Chapter Six
Alex
“Alex, there’s someone here to see you,” Spencer said as he barged into my office on Wednesday afternoon with a barely concealed look of glee on his face.
I glanced up from my laptop where I was working out rotas for the next month. “Who?”
“A man.”
“Is it Henry Lu?”
“If it is, will you just stay in here and hide?”
“I’m not hiding,” I said. “I just don’t want to see his insufferable face again.”
Spencer rolled his eyes, a movement that took his whole head and body with it. “Come on, you can at least come out and talk to him. He looks very serious.”
“No.” I didn’t want to see him, but I wasn’t sure if that was because I genuinely didn’t want to or because I was being stubborn and trying to prove a point to my brother.
I’d always been wilful and bloody-minded, and there were very few people in this world who could convince me to do something I didn’t want to. Noah was one of them. Spencer was not.
“Alexander Jacob Johnson,” Spencer said, drawing himself up to his full height as he attempted to glower at me.
“There is a very famous customer out there who wants to speak to you. I don’t care if you don’t like him, but you can’t hide in here.
Henry Lu is a superstar with a lot of power.
If you piss him off by being a twat and he decides to tweet about that, we’re fucked.
And not in a fun, sexy way. In a no-lube-with-a-cactus way. ”
The corner of my mouth curled into a smile. “Some people are into that.”
“I’m not. We’ve worked too hard to make Novel Tea into the awesome place it is, and I won’t let you ruin it by being a pigheaded banana.”
“Fine.” I snapped the laptop shut and stood up.
Spencer had a point, loath as I was to admit it.
All it would take was one tweet or one Instagram story and Novel Tea would be the centre of an epic fan campaign of hate.
And while I wanted to hope that Henry wouldn’t be that spiteful and petty, deep down everyone was an asshole. “Let’s go.”
I followed him back through the kitchen and towards the counter. Henry was lurking off to one side like he was attempting to look cool and inconspicuous. It wasn’t working.
“Thank you,” I said to Spencer with my best frosty smile. “You can go home now.”
“But—”
“No, no, your shift’s over. I couldn’t ask you to stay.” Without waiting for an answer, I turned to Henry, noticing that Stephen and Cleo were both pretending to look very busy with a tray of cups and some cleaning cloths. “Mr. Lu, I’m sorry to keep you waiting. How can I help you?”
“Mr. Lu?” Henry’s lip twitched in amusement and there was a glint in his eyes that made my heart stutter. “Henry is just fine.”
“Okay then, Henry. What can I do you for?”
“Can we… Can I…” He glanced around like he was checking to see how many people were listening.
The shop wasn’t packed, but there were still quite a few people here.
And because he was Henry, they were all doing their best to eavesdrop without it looking deliberate and making a piss-poor job of it.
“I wanted to talk to you about last week, and I was wondering… could I buy you a drink? Just one cup of coffee, I swear. I have a question to ask you and then I’ll be out of your hair. ”
I stared at him for a second, my brain racing to catch up with everything he’d just said. I didn’t want to get a drink with him, but not for the reason I’d expected. Henry was annoying, but he’d made me feel something, and that was an automatic no.
But would one question really be that bad?
I couldn’t believe I was even debating that. I had a hard rule about letting myself feel anything, and I wasn’t about to break it now. I opened my mouth to say no, but to my surprise I said, “Fine, one coffee.”
“Excellent,” Henry said, giving me a beaming smile that seemed a hundred times more real than the ones I’d seen before. It made my heart jump again and I wanted to vomit. “Are you okay if we get something here? Do you want to sit in?”
“We’ll get something to go,” I said. I didn’t fancy being part of the town’s gossip network.
“We can walk along the front. What do you want?” I reached under the counter and grabbed two takeaway cups, sticking one under the hot water tap so I could make myself some tea.
Contrary to popular opinion, I didn’t drink coffee as black as my soul.
I drank tea that’d been stewed for so long you could stand a spoon up in it.
“Can I get a hot chocolate, please? I’ve already had four cups of coffee today. Any more and I might start vibrating.”
I chuckled and reached for the hot chocolate tub. “What flavour? We’ve got a bunch of them on the board.”
“The mint one is good,” Cleo said. “So’s the black forest one.”
