by Lily Morton
“He’s going to give Max a mouthful. He’s been furious with him since he found out—” He pauses. “Oops, perhaps I shouldn’t say anything,” he says with blatant insincerity.
“So, why are you? Because that rather seems like the theme of your life,” I say wearily.
He sits back in his chair and stretches. “Because you deserve to know the truth, Felix.”
“Do I? And I need to hear it from you? What on earth have I done to deserve that? Maybe I was a mass murderer in a previous life,” I say sourly.
He smiles. It isn’t pleasant. “I think you should probably just plod along after them, Felix, and have a listen because you deserve to know the truth. I don’t like you, but I equally don’t like what Max has done.”
“What has he done?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Go and listen,” he urges me happily. He leaves the table and heads to the other room.
I watch him go and then huff and drain my drink. What a tool he is, I think. I’m not going to listen at doors like a snoop. I have more fucking self-respect than that.
Which is why, of course, I find myself wandering along the bottom floor of the house looking in doors and listening for the familiar tones of Max and Zeb. I can’t find them, and after five minutes I give up and turn to go back to the party. However, I quickly find myself in an unfamiliar corridor, and that’s when I hear raised voices. Max and Zeb.
“… don’t like involving myself in your business.” It’s Zeb’s voice.
“Well, the solution is very simple. Fucking don’t,” Max says.
My heart starts to pound so heavily it beats in my ears, and I know I should turn back and let Max talk to me when he’s ready. However, the desire to know more draws me like an iron filing to a magnet, and instead of walking away, I drift closer, feeling my heart rate increase because I know I’m not going to like what I hear.
“It’s not that easy.” Zeb’s voice is sad. “I care for Felix, and I hate that you haven’t told him the truth.”
“I care for him too.” Max’s voice is loud and impassioned. My heart speeds up and I smile. It drops off my face very quickly with Zeb’s next words.
“Do you, Max? Or do you just feel affection for someone you’re fucking? We both know there’s never going to be anything else on offer for him.”
“He doesn’t want that,” Max scoffs, and my stomach clenches at the utter denial in his voice.
There’s the sound of movement, and when Zeb speaks next, it’s low and intense. “Don't do that, Max. Don’t lead him on. He’s a lovely young man and he deserves so much fucking more than to come in a very lagging second place.”
“What the fuck are you on about?” Max says. “He’s not second place.”
I want to feel jubilation, but his tone belies the words. There’s no conviction there. Just a hopeless, sad sort of resignation and I feel as if I’m going to be sick.
I move away. I don’t need to hear anymore. Unfortunately, I don’t move quickly enough.
“Yes, he is.” Zeb’s voice is soft but implacable. “Because you’re still in love with Ivo and you are stringing Felix along.”
I smother my gasp and fall back against the opposite wall. My mind is racing, and suddenly everything makes sense. I feel no real surprise, so it’s likely that a part of me has suspected this all along. The silence about Ivo, the way Max has been this weekend, the constant drinking to drown out what I now realise is genuine pain.
“I’m not stringing him along.”
“Yes, you are.” Zeb’s voice contains absolute authority. “And for the first time in our lives, I’m worried that I’m going to be ashamed of you. Felix deserves the world. He deserves someone who will put him first, someone who will love everything that’s wonderful about him and there is so bloody much of that. He needs someone who won’t be looking over his shoulder constantly for the person he really wants. Felix should be enough for the right man. Can you be that person, Max?”
There’s a long silence, and then Max says, ‘no’ and all of my half-formed dreams and plans collapse. I reel away from the wall and make my way back down the corridor, my heart pounding as if it’s trying to leave my chest. The pain needs to come out, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let that happen in public.
I find my way back to our room, but, strangely, the pain stays buried and I feel numb. I go to the window and look out. Twilight has fallen, and the grounds are lit with torches. I jump as a firework suddenly explodes over my head, and I hear the sounds of cheering. I feel cold and distant from it all, and I welcome that state of being.
