Chapter 16 #2
“Sorry,” I say to Julian. “I was dealing with a customer. You said you needed to tell me something.”
“Yes. And you can’t be mad at me. I had a visitor tonight.”
“Who?”
The door sounds again. I look up, and everything stops—my breath, my heart, everything in the shop except for the man strolling towards me.
“ Mac ,” I breathe.
“Well, yes,” Julian says in my ear. “How on earth did you guess that?”
“I’ve got to go.”
I click End on the call as my eyes eat up Mac like he’s ice cream on a hot day.
He’s wearing jeans and a striped shirt, and his dark hair is a little longer than usual.
It’s unusually messy for him—as if it fell into his face, and he scooped it back.
It’s similar to his sex hair, and my belly heats.
But then I notice the rest of his appearance.
Dark circles are under his eyes, and his face is thinner than when I last saw him.
He looks haunted. I see the same thing whenever I look in the mirror.
“You look terrible ,” I breathe as he approaches the counter.
His smile is wry but there’s an almost tender edge to it. “How delightful to see you too. I notice you haven’t gained any social graces in the month since I saw you last.”
“It would take more than a month for me to gain any of those,” I inform him. My whole body is waking up and tingling like warmth returning to my limbs after being out in the cold for too long.
“We would need an eternity just to teach you not to talk with your mouth full.”
I lean towards him, helplessly drawn to him as ever. “Hello, you.”
A spasm of something that looks like pain twists his face. “Hello, Wes,” he replies hoarsely.
“What are you doing here?”
He cocks his head. “Getting petrol?”
I smile involuntarily and then immediately feel despair, because why can’t I get rid of these useless feelings? One second with him, and all the cravings are back in full force. “Is that a question? When was the last time you ever got petrol?”
He shrugs. “I do manage to look after myself. It isn’t all servants.”
“Then who’s making you food, because they’re not doing their job,” I shoot back. I examine his face. “You’re too thin, babe.” I blanch at the endearment I’d let slip, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“You know I forget to eat when I’m busy,” he says.
I wonder what he’s been busy with, but of course, I don’t ask.
He shifts his weight, looking awkward. “It’s not the same without you.” He straightens. “Your nagging me to finish my food does add a certain je ne c’est quoi to a meal.”
“Get you and your fancy language,” I say just to see him smile.
I’m rewarded by a lightening around his tired eyes, and his full mouth curving.
“How have you been?” he asks.
“You just popped in to ask me that?” I narrow my eyes. “How did you know where I was?”
“Oh, I’ve known where you were since the second you left.”
“How?”
He shrugs. “I have my methods.”
“Well, that’s not disturbing at all. Thank you, Stalky McStalkerson.”
His eyes light with a tinge of humour, and then he looks around, making a moue of distaste. “Well, my methods are obviously fallible, because I didn’t know you were working here .”
“Don’t say it like that. It’s a petrol station. Not a suburb in Sodom or Gomorrah.”
“I’m not sure they had suburbs.” He shakes his head. “This is not a nice neighbourhood.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not, Wes. What time do you finish?”
“Four.”
“In the morning ?”
“No, next year.”
His lip twitches, but then his seriousness returns. “It’s still dark then. The streetlights aren’t functional. I counted three broken ones while I waited.”
“Where—?” I remember the figure in the car. It was him.
He seizes the opportunity to keep talking. “It’s a high crime area.”
“How do you know that?”
“I checked the statistics. There was a murder three streets away last month.”
“Oh my god,” I say faintly.
He’s already removing his phone from his pocket and checking it. “Two muggings in the last week, six burglaries, and I spotted a drug dealer quite openly dealing over the road. And you want to walk through this at four in the morning?” He stops to take a breath. “That’s unacceptable.”
Maybe I should be mad at his high-handed ways, but I can’t be. I want to hug him, laugh, and relish the warmth and caring I only got from him. It’s funny that such a reserved man who believes he doesn’t feel anything can make me feel so much. The irony is killing me.
“Well, thank you for doing your version of Crimewatch for me, but I’m fine.” I pause. “And how did you know where I was tonight… Julian ,” I breathe, thinking of his phone call. “That little traitor.”
“Don’t be too mad at him. I had to endure a long talk before he gave me the information.”
“Talk?”
“Let’s call it what it was—a lengthy diatribe.”
“How long?”
“Enough that I lost the feeling in my legs.”
“He didn’t even get you a chair?” I blow out a breath. “Wow. He’s really mad at you.”
“I rather gathered that twenty seconds into his lecture, but don’t worry. He made me stand through another fifty minutes.”
