More than just a pretty face - 9
A farewell and new beginning...
Howard watched from the doorway as Amy took a deep breath and lay down beside Vince on the bed. She was dressed again in the silver sequined minidress Howard had bought her, the shimmering fabric sliding up her pale thighs and the TopShop bag with the rest of her clothing in it bumping her hip as she moved into position. In the dim light from beyond the bedroom she seemed to shine and glitter strangely, like she didn’t quite fit within the reality around her, Howard thought before he caught himself and realised that there was a very good reason for that.
She wriggled her hips until she was comfortable and her face was opposite Vince’s, a near perfect mirror, but not quite. Vince’s face was relaxed in sleep for a start, whilst Amy’s held more emotions than Howard thought he could name (though if he were to hazard a guess he would number ‘motherly concern’, ‘feminine fear’, ‘warrior queen bravery’, and ‘good old fashioned stubbornness’ among the many he saw fluttering over her features as she lay her head down on the pillow).
“Alright,” she said nervously, her breathing fast and uneven. “I’m ready as I’ll ever be I suppose. Bye, Darlin’.”
Howard didn’t know what to say in return. He’d been infatuated, in his younger days, with the notion of not saying goodbye, an idea absorbed by some black and white film he’d watched at some point, in which the hero claimed, “This ain’t goodbye, Doll Face. I don’t do goodbyes. But you can call this... So long... Until next time.” It had seemed romantic in the context of the film, and just the sort of thing that a true Man of Action would say. As Howard recalled, the heroine of the piece, the Doll Face, had swooned and let herself be thoroughly kissed as the music swelled and the screen faded to black, and Howard had been desperate to emulate such easy, classic, cool - such confidence. He’d wanted to be that man, that hero who looked off at the horizon like there was something important on his mind, someone who didn’t do goodbyes. Now he felt that perhaps he was more the Doll Face of the story than the leading man. Amy called him Darlin’ after all.
“Goodbye Amy.”
His voice came out thick and cracked but there was nothing he could do to pull himself back from the
emotional brink, and so had no choice but to watch, rooted to the spot, his throat tightening until he thought he might actually choke, as Amy turned her gaze to Vince’s sleeping face, caressing his cheek gently as a single, silvery tear tracked down her own, beautiful cheek.
“Huh,” she whispered as the small droplet reached her lip and then fell to the pillow below. “Didn’t know I could do that.”
And with that she pressed her forehead to Vince’s, shut her eyes tight, took a final breath, and then...
Howard considered himself to have a way with words, to be an intellectual, a regular (but not ordinary) wordsmith, yet he struggled to come up with words to describe what he saw. It was like Amy... melted, except not in a distasteful way, not in a horror movie sort of way. She just seemed to melt from existence and back, Howard supposed, into Vince’s brain until she was gone completely and the only indication that she’d been there at all was the slight rumple in the covers she had lain on and the dent in the pillow. He looked at Vince’s face, hoping for some clue that Amy was back at her desk and that everything had returned to normal but Vince was still asleep and his face was slack and neutral and overwhelmingly dear, or so it seemed to Howard.
He was going to miss Amy. Her presence had been so freeing, so refreshing, so easy to fall in love with. Seeing Vince’s face every day wasn’t going to help him get over that quickly, no sir. Of course, seeing Vince’s face also wasn’t going to help him get over his other little realisation either. Because as much as he hated to admit it, he had meant it when Vince’s name had slipped from his lips in the kitchen. He did have feelings for Vince, did care for him very deeply, even when he was being a complete titbox and trying to eat Howard’s records to impress his new mates. He just wasn’t sure exactly how he felt deeply. Love was a many splendid thing after all, coming in many different forms, and he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. All he knew was that he loved Vince. It had just taken Vince’s brain to show him that. And now she was gone and he was left to wonder whether it had been worth it for her, whether she’d had fun like she’d wanted. Whether she’d even been real. And then he saw that there was something on Vince’s cheek, something that shone like a sequin but which was actually a tear.