I’ve been second place all my life—with my dad and his new family, with my mum too obsessed with her lost relationship to see me. I was even an interloper with Misha’s family when I lived with them. For once in my life, I thought I’d found someone I could care about, someone who might reciprocate. I’d been lulled by the great sex, the intense conversations and laughs, the way he looked after me, only to find that I’m bloody second place yet again.
I stand there for a while, feeling the cold breeze on my face and listening to the revellers below. I breathe in and, when I exhale, I let everything go—my silly hopes and dreams for a future with Max, the safety I’d felt only with him, the stupid idea that he might be someone who could grow to love me. I push every feeling away, and then I move about the room, packing my bag.
I’m sitting in the armchair by the window when the door opens. Max’s tall figure is silhouetted against the light in the hallway for a second before he pulls the door shut. “Felix?” he says, the slur still apparent in his voice.
I reach over and flick on the table lamp, and he curses at the brightness and flings his hand up to shield his eyes.
I wait him out, one leg crossed over the other. When he lowers his hand, I watch his gaze flick about the room before landing on the bag by my feet.
“What’s happening?” he says.
“I think it probably should be obvious, but I’m going home.”
“Wait. What… Why?”
“Because I should never have come in the first place. This wasn’t the place for me, and I don’t think you ever intended to bring me, anyway.”
“Why?” He staggers slightly. “Why not?”
“Because you’re in love with one of the grooms, and I don’t think you wanted to rub my face in it.” I shrug. “Not sure why, Max. I’m only a casual shag to you after all.”
He blanches, his face turning sheet-white. But to his credit, he doesn’t try to lie. “I’m sorry,” he says in a low voice.
“Why?” I ask, glad to hear how calm my voice is.
“Because I didn’t want to lead you on,” he says passionately. “You’re not a casual shag, Felix. I care, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t be so bloody patronising,” I say, and my calmness stops him in his tracks. He hovers, breathing hard and watching me. “I am a casual shag. They don’t get much more casual, Max. You didn’t even have to buy me a drink, and I was yours. Don’t pretend to care about me now, because after I walk out of this room, you won’t even miss me. I haven’t made the slightest impact on your world, so don’t give me sweet words to let me down gently.”
“What do you mean when you walk away? Felix, please.”
I stand up. “I have to go.” There’s harshness in my voice now, because this is it. I won’t be with him again. I won’t lie in bed laughing at whatever random thought enters his head. I won’t hear his husky laugh again, smell his scent of sandalwood and feel the silkiness of his hair. Pain twists in my chest, like something is trying to gnaw its way out.
“No, please don’t go,” he explodes, staggering towards me and then swaying alarmingly as though he might fall.
I push him gently until he lies on the bed. He struggles up on his elbows, but the alcohol makes his movements heavy, and he lacks his usual grace. He falls back against the pillow. “Shit,” he mutters. “I’m so pissed. Felix, please don’t go.”
&nbs
p; “I have to.” I raise his legs fully on the bed and hate myself for doing it.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he says, and there’s so much sadness in his voice that I feel tears in my eyes. “You were so valiant and sassy, and I wanted you the instant I saw you. I thought I could have you, and it wouldn’t mean anything to you. I thought you were hard, but you’re not, are you, Felix? You’re soft and wonderful, and I’ve hurt you, and I never meant to.” His voice is so earnest and melancholy. “If I could have loved anyone else, Felix, I would have chosen you.”
“And now you’re being cruel,” I say steadily, pulling back. “You need to stop talking, Max, and go to sleep.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he repeats stubbornly.
“I think it’s blatantly obvious that neither of us is getting what we want tonight.”
“I don’t want to love him,” he slurs, and I want him to stop talking right now. “It’s just always been him, and I can’t do anything about it. I would never do anything to spoil his life.”
“Shame you didn’t have the same consideration for me,” I say sharply and then shake my head. “Ignore that. It was a shitty thing to say.”
