Darren was promptly hauled into a collection of surprisingly formal photos with the groom and the best man. Jayden felt the odd echo of history as he watched the three of them line up in their almost-matching suits, men where he’d met them all as boys, and all simultaneously carrying both a gravity and a freedom that they had lacked all those years ago. They weren’t just lads anymore, and Jayden bit on the edge of his thumb until Darren was freed again, and Jayden could reach for him.

“You look gorgeous,” he said lowly, and kissed him chastely, one hand on his collar and the other on his jaw. Darren’s large hands came around to brace Jayden’s back, warm through the shirt fabric and half-hidden under his suit jacket. The kiss was long and gentle and affirming, somehow, Jayden drawing some silent promise out of it in the press of Darren’s nose by his own, in the smoothness of his lips, and in the steady surety of those huge and capable hands, pushing one of his own hands up into Darren’s hair and feeling the soft twist of those familiar curls around his fingers.

A camera flashed. Jayden didn’t mind.

* * * *

The ceremony was to be held in a grand church in central London, packed into a busy street, but cavernous and quietly peaceful inside. Jayden hitched a lift from Paul’s eldest sister Ruby, a beautiful woman with very long braided hair and a very imminent child, judging by the baby bump, but whom Jayden had never actually met. He rejoined Darren on the church steps briefly, was shooed away again when the official photographer showed up, and returned once he was done taking a hundred and five pictures of the groom’s family and friends.

Darren took him inside to show him the piano. It had been brought in, clearly, sitting in front of the church organ, but it was an impressive black grand piano, gleaming in the sunlight pouring through the stained glass windows. Darren’s sheet music, still handwritten and looking so sketchy, was already set up. “You’re going to look amazing playing this,” Jayden murmured reverently, pressing a single key. A low C rumbled gently through the building.

“It’ll sound good, which is the important bit,” Darren said.

“Are you going to stay here for the entire wedding?”

“Yeah,” Darren said. “I play at the beginning, one song in the middle, and then the end.”

“The song in the middle…?”

“Just a hymn, boring,” Darren waved a hand. “The opening and ending music is what I had to compose. The ending is just the opening at a different tempo, though, with a bit of the wedding march chucked in for them actually walking out together.”

“You never played it all the way through for me,” Jayden said.