“Nah, it’s gotta be the white chocolate or the orange,” Stephen said. “Or just the classic one. Can’t go wrong with that.”
I didn’t say anything about the pair of them getting involved.
Instead I just looked at Henry, who was gazing at the board, a soft look of concentration on his face.
It was the most genuine expression I’d seen from him, and I almost wanted to joke about it.
But I didn’t. I just put my tea on to stew and waited for him to make a decision.
“Just a plain one, please,” he said. “A classic.”
“Sure. Want cream and marshmallows?”
“Cream yes, but no marshmallows, please.”
“Not a fan?” I asked teasingly. Henry’s face flushed along the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
“Not really. When they melt they just taste funny. The only time I don’t mind them is if you toast them on a fire. Or with a blowtorch.”
“No marshmallows it is then.” I quickly mixed him up a large hot chocolate, putting in an extra scoop of the chocolate powder we used to make sure it was rich enough.
I even added a bit of extra cream to the top.
I didn’t know what was making me so generous.
Maybe it was because Henry had shared something that felt more genuine than the calculated lines and over-the-top flirting he’d used last week.
I’d always valued honesty.
Henry paid for the drinks as I snapped the lid onto my tea, and I quickly dived back into the office to grab my old Slipknot hoodie before we went out.
The sun was shining but I wasn’t fooled, and despite the fact I was Yorkshire born and bred, I still felt the cold.
I wasn’t like Lane or Spencer, who’d both walk around in shorts and T-shirts in the middle of fucking December and complain they were too hot.
I grabbed my sunglasses too, but that was more from habit.
“I’ll be back soon,” I said to Stephen as I picked up my tea and handed Henry his hot chocolate. I’d put too much cream in it to put a lid on, but hopefully he’d manage not to pour it all over himself. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
“You needn’t make it sound like I’m about to torture you,” Henry said as he followed me out into the narrow, cobbled street that Novel Tea was tucked away on. “I just want to talk to you.”
“That could be torture. Depends what you want to say.” I shot him a dry smile and began walking down the street heading towards the front. The path there was wide enough that we could walk side by side without having to move out of the way if anyone wanted to get around us.
“I wanted to ask you a question.”
“I know, that’s why I’m here. What is it?”
Henry sipped his hot chocolate, a pensive look on his face. Whipped cream settled in the Cupid’s bow of his top lip and I tore my gaze away, determined not to look at it. “I… My… You called me out the other day. In fact, you’ve done it twice.”
“Yeah, and? What of it?”
“My brother’s the only person who’s ever done that to me before.
” He sounded slightly stunned as he said it, like he was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that someone else had called him out on his bullshit.
“Cas does a little. So does my brother’s boyfriend, and my best friend, Ros, will sometimes if she’s around.
But Jason’s the only one who does it regularly. Everyone else I’ve met just… doesn’t.”
I snorted and shook my head, taking a sip of my tea. “Seriously? Nobody? Do they think that because you’re… I don’t know, you, that you can’t be an arsehole?”
“I guess so,” he said. “Either that or I’m constantly an ass and nobody wants to say anything.”
“Maybe not constantly.”
Henry laughed, the sound bright and bold and catching me off guard. “So you can be nice!”
“Occasionally,” I said, unable to stop myself from smiling. I didn’t want to like this man but he was weaselling his way into a crack in my armour.
“Only occasionally?”
“Are you occasionally not an arse?”
“I suppose. You’re occasionally nice and I’m occasionally not totally annoying.”
“Eh, don’t push your luck,” I said. We walked a little farther, crossed the road, and turned onto the wide path that ran along the front, parallel to the beach.
A sea breeze ruffled my hair and brushed across my skin, making me shiver.
It still had a cold edge to it, reminding me that it was still only the start of April.
I didn’t want it to be full-on summer again, but something a bit warmer would be nice.
“What was your question then? You haven’t actually asked one. ”
“Why?” he asked, coming almost to a stop as he looked at me. This time his gaze didn’t feel like he was ogling me, more like he was trying to suss me out.
“Why what?”
“Why did you turn me down? Twice.”
I stared at him, confused. “Has nobody ever turned you down before?”