Well, Howard thought, that seemed to be that. Amy was most certainly back at her post, Vince would wake up his old self and Howard would do his very best to repress all of the emotions and urges at Amy’s unexpected visit had brought forth. He nodded to himself, knowing that the next thing he needed to do was to walk out of Vince’s room and shut the door behind him. He was tired after all, what with all the excitement and the chamomile tea, but making his muscles do what he wanted them to just didn’t seem to be working. Instead, when he finally got his legs going, Howard found himself walking over to sit on the empty side of Vince’s bed. Perhaps he could just lie down here for a bit. Not to spend the night of course, but just to keep an eye on things until he was certain that everything had returned to normal in Vince’s brain space. He had promised he would keep an eye on Vince, hadn’t he? He told himself he was only following Amy’s orders as he removed his shoes and slipped under the soft blankets of Vince’s bed. He tried to move carefully, not wanting Vince to wake up in a panic, until he was in the same position Amy had been in, lying on his side so that he could study VInce’s face. He’d just stay for a few minutes, just to make sure nothing strange happened, just to make sure that Vince was alright. Just to make sure...
*
Howard woke the next morning with a jolt, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to get his bearings and figure out why he seemed to be falling into a beautiful blue pool. Or two beautiful blue pools, it seemed. And then they blinked and Howard felt a blush rage suddenly in his cheeks as he realised that he was looking into Vince’s eyes, and that Vince was staring at him. They continued to stare at one another, neither blinking or turning away and Howard realised that this was probably the longest he’d even held eye contact with anyone before, that this was important and significant and a moment of deepest epiphany. Until Vince snorted and began laughing in his face.
“Vince!”
“What?” he squawked in response. “You’re the one in my bed, looking at me all lovey-dovey. Whatcha even doing, looking at me like a teenage girl with a crush? You missing Amy already?”
Vince was leaning in ridiculously close, disregarding all rules that Howard might have once tried to mandate with regard to personal boundaries, and grinning at him saucily, his eyes dancing with the laughter that was bubbling up inside of him and, for a moment Howard felt ridiculously angry that Vince was teasing him when he’d only fallen asleep in Vince’s bed because he’d been concerned for Vince’s well-fare, but then it hit him. Because Vince’s voice and manner were all brash confidence, joking and flirting with no intent to harm, and he was engaging in banter (or trying to engage Howard in banter at any rate) without any sense of fear or hidden, romantic affection and instead of telling Vince leave off he found himself smiling. Which felt wonderful right up until Vince stopped smiling and suddenly looked alarmed.
“Why are you smiling at me like that? What’re you thinking? Is that really your smile? Jeez Howard! You better remember to steer clear of kids if that’s your smile. Is this why you’re not allowed at the swim centre anymore?”
“That...” Howard flushed as Vince wriggled out of the bed, still grinning wickedly. “That was a misunderstanding, you know that,” he snapped. “And I’m only here because you... well, you,” he wracked his brain for a reasonable explanation for why he was in Vince’s room. “Because you weren’t feeling well last night, remember? And Amy... said I should look after you.”
Vince turned from where he’d been fiddling with his hair at his vanity mirror to give Howard a confused look.
“I don’t remember that,” he retorted. “Then again, maybe I have been ill. The last couple of days are all a bit... hazy, you know? I mean, I remember Amy coming to visit, she was genius! But I don’t really remember the details. She was my cousin or something, right?”
“Yeah,” Howard agreed as he climbed stiffly from the bed. “Something like that.”
He tried to look Vince over without actually seeming like he was but stopped when Vince gave him another strange look in the mirror, he was all too aware that his stares were too much for some, too intense, and he didn’t want Vince to get suspicious. He’d just decided that everything was fine and Vince was back to acting like his usual irreverent self when Vince straightened up from the mirror and suddenly lurched toward the floor.
“Whoa there, Little Man,” Howard said as he ran forward to catch Vince before he hit the floor. “What’s this all about?”
“Dunno,” Vince replied, his voice suddenly wan and confused. “Just felt a bit off. Now I’ve got a headache. Maybe I’m a bit sick after all.”
Howard helped Vince back to bed and bustled about, tucking in blankets and plumping pillows, his anxiety increasing the longer Vince simply lay there and let him fuss but eventually he realised that he’d run out of things to do and was merely standing awkwardly by the bed, staring again. Vince was staring too, but at the wall rather than at him and so Howard collected his shoes and walked to the door, trying to look less apish than he felt, and so jumped embarrassingly when Vince said his name.
