Chapter Twenty-Two
Henry
The time for me to start worrying about Alex meeting Jason and Lewis was two hours ago, not when Alex walked through the doors of the small private dining room of The Green Dragon looking so fucking gorgeous I was tempted to full-on swoon.
I’d managed to keep everything together very nicely all week and hadn’t felt anything but excitement about the idea of us all having dinner together until we’d been ushered to our private room and Lewis had asked when Alex would be joining us.
I had no idea why that had done it, but it had, and in the ten minutes since, my insides had been a mess as I wondered what the fuck I was doing.
Why the hell had I thought it was a good idea to introduce everyone?
Not that I thought they wouldn’t get on, but I didn’t want Jason thinking Alex was another random fling, and while he’d never been rude in the past, he could be cold.
And I didn’t want Alex thinking Jason hated him just for existing.
Oh God, this was the worst idea I’d ever had barring that one time in the early twenty-tens when I’d tried to grow a hipster moustache.
And that one time in my teens when I’d convinced a friend at school to give me frosted tips and shave a slit in my eyebrow. Never again.
“Hey,” Alex said as I met him at the door. He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, trying to act casual and hoping neither he nor Jason heard the nerves in my voice.
Jason and Lewis were already at the table and I was sure they were both trying to peer round me to look at Alex.
I should have met him at the bar, but then I might have attracted attention and been sucked into staying there.
The Green Dragon hadn’t been on my radar as a dinner choice until Alex had suggested it during the week.
He’d calmly pointed out that even though everyone in town had been very good about keeping things to themselves, it would be better not to tempt fate, especially since two well-known actors having dinner together with their other halves wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence here. I had to agree.
I’d been debating just staying in and cooking, but then Alex had said the pub had a couple of small dining rooms that they offered as private rooms on request. It had sounded perfect to me.
Cas had booked everything and I wondered whether he’d casually put the fear of God into whoever was unlucky enough to answer the phone. He’d insisted on coming as well and said he’d eat in the bar and keep an eye on us from a distance.
Knowing Cas, he’d probably be sitting in a corner doing his best Aragorn impression. Only without the rugged good looks and the hood.
“Yeah, there is,” Alex said. He leant in close and brushed his lips along my cheek. “You’re nervous.”
“N-No,” I stuttered. “I… Maybe?” I sighed. “It’s fine. I’m just—”
“Are you two going to stand there forever?” Jason asked teasingly. “You don’t make a very good door, Hen.”
“Piss off,” I said as I turned to face him. “I was just reminding Alex not to believe a word you say.”
Jason laughed. “What do you think I’m going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. And that’s the fucking problem.”
Alex chuckled from behind me. “I’m intrigued now. What secrets are you keeping?”
“Nothing bad,” I said. “Just all the stupid shit I did as a kid. I’m sure you and Spencer have hundreds of stories about each other.”
“Yeah, we do. Remind me to tell you about the time that Spencer lost two front teeth head-butting a goalpost when he was six. And the time he accidentally dyed half his pubes black.”
“How does one dye half their pubes?”
“By thinking my hair dye was fancy shampoo.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “I thought you were a natural blond?”
Alex shrugged. “I am. I stopped dying it a few years ago when I killed my hair from changing the colour so much. I basically had to cut it all off and start again.”
“Oh, my brother Eli did that,” Lewis said from behind us. “He basically had to shave it all off. He bitched about it for months.”
“Having met Eli, I can well believe it,” I said. Lewis had introduced me to some of his family over Christmas and I’d adored them all. They’d welcomed me with open arms, and it hadn’t been long before I’d been dragged into a NERF gun war complete with a victory crown.
I was still bitter I hadn’t won. I’d have looked fucking amazing in a crown.
Lewis grinned at me and then leant to one side, probably to get a better view of Alex, and waved. “Hey, before Henry gets sidetracked again, I’m Lewis and this is Jason. It’s so nice to finally meet you!”
“Hey,” Alex said. “Nice to meet you too.”
He was stood beside me, and I wondered if he was nervous to walk farther in.
He hadn’t told me he was, but I hadn’t mentioned my nerves until he’d pushed.
I reached down and slipped my fingers into his, pulling him towards the table.
