Page 91 of Light Up
“You were going to stay at his place without him knowing.”
“The hospital made me contact him to see if I could stay there while he was away.Nowas the answer. I think he was more annoyed that I’d written off the car, which used to be his partner’s. I don’t know why I keep bothering with him, really.”
“So a Christmas film or not a Christmas film?” Louis asked.
“I vote for Christmas,” Corey said. He wanted something happy.
“Die Hard?” said Benjamin.
“Something happy?” Corey asked hopefully.
“Die Hardends happily,” Louis pointed out.
“Not for Alan Rickman,” Corey retorted. “Remember his face as he fell? Did you know his expression of terror was completely genuine because the stunt crew released him early, on the count of one instead of three as they’d said?” Corey pretended to scream.
They all laughed.
“What about National Lampoon’sChristmas Vacation,” Benjamin suggested.
That was the one they settled on.
Corey wondered how this would work, but Louis and Benjamin quickly set everything up. They zipped two sleeping bags together for Tal and Corey and piled blankets under them and on top of them. Corey wore his bunny hat and Tal had one of Benjamin’s beanies. They shared air pods and the movie started.
Tal took hold of Corey’s hand under all the blankets and Corey turned to look at him.
“Thank you for coming here with me,” Tal whispered.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Then it started to snow.
Tal looked at the sky. “Is that still true?”
“You holding my hand in the snow? Yes.”
Twenty
When the snow fell more heavily, they decided to decamp and finish the film indoors. Tal pulled Corey down next to him on the couch and wrapped his arm around him. He wanted Corey to himself. He wanted to show Louis, in particular, that Corey was important to him. Yet he didn’t quite understand why he felt that so strongly.
Tal was distressed by the way Louis had both spoken to Corey and what he’d said about him. But he’d been awed by Corey’s response. He was still thinking about one thing in particular that Corey had said.I know what he wants and I can be what he wants. I have been already.
What the hell did he mean? Tal could guess, but he never liked to do that. He preferred to know. But although holes in Tal’s memory were gradually being filled, it was still Swiss cheese. Maybe there would always be gaps.
“I was told you left that polar bear in the hospital for me,” Tal said.
“Yes.”
On the screen, the Griswold family was fleeing the squirrel and Benjamin and Louis were laughing.
“We made polar bears in the snow,” Tal whispered.
Corey swivelled round to face him. “I told a guy mine was—”
“An arctic fox.”
The delight on Corey’s face warmed Tal’s heart.
Tal wondered how much he didn’t remember. He could picture himself and Corey outside the hotel working in the snow, the way Corey had used a bucket to scoop the snow up, and managed to throw it all over him. Twice. Memories or dreams, but how could they share the same dream?
