《heart》vernon

4、第 4 章

　　well i saw you with your hands above your head
　　spinning around trying not to look dumb
　　but you did and you fell hard on the ground *

　　"So let me get this straight," Bradley says, tacking the post-it note onto Colin's arm a week later, "You're listening to a female popstar from Norwegia and that's not gay?"

　　"Norway. And she's not a popstar."

　　Bradley ignores him, turning a bit pink. He says, "Norway. That's what I said." and waves his hand absently, like what he's just said doesn't matter. "And this song reminds you of me?" he asks dubiously.

　　Colin opens his eyes a crack, squinting through the light. They're done filming for the day, and now they're just sitting on the castle steps, under the pale smear of the October afternoon, waiting for Johnny to officially dismiss them. Bradley is having his ninth bottle of water and droplets of moisture dot his forehead.

　　"Are you saying I'm dull Colin?" he says.

　　Colin smiles, fighting off a wave of laughter. He leans back on his palms, face turned to the sky. The sun is warm today, but the air has turned a bit cooler. If the set is quiet enough, he can pretend to hear how the leaves stir in the wind.

　　"Hm." he says after a long moment.

　　"Are you saying I'm dull?" Bradley repeats, but he's laughing now and kicking at Colin's shoe. Colin kicks back, opens one eye and turns to him. Bradley flicks the yellow post-it note off his sleeve and it flutters down the steps before it's carried off by the breeze. He scoots even closer. Bradley smells like sweat, sunlight and salt and mineral. The heat that comes off him makes Colin feel a little bit dizzy but he scoots closer too, just to feel that familiar warmth soak into his clothes and skin until he is heady with it, mind swimming.

　　"Hey Colin," Bradley says out of nowhere. "Want to watch a movie later on?"

　　So they do that. They watch a movie. Except it's not even what or where Colin is expecting, but even better. It's an old run-down theatre that Bradley takes them to, and the place is like something out of a movie. The stuffed armchairs are soft and velvety-red and smell like a combination of lacquered wood and coke and five hundred year old sweat and body heat. The theatre runs black-and-white movies, Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays. Today is a Saturday so Gone with the Wind is playing and they sit through that with lapfuls of cotton candy and tubs of popcorn.

　　Pink sugar sinks between their teeth, sticking to the pads of their fingers, another one of those things that makes Colin feel like he's a kid again. He licks the granules off his palm and Bradley scrapes the gum off his shoe on the floor, laughing and muttering to himself and swearing. They're the only two people in the theatre and this, Bradley says, gives them permission to be as loud as they could possibly want to be. In the dark, Colin watches him, how the shadows loop and tangle on the slope of his cheekbones and the sharp angles of his jaw. Bradley's attention is completed fixed on the movie.

　　When Rhett Butler walks out the door, Scarlett o'Harra pleading for him to stay, saying, 'Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?' Bradley mimics her high-pitched voice, and whispers her lines with all seriousness. When it's Rhett Butler's turn to speak, their eyes meet, the two of them go “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!” at the same time before bursting into a laughing fit.

　　The credits roll on the screen afterward, and the two of them stand simultaneously, applauding, bumping into each other and laughing some more.

　　"I thought you might like it." Bradley says later when they're stretching out of their seats. He pauses, asks, "Did you?" just to make sure, and Colin laughs and assures him.

　　"Yeah, yeah." he says and scratches the corner of his face with a fingernail, smudging it with a streak of cotton candy, "I love places like this. They're quiet. I can think in them. Plus, free black and white movie." he smiles up at Bradley, snickering. "Although I would love it even more if you took me someplace that showed Sean Connery movies."

　　Bradley rolls his eyes and mock-cuffs him on the shoulder. Instead of calling him weird or some variation of it, he just laughs and rubs a palm over his back. The touch is comforting so Colin leans into it without thought, before he sniffs the air and moves even closer. Bradley's breath smells like fresh mints.

　　"Why does your breath smell like fresh mint?"

　　"Why are you even smelling my breath? Who are you, the breath police? I want my breath to smell good."

　　Colin laughs. He rubs his cheek with the back of his hand, streaking it with even more cotton candy. Bradley slaps a palm over it, damp with sweat, and wipes it clean for him before rolling his eyes and stepping away.

　　"Are you planning to kiss me?" Colin says.

　　"No, why would I be? That's ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life."

　　"Hm." Colin says and when they step out again into the street, it's evening already. The air is cooler, makes him want to eat strawberries, and fills him with a strange kind of comfort and contentment. "I'll probably let you though." he says after a long pause, looking out across the road where two French women duck their heads together and laugh, barefoot, their high heels toted over their shoulders. One of them, a redhead, throws Colin a coy look and Colin turns away, sheepish, his face pink.

　　"What do you mean?" Bradley says, eying him closely. "Did you just say you'll let me kiss you?"

　　Colin shrugs and stuffs his hands inside his pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet. "You treated me to a movie, bought me soda and popcorn. Isn't it how dates usually go? You get a kiss at the end if you played your cards right."

　　"This isn't a date." Bradley protests indignantly, before adding, "And not if I kiss you first. Then you get kissed at the end."

　　Colin shrugs. "Same thing." he says, waving a hand in the air before laughing, but Bradley takes him seriously, later when the sidewalk has emptied itself. Bradley pulls Colin to his side and kisses him, slow and dry, breath laced with candy and mint.

　　Colin blinks in surprise and lets his eyes close. He lets Bradley run the pads of his thumb against his jaw and rub circles onto the apples of his cheeks, paths of warmth made by the calloused edges of his fingers, the skin peeling and cracking. Bradley kisses him for at least half a minute, soft and breathy. When he pulls back, he's a little wide-eyed and sheepish, swaying on his feet.

