“So come on. What’s your story, Lenny? Married? Kids?”
Leonard stopped attacking the dessert and placed his fork down next to his plate to give Adrian his full attention.
“Do you know, you’re the only person in the world who calls me Lenny.”
Adrian’s good-natured grin dissolved when no humour showed in Leonard’s face.
“You don’t like it? Why didn’t you say?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it, so much. That particular version of my name brings back bad memories, that’s all. Especially coming from you.”
Leonard watched as Adrian drank from his pint, his confused gaze still peering inquisitively over the rim. Leonard decided the time had come to confront him.
“When we were at school, do you remember calling me ‘Gay Lenny’? During my first week? You made the other kids around you laugh.”
Adrian appeared baffled, clearly taken by surprise, his eyes darting away as he tried to search his memories. Eventually he brought his gaze back to Leonard and shook his head.
“I don’t remember. That was a long time ago. Are you sure about this?”
Leonard nodded. Some things in his childhood he could never forget.
“During my first ever assembly. When the teachers were calling out names from the register. Mr Jennings called—”
“No, wait. Yes, I do remember. The first time I ever saw you. Teachers used to call the names in reverse order, yes? So instead of Leonard Day, he called you Day, Leonard. And I thought he’d called you Gay Leonard, so I frowned at him and said ‘Gay Leonard’? I honestly thought he’d made a mistake. But of course, the idiots I used to hang around with thought I was cracking a joke. Jennings immediately told us to be quiet. Was that why you gave me the stink-eye every time I walked past you?”
“All those friends of yours called me Gay Lenny for the whole of the first term—”
“I don’t remember—”
“Never when you were around, now I come to think of it. But even boys in my year, ones I didn’t know, called me the same thing. It became a standing joke, the way kids pick up on stupid things like that.”
“Oh my God, Lenny—uh, Leonard. I had no idea. If I had known, I would have told them to shut their mouths.”
Instinctively, Leonard knew the truth of his words. The Adrian he had recently grown to know could never be inherently nasty or vindictive. Being so was simply not in his nature. Throughout the years, he had thought Adrian to be the culprit, the ringleader. In reality, he had simply misheard one of the teachers—an interesting lesson in how a simple misunderstanding in youth can form a lifelong perception.
“Yeah, I know you would have. And it’s okay. You still get to call me Lenny. I’ve grown to like hearing the sound of it. And to be honest, after that first term, I used to ignore the idiots at school. Kept myself very much to myself.”
“And you’ve been holding that in all these years? I always thought you didn’t like me because of me being part West Indian.”
“What?” Leonard felt genuine shock at Adrian’s words. “Of course not. I’m not like that.”
“That’s what everyone says—”
“Ade! I’m really not. It’s because you labelled me at school. Unwittingly, it seems. And honestly, I should have let it go by now, but seeing you in the pub when I returned to Drayton brought everything back.”
“Well, if it’s any help, I apologise for being a dick. And for not telling the other kids to shut up.”
“You have nothing to apologise for. Besides, they called me out correctly on one thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Iamgay.”
Adrian pulled his glass away from his lip to stare at Leonard. After a few moments, a huge smile lit his face.
“Ah, well, mate. Joke’s on me, now. Why didn’t you say something earlier? When I came out to you?”
“Funnily enough, I thought about it. Especially when you struggled to explain about sharing the hotel room in your wonderfully diplomatic way. But I worried that if you knew I was gay too, sharing a room would be even more awkward and—hey, what?”