“Howard?” Vince asked, his voice back to the high and uncertain tone Howard had gotten used to over the last few days.
“Yes Vince?” Howard responded, still staring at the door, not wanting Vince to see the uncertainty and hint of fear that he was sure would be obvious on his face.
“I just... um, thanks, Howard. You know, for the stuff you do, the proper, grown-up stuff. Like when you, I dunno, take bins out, and bake me those little cakes and stuff. I’m rubbish at being a proper grown-up adult, don’t know what I’d do without you, so, you know... thanks.”
Howard felt his eyes widen as he stared at the wooden panels ahead of him. He didn’t want to turn around, even though he knew that Vince probably wanted him to, he just couldn’t. Because he knew the face that Vince made when he was trying to be sincere, when he was saying sorry or thank you and wanted to show that something was important, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to bare it. Because sincere Vince tended to look up through his fringe with ridiculously large, blue eyes with shoulders rolled forward to make himself appear smaller and Howard knew that if he turned to look he was liable to do something he’d regret - like kiss him and then accidentally moan Amy’s name and ruin everything. So he nodded instead.
“Not a problem, Vince. Not a problem. Happy to help,” he blustered, still facing the door. “You know me, Adult Moon, they call me, because I know all about adult... things.”
He heard Vince snicker quietly behind him and made his exit, shutting the door with more force than was probably, strictly necessary. His words always seemed to come out wrong. Once it used to only happen around the women he was trying to court (which was all women, really) and when it happened with Vince it wasn’t so bad because Vince always knew what he was trying to say anyway. With Amy it had been easy, he’d actually been successfully charming a couple of times which, he supposed, could have been because talking to Amy was at once exotic and reassuringly familiar. But now he was nervous talking to Vince, and that did not bode well. He needed to get his feelings in order, and get over Amy, before he thought about exploring any feelings he might have for Vince - for both their sakes.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t bake Vince some of those little cakes he liked so much though. Especially if he had a headache. He had a sudden desire to do whatever necessary to see Vince smile. Amy had said to look after him after all, and Howard Moon never broke his promise to a lady.
Howard watched from the doorway as Amy took a deep breath and lay down beside Vince on the bed. She was dressed again in the silver sequined minidress Howard had bought her, the shimmering fabric sliding up her pale thighs and the TopShop bag with the rest of her clothing in it bumping her hip as she moved into position. In the dim light from beyond the bedroom she seemed to shine and glitter strangely, like she didn’t quite fit within the reality around her, Howard thought before he caught himself and realised that there was a very good reason for that.
She wriggled her hips until she was comfortable and her face was opposite Vince’s, a near perfect mirror, but not quite. Vince’s face was relaxed in sleep for a start, whilst Amy’s held more emotions than Howard thought he could name (though if he were to hazard a guess he would number ‘motherly concern’, ‘feminine fear’, ‘warrior queen bravery’, and ‘good old fashioned stubbornness’ among the many he saw fluttering over her features as she lay her head down on the pillow).
“Alright,” she said nervously, her breathing fast and uneven. “I’m ready as I’ll ever be I suppose. Bye, Darlin’.”
Howard didn’t know what to say in return. He’d been infatuated, in his younger days, with the notion of not saying goodbye, an idea absorbed by some black and white film he’d watched at some point, in which the hero claimed, “This ain’t goodbye, Doll Face. I don’t do goodbyes. But you can call this... So long... Until next time.” It had seemed romantic in the context of the film, and just the sort of thing that a true Man of Action would say. As Howard recalled, the heroine of the piece, the Doll Face, had swooned and let herself be thoroughly kissed as the music swelled and the screen faded to black, and Howard had been desperate to emulate such easy, classic, cool - such confidence. He’d wanted to be that man, that hero who looked off at the horizon like there was something important on his mind, someone who didn’t do goodbyes. Now he felt that perhaps he was more the Doll Face of the story than the leading man. Amy called him Darlin’ after all.
“Goodbye Amy.”
His voice came out thick and cracked but there was nothing he could do to pull himself back from the
emotional brink, and so had no choice but to watch, rooted to the spot, his throat tightening until he thought he might actually choke, as Amy turned her gaze to Vince’s sleeping face, caressing his cheek gently as a single, silvery tear tracked down her own, beautiful cheek.