“Honestly? Only once, and that was because he was already in love with someone else but hadn’t realised it yet.” He shrugged and then added, “He’s actually a friend of my brother. He’s a tattoo artist and his partner’s a cosplayer. I met them at a premiere.”
That didn’t explain anything, especially not the fact that he’d only ever been turned down by two people.
How the fuck did that happen? Did he just magically hit on single people all the time?
Was there something that flashed above people’s heads when he met them that said they were up for a shag?
If so, why the fuck had he thought that about me?
“How?” I asked. We were both stood in the middle of the pavement staring at each other in confusion. Like we’d suddenly been confronted by a creature from a mirror dimension. “How’ve you only been turned down once? That’s bloody impossible statistics-wise.”
“I don’t know. It’s just the way things have worked out. Maybe it’s because I only flirt with people I’m ninety-nine percent sure will be interested.”
“Then why me?” That was the most baffling question. I didn’t want a relationship or even a quick shag in the toilets, so why the fuck had Henry thought I’d be interested?
“You just… I don’t know, there was just something about you,” he said.
He sipped his hot chocolate again, leaving more cream on his lips, before walking over to the metal railing that ran along one side of the front and leaning against it, gazing out across the beach.
The tide was on its way out, leaving shimmering dark golden sand behind that glittered in the afternoon sun.
“What something?”
“Just… something. Why?” He gave me a teasing smile. “Hoping I’ll expound on your many physical virtues?”
“No.” I leant on the rail next to him. “Just confused. I’m not down for anything.”
“Oh,” he said. “Are you ace?”
“No. Just not interested.”
“In me?”
“In anything or anyone,” I said, firmly enough that I hoped he wouldn’t push it. “I don’t do…” I waved my hand in the air. “This.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” I turned my head to look at him and was struck by just how fucking gorgeous he was. My stomach fluttered and I took another long sip of tea, hoping that would drown the butterflies.
I didn’t want sodding butterflies.
“Probably not, no,” he said. “But I’m sure you have your reasons.”
I grunted but didn’t say anything more. It wasn’t any of his business and I barely knew him. Not even Noah knew why I’d sworn off relationships and I’d known him for over twenty years.
“You know,” Henry continued. “This is a much more in-depth conversation than I expected us to have. For someone who thinks I’m a complete arse, you’ve been very open with me.”
I didn’t want to like the way he said that. But I did. There was something about Henry’s openness that caught me off guard. I’d been expecting him to be a pompous, demanding bastard based on my first impression, but he was starting to wash that away like the tide on a rough bit of rock.
“Yeah, well, what’s the point otherwise? You asked me a question. I wasn’t going to tell you I didn’t think you were a twat. And for the record, I never said you were an arse—you decided that yourself.”
He gave a soft chuckle that sounded almost self-deprecating. “Maybe I’m projecting.”
“Do you really think that?”
“I don’t know.” He sipped more of his hot chocolate and the pair of us stared out at the sea, watching the frothy tide line roll slowly away.
Henry was right. This conversation had been a lot deeper than I’d thought it would be.
I’d guessed he’d want to ask why I turned him down, maybe even try again with some ridiculous pick-up line, but all of this…
the fact that he’d admitted there were very few people who called him out, had surprised me.
Maybe it was because he was who he was, or maybe it was because he didn’t have that many people that he was really close to.
Noah always called me prickly, and I was well known for being a bit of a dick, but my friends and I were all honest with each other, within reason, about this shit.
If I was being a proper dick, they called me on it and I did the same for them.
We didn’t ever want to hurt each other; we did it because we loved each other.
And sometimes, when you loved someone, you called them on their shit.
It wasn’t like I loved Henry, though. I’d just never been one to suffer fools.
But there was something about him that was gently pushing at the walls I’d built up, curiously nudging up against them like it didn’t understand what it’d found. It was stupid really because I’d barely had one conversation with the man.
Maybe it was because he’d asked for my opinion. He’d taken it too.
Whatever. It wasn’t like I was going to see him again in anything more than passing.
“Want to keep walking?” he asked, turning to me and giving me a soft smile as he gestured at the path in front of us. “I still have half my hot chocolate. Maybe we can keep talking? I promise not to ask you out again.”
“Okay,” I said, my mouth not giving my brain a chance to think it through.
His smile turned so bright it could’ve been mistaken for sunshine.