“He shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Stop,” he says softly. “He was well within his rights to say it. Everything he said made sense.” He stops and takes a breath. “How have you been?”
My eyes suddenly feel hot, and I swallow. “I’ve been okay,” I say huskily.
“I would rather like you to be more than that.” He says this rather fiercely, and he takes another deep breath, as though he regrets not being more chilled on the topic.
“Well, I’m sure I will be.” There’s no conviction in my voice, unfortunately.
“I want you to be sure.” His brow furrows. “I want you to have that shiny confidence you had when I first met you. Before…”
“Before what?” I prompt.
“Before I destroyed it.”
“Oh my god. You never—” I break off as the door opens and a customer appears. He shoots us a startled look, taking in our intent faces, and scuttles off down one of the aisles.
“I missed you so much,” Mac says, stunning me into silence for a few seconds.
The yearning in his voice strikes me full in the chest, as if he’s reached in and grabbed my heart. I want to shout in happiness because this is what I always wanted, but something stops me—maybe the resigned look on his face, maybe the stoicism in his words.
“But?” I whisper in dread.
He shrugs, and the jerky movement makes me want to reach over and hug him. It’s so unlike his usual poise and grace. “But this is the way it should be.”
“Is it?” I clear my throat. “I mean, of course.”
“I know why you’re not with me, and it’s okay.”
I narrow my eyes. “Do you?” I ask doubtfully.
He smiles and stands straighter, and I know he’s about to leave. Why does it hurt more now than it did when I left him in that bedroom?
“Mac…”
A flicker of pain twists his face. “I’ve missed you saying that.” He sucks in a breath. “But I swore I wouldn’t do this. Maybe we could talk again at some point?” He holds up his hand. “Not in the way it was before.”
“And how would it be?” I whisper.
“At a distance. Maybe we could be f-friends.”
I stare at him. Can I be friends with him?
My instinctive reaction is to shout, yes, that I would do anything to be near him and to talk to him again.
And then I think of being friends with him and seeing him with another man.
Of seeing another man have the same arrangement I did.
Can I bear that? And my reaction to that is no. It would hurt too much.
My silence has gone on too long, and he steps back. He offers me a sad smile, and nods.
“Be well, Wes. And most of all, be happy .”
He turns away, and I urgently say, “Wait.” When he turns back, I hesitate and then grab a chocolate bar from the shelf. “Free. A gift from me,” I whisper.
He blinks, and then his smile turns sweeter. “Thank you.”
He looks at me for a long few seconds, scanning my features as though he’s memorising them, and then he’s gone, the ding of the door loud in the quiet shop.
I watch him walk across the forecourt, thin and elegant, and then fumble to press the intercom that activates the exterior speakers.
“Hey,” I say.
A man who’s filling his car jerks and looks around. “ Me ?” he says.
Mac is watching me through the window. “Eat that,” I tell him. “You’re too thin, and life’s too short not to eat chocolate.”
He gives me that wry smile with the gentleness dancing at the edges. Then he inclines his head and walks to his car.
I stare after him in disbelief. “He told me he missed me, and I gave him a bar of chocolate ,” I say out loud. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Wes Archer?”
“You’re right,” someone says from behind me.
I turn my head to find a customer standing at the counter. He opens his hands, and piles of Bounty bars cascade over the counter. “A little bit of what you fancy doesn’t hurt you.”
I turn my head and watch Mac drive away. “I don’t know about that,” I say hollowly.
A few hours later, I wave goodbye to my coworker Sammy who’s relieved me, and shrug into my jacket as I walk onto the forecourt.
Dawn is lightening the sky, sharing space with the cold glitter of a few stars.
I pull my jacket closer against the chill of the early morning air and walk towards the bus stop.
A car is waiting near the petrol station, its engine running.
It’s a sleek grey SUV, and I eye it nervously, Mac’s words about the crime rate around here coming back to me.
I avert my gaze. If they’re doing something they shouldn’t, I don’t want to be a witness.
The whirr of a window going down and the sound of my name being called pull me back around.
“ Robert ,” I say, staring in stupefaction at Mac’s chauffeur. “What are you doing here?”
He smiles at me. “Taking you home, Wes.”
I step closer. “Oh my god, tell me that’s not true.”
His eyes twinkle. “I cannot tell a lie.”
“He made you get up at this time of the morning to drive me home. Is he mad ?”
He hums thoughtfully. “I’d say he’s the sanest he’s ever been.” The lock clicks. “Get in. It’s chilly.”