“Huh,” she whispered as the small droplet reached her lip and then fell to the pillow below. “Didn’t know I could do that.”
And with that she pressed her forehead to Vince’s, shut her eyes tight, took a final breath, and then...
Howard considered himself to have a way with words, to be an intellectual, a regular (but not ordinary) wordsmith, yet he struggled to come up with words to describe what he saw. It was like Amy... melted, except not in a distasteful way, not in a horror movie sort of way. She just seemed to melt from existence and back, Howard supposed, into Vince’s brain until she was gone completely and the only indication that she’d been there at all was the slight rumple in the covers she had lain on and the dent in the pillow. He looked at Vince’s face, hoping for some clue that Amy was back at her desk and that everything had returned to normal but Vince was still asleep and his face was slack and neutral and overwhelmingly dear, or so it seemed to Howard.
He was going to miss Amy. Her presence had been so freeing, so refreshing, so easy to fall in love with. Seeing Vince’s face every day wasn’t going to help him get over that quickly, no sir. Of course, seeing Vince’s face also wasn’t going to help him get over his other little realisation either. Because as much as he hated to admit it, he had meant it when Vince’s name had slipped from his lips in the kitchen. He did have feelings for Vince, did care for him very deeply, even when he was being a complete titbox and trying to eat Howard’s records to impress his new mates. He just wasn’t sure exactly how he felt deeply. Love was a many splendid thing after all, coming in many different forms, and he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. All he knew was that he loved Vince. It had just taken Vince’s brain to show him that. And now she was gone and he was left to wonder whether it had been worth it for her, whether she’d had fun like she’d wanted. Whether she’d even been real. And then he saw that there was something on Vince’s cheek, something that shone like a sequin but which was actually a tear.
Well, Howard thought, that seemed to be that. Amy was most certainly back at her post, Vince would wake up his old self and Howard would do his very best to repress all of the emotions and urges at Amy’s unexpected visit had brought forth. He nodded to himself, knowing that the next thing he needed to do was to walk out of Vince’s room and shut the door behind him. He was tired after all, what with all the excitement and the chamomile tea, but making his muscles do what he wanted them to just didn’t seem to be working. Instead, when he finally got his legs going, Howard found himself walking over to sit on the empty side of Vince’s bed. Perhaps he could just lie down here for a bit. Not to spend the night of course, but just to keep an eye on things until he was certain that everything had returned to normal in Vince’s brain space. He had promised he would keep an eye on Vince, hadn’t he? He told himself he was only following Amy’s orders as he removed his shoes and slipped under the soft blankets of Vince’s bed. He tried to move carefully, not wanting Vince to wake up in a panic, until he was in the same position Amy had been in, lying on his side so that he could study VInce’s face. He’d just stay for a few minutes, just to make sure nothing strange happened, just to make sure that Vince was alright. Just to make sure...
*
Howard woke the next morning with a jolt, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to get his bearings and figure out why he seemed to be falling into a beautiful blue pool. Or two beautiful blue pools, it seemed. And then they blinked and Howard felt a blush rage suddenly in his cheeks as he realised that he was looking into Vince’s eyes, and that Vince was staring at him. They continued to stare at one another, neither blinking or turning away and Howard realised that this was probably the longest he’d even held eye contact with anyone before, that this was important and significant and a moment of deepest epiphany. Until Vince snorted and began laughing in his face.
“Vince!”
“What?” he squawked in response. “You’re the one in my bed, looking at me all lovey-dovey. Whatcha even doing, looking at me like a teenage girl with a crush? You missing Amy already?”
Vince was leaning in ridiculously close, disregarding all rules that Howard might have once tried to mandate with regard to personal boundaries, and grinning at him saucily, his eyes dancing with the laughter that was bubbling up inside of him and, for a moment Howard felt ridiculously angry that Vince was teasing him when he’d only fallen asleep in Vince’s bed because he’d been concerned for Vince’s well-fare, but then it hit him. Because Vince’s voice and manner were all brash confidence, joking and flirting with no intent to harm, and he was engaging in banter (or trying to engage Howard in banter at any rate) without any sense of fear or hidden, romantic affection and instead of telling Vince leave off he found himself smiling. Which felt wonderful right up until Vince stopped smiling and suddenly looked alarmed.