　　"Right." he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. He forces a laugh. His cheeks are flushed. "Er. That was. That was something, wasn't it?"

　　Colin presses his lips together and shrugs. He rubs the faint sheen of saliva from his lips against the back of his hand. A beat passes. Bradley stares at him before shaking his head and turning away. They walk back to the hotel, making small talk, and let the white noise of conversation and cars passing in the street fill their silence.

　　"I knew it." Colin says when they reach their floor, taking out his hotel key. "You were planning to do that all along."

　　"Do what?" Bradley laughs.

　　"Kiss me, Bradley." Colin says, laughing too and rolling his eyes. It's a little weird how they're skirting the issue, and even weirder when Bradley does just that -- kisses him again against the doorjamb, his hands resting on Colin's hips and moving up his sides to rub at his back. He's a good kisser but Colin doesn't tell him that. It's too early for compliments and he's tired and Bradley will probably never stop kissing him and they won't get anything done, and really, how is that productive? They have a shoot tomorrow, so Colin pulls back, wipes his mouth again with the sleeve of his shirt but Bradley surges forward to kiss him on the cheek, then his ear, pressing his nose against the side of his neck. Colin laughs and rubs him on the back.

　　Later in the evening after he showers he finds his cellphone on the table full of text messages. They're all from Bradley. They're all nonsensical.

　　He phones Bradley while he towel dries his hair, feet propped up on the headboard and head lolling back and forth against the edge of the bed. "I'm right next door, Bradley." he says, when Bradley picks up. He imagines Bradley smiling when there's a pause at the other end, and a second later, Bradley laughs and says, "You haven't made me that mix yet. The one you promised me you'd make three months ago. You little cheat."

　　"I'm not a cheat." Colin says. "You kiss like a charlatan."

　　"Using big words now, are we?" Bradley says. "Just make me the mix, Colin. Filming is wrapping up in a few weeks. I want something to remember you by." And even though Colin wants to say, you'll always have something to remember me by, I'll keep in touch, I swear, he doesn't say it. Again it's too early for promises, and whatever they have right now is too much of a good thing to rush.

　　"All right," Colin concedes finally, weaving a comb into the wet strings of his hair. "I'll make you that mix I promised. Is there anything in particular you'd like me to put?"

　　"Yeah." Bradley says after a moment. "Yeah, there is. Journey."

　　Colin laughs.

　　7.

　　The next day, Colin roots through his suitcase of clothes before upturning it completely. Polaroids scatter to the floor -- blurry five-second pictures Bradley has taken of them together, hunched over iPods and bopping their heads, or with the others, Katie and Angel holding up peace signs, and Tony with his pink Nintendo DS raised enthusiastically in the background.

　　Colin flicks through each picture before settling for a grainy one of them standing in their costumes. He touches a finger to the shiny photoprint. He remembers that afternoon, all smeared in technicolour. He remembers the whinny of horses and the warm apple pie scent in the air and the thick warmth of Bradley's side pressed against his shoulder. He remembers Bradley complaining about his back and his knees. "I'm getting old, Colin. Maybe you should give me a massage." and how they'd laughed and bumped shoulders and chased each other on set before borrowing Tony's DS and occupying themselves with Mario Kart.

　　Colin hasn't made a mix CD since college, and after a string of heartbreak since then, he's quit altogether. But he has a good feeling about this. This time he swears it's different. Colin picks up a marker, turns on his laptop and as he waits for it to load, pens Bradley a list of songs, all indie rock, artists with strange names and mixed heritage.

　　"I'm seeing a pattern here." Bradley says and then laughs before holding up the CD in the light. "Nice cover art. You're not only very clever, Colin, but you're artistic too. That's nice. That's important." and he smiles and winks and Colin laughs and turns a little pink because of it. He still has a bit of glue smudged on the pads of his thumbs. He rubs it against his shirt and looks up at Bradley hopefully, pocketing his hands.

　　"You'll listen to it, right?" he says as Bradley slips into his costume.

　　Bradley grins, picking up his prop-sword, swinging it so that it gleams fierce and silver in the warm sunlight. "Of course I will, Colin. It's not everyday someone makes you a tribute CD, is it? And with fancy homemade cover art, too."

　　Colin laughs, shaking with the ferocity of it. "Shut up!" he says, indignantly. "It's not a tribute CD. It's a mix!"

　　"Whatever Colin." Bradley says and waves a hand, leaning against the hilt of his sword. "Everyone on set knows you have a little crush on me. I'm not surprised you made me a tribute CD at all."

　　"It's not a tribute CD Bradley."

　　"Sure it isn't." Bradley says, and when no one is looking, swings an arm around his shoulder and leans in to kiss him on the temple very briefly.

　　A week later, three weeks before they fly back to London after wrap-up, Colin waves two concert tickets in the air. A local folk band is playing at a small venue, an hour and a half away from the hotel. On vocals is a former opera singer. They're called Pears et Peaches. He knocks on Bradley's door. Bradley lets him in a minute later, wearing boxers and a white t-shirt stretched thin.

　　"I bought tickets." Colin says, sitting on his bed. "Concert tickets. I need a chaperone. Er, I have an extra ticket." He scuffs his shoe against the carpet, leaving a streak.

　　"Are you asking me out?" Bradley asks, waggling his eyebrows and crinkling his mouth. He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the door, looking expectant.

　　"That depends." Colin laughs and flutters the tickets in the air for emphasis. Bradley walks over to him, slow, arms still crossed.

　　"Are you going to say yes, Bradley?" Colin says.

　　Bradley snatches one of the tickets from him, holding it just barely out of his reach.

　　"Yeah." he says and kisses him. "Yeah, sure. Whatever, Colin. Yes. I'd love to go out with you and listen to French gypsies playing tambourines."

　　Colin laughs and leans into the kiss.