It was a heavy rectangular one that had been laid with four place settings at the end that was out of sight of the door, that way anyone walking past would be able to hear us but not see us.
“Forgive me,” I said, gesturing for Alex to sit down and debating whether I was supposed to do the gentlemanly thing and get his chair for him. “I’m horrible at this.”
“You’re fine,” Alex said as he pulled out his chair and sat down opposite Jason before I could decide. “Nobody’s asked me to help them get a guinea pig yet, so that’s already a plus.”
“A guinea pig?” Jason asked, looking between the pair of us like he wasn’t sure he’d heard right.
“Yeah.” Alex shook his head fondly. “The first time I introduced Henry to my friends, my mate Theo asked Henry to help him get a guinea pig. He’d been asking about it for weeks but his roommate wouldn’t back down.
Still, at least it was better than the beginning of the year when he wouldn’t stop going on about some chess set made of mice he’d seen on Etsy. ”
“Okay, I need to hear all about that,” Jason said. “A chess set made of mice?”
“Real mice?” Lewis asked.
“Hang on,” I said as I sat down next to Alex. “How come I’ve not heard about this before either?”
“You will,” Alex said. “Trust me, it won’t be long before Theo starts bloody asking again. He’ll try and use it as a better option to the guinea pig. And yeah, it’s real mice. But taxidermied ones. Theo said they all had little hats on or something.”
“That sounds…” Lewis started, his face a picture of both polite disbelief and disturbance.
“You can say it’s weird as fuck,” Alex said with a grin. “We all thought that too. Sorry, excuse my language.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Lewis said with a wave of his hand.
“My brother Eli’s a drag queen and my sister Jules is a mechanic.
Trust me, I’ve heard it all and then some.
Also, my best-friends-slash-PA-clients are both known for their creative vocabulary—Edward especially.
I think my favourite was when he called someone a drunken fucking cockwomble who was as useful as a pair of dead mouse testicles. ”
Alex snorted. “I fucking love that.”
“Edward is definitely something,” Lewis said. “He and Izzy were talking about coming up for a weekend at some point to see Bastian.”
“Bastian… Roche?” Alex asked, frowning as he poured us glasses of water from the carafe in the middle of the table. “The photographer?”
“Yeah, do you know him?”
“Yeah. He comes to the pub with us on Fridays along with his boyfriend, Anders.”
“I like Anders,” I said, not particularly surprised that everyone was connected somehow. In my head, it made sense given that Bastian, Anders, Lewis, and co. were all active participants in the UK’s pop culture con scene. “He’s got a wonderful sense of humour.”
Anders was a little older with a very dry, sharp wit.
I hadn’t realised it at the time, but he’d been witness to my second attempt to flirt with Alex as the silver fox sat in the corner of Novel Tea.
I hadn’t been able to chat to Anders as much as I’d wanted, simply because the group was so large and he tended to keep more to himself, but I had started listening to the first book in his latest series on set and I was absolutely hooked.
It was the sort of story that was made for screen too, and I was already wondering which producer I might be able to throw it at as a casual but not casual suggestion.
“I’ve only met him once,” Lewis said. “But it was more of a hello goodbye thing because I was so busy.”
“You’ll have to come to the pub with us next week, if you’re still around,” Alex said. “My friends are a bit of an intense bunch, but they’re sweet enough.”
“Just don’t promise anyone a guinea pig and you’ll be fine,” I said and Jason and Lewis laughed.
One of the staff stuck her head around the door so we could order some drinks and I realised I hadn’t even looked at the menu laid out on the table in front of me.
“Will said the baked Camembert is good,” Alex said when he noticed me peering at the menu. “He and Jamie came here for their first date. Well, first official one. I don’t know what the difference between official and unofficial dates is if you’re already virtually living together.”
“I suppose it’s just a formality,” I said. “The baked Camembert does sound good, though. Want to get one to share?”
“Sure.” Alex glanced up at me with a little smile that made my heart skip. “I don’t suppose they told you what the pie is today?”
“Chicken, ham, and leek,” I said. Alex hummed. “Not a fan?”
“Actually I love it, but Spencer makes the best fucking chicken pie and I know it won’t be as good, so it’s whether I fancy the disappointment.”