“Why are you smiling at me like that? What’re you thinking? Is that really your smile? Jeez Howard! You better remember to steer clear of kids if that’s your smile. Is this why you’re not allowed at the swim centre anymore?”
“That...” Howard flushed as Vince wriggled out of the bed, still grinning wickedly. “That was a misunderstanding, you know that,” he snapped. “And I’m only here because you... well, you,” he wracked his brain for a reasonable explanation for why he was in Vince’s room. “Because you weren’t feeling well last night, remember? And Amy... said I should look after you.”
Vince turned from where he’d been fiddling with his hair at his vanity mirror to give Howard a confused look.
“I don’t remember that,” he retorted. “Then again, maybe I have been ill. The last couple of days are all a bit... hazy, you know? I mean, I remember Amy coming to visit, she was genius! But I don’t really remember the details. She was my cousin or something, right?”
“Yeah,” Howard agreed as he climbed stiffly from the bed. “Something like that.”
He tried to look Vince over without actually seeming like he was but stopped when Vince gave him another strange look in the mirror, he was all too aware that his stares were too much for some, too intense, and he didn’t want Vince to get suspicious. He’d just decided that everything was fine and Vince was back to acting like his usual irreverent self when Vince straightened up from the mirror and suddenly lurched toward the floor.
“Whoa there, Little Man,” Howard said as he ran forward to catch Vince before he hit the floor. “What’s this all about?”
“Dunno,” Vince replied, his voice suddenly wan and confused. “Just felt a bit off. Now I’ve got a headache. Maybe I’m a bit sick after all.”
Howard helped Vince back to bed and bustled about, tucking in blankets and plumping pillows, his anxiety increasing the longer Vince simply lay there and let him fuss but eventually he realised that he’d run out of things to do and was merely standing awkwardly by the bed, staring again. Vince was staring too, but at the wall rather than at him and so Howard collected his shoes and walked to the door, trying to look less apish than he felt, and so jumped embarrassingly when Vince said his name.
“Howard?” Vince asked, his voice back to the high and uncertain tone Howard had gotten used to over the last few days.
“Yes Vince?” Howard responded, still staring at the door, not wanting Vince to see the uncertainty and hint of fear that he was sure would be obvious on his face.
“I just... um, thanks, Howard. You know, for the stuff you do, the proper, grown-up stuff. Like when you, I dunno, take bins out, and bake me those little cakes and stuff. I’m rubbish at being a proper grown-up adult, don’t know what I’d do without you, so, you know... thanks.”
Howard felt his eyes widen as he stared at the wooden panels ahead of him. He didn’t want to turn around, even though he knew that Vince probably wanted him to, he just couldn’t. Because he knew the face that Vince made when he was trying to be sincere, when he was saying sorry or thank you and wanted to show that something was important, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to bare it. Because sincere Vince tended to look up through his fringe with ridiculously large, blue eyes with shoulders rolled forward to make himself appear smaller and Howard knew that if he turned to look he was liable to do something he’d regret - like kiss him and then accidentally moan Amy’s name and ruin everything. So he nodded instead.
“Not a problem, Vince. Not a problem. Happy to help,” he blustered, still facing the door. “You know me, Adult Moon, they call me, because I know all about adult... things.”
He heard Vince snicker quietly behind him and made his exit, shutting the door with more force than was probably, strictly necessary. His words always seemed to come out wrong. Once it used to only happen around the women he was trying to court (which was all women, really) and when it happened with Vince it wasn’t so bad because Vince always knew what he was trying to say anyway. With Amy it had been easy, he’d actually been successfully charming a couple of times which, he supposed, could have been because talking to Amy was at once exotic and reassuringly familiar. But now he was nervous talking to Vince, and that did not bode well. He needed to get his feelings in order, and get over Amy, before he thought about exploring any feelings he might have for Vince - for both their sakes.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t bake Vince some of those little cakes he liked so much though. Especially if he had a headache. He had a sudden desire to do whatever necessary to see Vince smile. Amy had said to look after him after all, and Howard Moon never broke his promise to a lady.