“Love is fucking awful,” he says slowly.
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “And I sincerely mean that. It’s nothing and will never be anything.”
His eyes start to close, and I pull the covers up over him. “Goodbye, Max,” I say steadily. “I hope you have a good life. Maybe stop drinking so much. It’s not doing you any favours.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he says. “I need to talk to you when I’m sober. I need to explain.” He grabs my hand. “Please don’t leave me. Promise you won’t leave me.”
His eyes are flickering shut. He’s on the verge of passing out, and I stare down at him, committing his face to my memory. The wavy dark hair, the high cheekbones and the full lips. As his breathing levels and he starts to snore softly, I lean down and press a kiss into his hair, inhaling the scent of sandalwood greedily for the last time.
“No,” I say softly. I grab my suitcase and leave the room.
I don’t look back, and on the long and costly journey back home, I steadily pack away all the love I felt for him that was so tender and new, and lock that shit down tightly. And by the time I reach London, I’m resolved to hate him for making me so vulnerable.
After
Chapter Nine
Two and a Half Years Later
Felix
I lower the paperwork to my desk and look at the young man sitting on the chair in front of me.
“So let me get this straight, Aaron. The customer requested that you deal with his shed. He intended for you to strip the paint off and paint it in the lovely yellow colour he’d chosen so painstakingly.” Aaron squirms, and I narrow my eyes. “And you did what?” He mumbles something, and I put a hand behind my ear. “Come again?”
“I set fire to it,” he mutters.
I grimace. “Yes, and that’s what Mr Harkin told me, but I said to him, ‘Mr Harkin, I cannot believe that a member of our staff needs so badly to clean his ears out. I will have to question the young man myself because he’s a model of integrity.’” Aaron stares at me, and I shake my head. “I was, of course, lying.”
He perks up. “You don’t need to cross-question me?”
“Of course, I do.” He instantly deflates. “You are the anti-model of rectitude. You set fire to a shed which then set fire to the poor man’s fence and entailed the fire engine making a little trip. It was quite a chain reaction, as Diana Ross would say.”
“Does she work for the fire service?”
I look at him for a long second and then give up. “Why did you burn the shed down?” I say, pinching the top of my nose.
“He said to take care of it. That means to destroy it.”
“Only in Guy Ritchie films.” He looks winsomely at me, and I shake my head. “Aaron, you need to learn to listen properly to the customer. Not just pay attention to the first two seconds and then make the rest up yourself. Now, you’re going to trip along to Mr Harkin’s house, and you are going to drive him to the garden centre and buy him a new shed and a fence. You are then going to put both things together. And you are not going to return to the office until that is done, because I cannot answer for the sharpness of my tongue if Mr Harkin is still unhappy.”
“The sharpest,” he says in an awed voice. He bites his lip and gets up but then hovers. “I presume this will have to come out of my pay, Felix?”
Internally, I give a huge sigh because I know when I’m beaten. “It should do,” I say, eyeing him and the subsequent droop of his shoulders. “But you can use the company card to pay for it this time.”
He brightens. “Really. Oh, thank you so much, Felix. I know I should pay, but I’m helping my brother out with his rent after the accident and—”
“I know,” I say. “But you need to listen now. I can’t do this again, and I might be soft, but I’m not stupid. I’m definitely not paying your wages on this. That was already covered during your arsonist phase.”
“You’re the best,” he cries, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair and hightailing it out of the office before I can change my mind. “I’m so glad Zeb made you the manager of the agency. I’d have shit myself if I’d had to answer to him. Mr Crossy McCrosspatch would have …” There’s a stuttered pause, and his voice, when he speaks next, is hushed. “Oh, Mr Evans, I didn’t see you there. How are you?”
“Well, Aaron, I have to say that I’m doing very well for a Crossy McCrosspatch,” Zeb’s voice drawls, and I can’t repress my smile.