“Definitely not worth risking it. I might get it, though.”
Alex laughed and rolled his eyes at me. “That makes no fucking sense.”
“Yes, it does. I want pie, and I can’t be sad that it’s not as good as Spencer’s, ergo I should get the pie.”
“Ergo? Who the fuck says ergo?”
“Me,” I said. “I’m an actor—we learn all the best words.”
“You, an actor? I’d never have guessed,” Alex said.
His tone was sarcastic and teasing, but it made my heart flutter.
I’d had plenty of people take the piss out of me before, but I didn’t mind it when Alex did it.
There was no malice in his tone, just fond amusement.
“Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me you’re famous or something. ”
“Well, I do have a BAFTA… and an Oscar. But who’s counting.” I’d totally forgotten Lewis and Jason were there until I turned my head to see Jason watching me in stunned silence, his mouth hanging open. “You know, Jason, if the wind changes, your face will stay like that.”
“Like what?” he asked as he frowned. He obviously didn’t realise he’d been staring.
“Nothing,” I said. “What are you two having?”
That started a conversation about the menu as everyone bar me went back and forth on options. Jason kept glancing over to me, and it was making me self-conscious. I wondered if I’d somehow gotten something on my face.
I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it, though, because our drinks arrived and we ordered food. Then Lewis started asking Alex about Novel Tea and the shop’s book exchange, since a friend of his owned a bookshop in Lincoln, and once the conversation started, it didn’t stop.
For someone who’d told me he was a belligerent, stubborn asshole, Alex was incredibly warm and funny.
He made all of us laugh with his dry, snarky humour as he told us about setting up Novel Tea with Spencer, and we all traded sibling stories, which led to Jason telling Alex about the time I’d apparently tried to poison him with homemade Baileys at Christmas a couple of years ago.
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said as I waved Jason’s comments about his thumping hangover away. “You’re exaggerating.”
“Aww, I remember that,” Lewis said, smiling sweetly at Jason as he reached for another focaccia toast soldier to dunk in one of the Camemberts, since we’d gotten two to share between the four of us. “You rang me up and very forcefully told me how much you hated Die Hard.”
“I don’t hate Die Hard,” Jason said. “It’s just not a Christmas movie!”
“Then you told me Henry wanted to watch one of his own movies, but you didn’t want to because you didn’t want to see him naked.”
“He’s my brother! Of course I don’t want to watch him pretending to shag someone.”
“You’re really going to want to skip parts of Llewelyn then,” I said teasingly. “It’s very sexy.”
“Oh God, just how often are you getting your ass out?” Jason asked.
“I’m sorry, what?” Alex asked, staring at me with a raised eyebrow.
I felt my face flush. I’d told Alex there were love scenes, but I’d been slightly vague on what they’d actually involved.
I’d sort of mentioned Bridgerton as a vague comparison, but Alex hadn’t seen that.
Looking at his stunned expression, perhaps I should have been clearer.
“Yes, well… er…” I reached for some toast, hoping that by shoving cheese into my face, I could get out of answering his question.
The last thing I wanted was to start an argument over me getting naked on TV.
“The show has a lot of love scenes and, well, my character is… and Kane wasn’t opposed… so I thought…”
“Wait, so getting your arse out was your idea?” Alex asked. There was a spark in his eyes but it didn’t look like anger, and his lip was twitching in what I hoped was amusement.
“First thing you should know about my brother,” Jason said. “If he can find an opportunity to get naked on camera, he will. I’m surprised he didn’t ask them if he could go full frontal.”
There was a pause and I wondered if I could somehow convince Cas to swoop in and rescue me.
Then Alex burst out laughing, the sound filling the small room and shaking me to my core. I’d been expecting anger or jealousy, not this. “Y’know, I’m not actually surprised.”
“Y-You’re not?” I asked.
“I’ve met you,” he said. “I’ve seen your films. I guess I should have known when you said love scenes.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Don’t be.” He leant over and kissed me. The gesture took me by surprise, but I happily leant into it, savouring the feel of his lips against mine until he broke away and added, “But I’m definitely not inviting everyone over for a viewing party. They can look at your arse on their own time.”
I didn’t think I’d ever heard my brother laugh as much in his life.