There’s the hurried sound of footsteps and the slam of the outside door, and then my old boss appears in my doorway. I blink at the sight of him. Once upon a time, my day would have started with eyeing whichever designer suit he’d chosen to wear. Now, he’s dressed in disreputable jeans, a T-shirt, and a liberal coating of brick dust from his latest property renovation.
“You’d better not get any of that shit in my office,” I warn him.
He grins. It’s a lazy, happy grin. The sort he’s worn ever since he ditched Patrick and got involved with the lovely and irrepressible Jesse.
“Wasn’t this my office, Felix?”
“Yes, and it was full of repressed yearning and angst. Then you got involved with a younger man and left to knock walls down in old houses or whatever you do now, and I inherited it along with half of this very up-and-coming firm.”
He leans against the door, folding his arms over his chest. His eyes are bright and knowing. “Can you still say that with a straight face after the little firebug just left with the company credit card clutched in his arsonist hands?”
I shake my head. “Let’s not discuss it, Zeb. I have a wrinkle forming over my left eye that is solely down to him, and I’m far too young and single to cope with that.”
“Thought you had a fancy new man,” he says lightly. He sneaks a look at me that he thinks I don’t see.
“Andrew?”
He nods.
I laugh. “He’ll probably just be a variation on all of his predecessors. Promising, yet ultimately useless.” A frown of concern crosses Zeb’s face, and I wave my hand at him. “At least I’ll get a dirty weekend in the Cotswolds for my trouble. It’s better than a shag in the bathroom of the Lyceum. I’ll even get breakfast.”
“Ah, yes, the Cotswolds. Hmm.” He shifts against the door, a slightly apprehensive look on his face.
“Is there a problem with the Cotswolds that I’m not aware of, Zeb? Have the tectonic plates shifted and swallowed them whole along with all the sheep and antique shops?”
“Oh, ha-ha, yes. No, it’s just that I wondered if you’d do me a huge favour?”
“Does this favour involve me shagging Andrew in a four-poster bed and then eating room service in one of those lovely dressing gowns that I fully intend to nick afterwards? Becaus
e I can manage that with a great deal of enjoyment.”
“Not exactly. It’s just that you’ll be near Max, and I wondered—”
“Oh my God.” I throw my hands in the air. “I knew it. Are you aware, Zeb, that most people don’t see their actual current partners as much as I’m landed with seeing my ex?”
“I know,” he protests. “But it would help me out so much. We went in on a house together, and I’ve got some papers that need to be signed and witnessed. I waited for him to come up to London, but he’s ensconced himself at his house lately and won’t budge. He’s also not answering his phone.”
“I did notice a lovely, quiet, Max-sized gap in my life. I might have known it was too late to relish the sensation,” I snipe, but there’s no real heat in my voice.
He smiles, looking relieved. “He’s writing,” he says as if that explains everything. And it sort of does with Max. “If you could stop in, I’d be so grateful. He lives in Chipping Camden, which is just up the road from where you’re staying. You and Andrew could witness the papers, and then I can get on with—”
“How grateful will you be?” I say abruptly, stopping his flood of words dead.
“Oh well, erm.” He looks slightly nervous.
I eye him and run my finger over the desk surface. “You know a favour like this is of a huge magnitude. I mean, introducing your current lover to the old one is really awkward.”
“What do you want?” he says in a resigned voice.
“I need the cabinets in my kitchen painted, and then some new tiles put up. Oh, and I’ve got a work surface that needs fitting too.”
“So, in fact, you practically need a new kitchen fitted?” I offer him a limpid gaze, and he rolls his eyes. “They should employ you in Brexit trade negotiations.”
“I’m much too important for that.”
“Okay.” He sighs. “You strike a fucking hard bargain. I’ll just go up to the flat and get the papers.”
When he’s gone, I scrub my hands through my hair and sigh. This sort of thing has happened a lot in the two and a half years since Max and I split up. Most men, when they leave their lover because he’s in love with another man, would expect never to see him again. When I left him passed out on that bed, I really thought that would be the last I saw of him.