Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
ALEX
I didn’t see Kelvin for the next few days, our contact conducted via text and kept short and sweet, which was strange as our lives were wound together like a coil of rope.
Kelvin was doing the rounds of our other businesses, keeping our employees ‘on their toes.’ Scaring the shit out of them, in other words.
What he was really doing was backing off, leaving me to think about what he’d said to me, the night he’d met Kit.
What he’d said was true, I couldn’t deny it; or at least at face value.
So yes, I was thinking about every single word and how it had wound itself around my neck, squeezing the life out of me.
I owed Kelvin everything, and I wouldn’t and couldn’t forget that.
I owed him my life, and my success. But I didn’t owe him my future.
With Kit away I threw myself into work, basing myself at Euphoria.
The club was busier than ever and I checked the monitors from time to time, but that was all I did.
Nothing and nobody caught and held my attention.
The only thing the writhing, sweat covered, semi-naked men on the dance floor represented was profit, nothing more than punters who’d paid their hefty entrance fee and were putting money over the bar.
I was usually too keyed up, when I got home, to do anything other than have a couple of whiskies, stare at the walls, and decompress.
On the second day of Kit’s absence, the day of his friend’s wedding, tea had replaced the whisky as I went through the photos he’d sent me.
Lots of Kit, in a smart suit and tie and hair that was far too tidy for the guy I knew, with a good looking man who was clearly the groom.
More photos, from later in the day, and a video of Kit on the dance floor with a bridesmaid, attempting something that looked like a cross between salsa and a seizure, his tie missing, his jacket discarded, and his hair all over the place.
I laughed, the last of the day’s tension leeching out of me as I sent him a message consisting of a line of emojis when what I really wanted was to ask him to cut and run, leave the wilds of Norfolk behind and come back to London.
My phone rang and I tapped to answer.
“Hey,” I said, throwing a glance towards Kelvin, who sat hunched over the laptop, in the office at Euphoria.
There was no way I was going to have this conversation in front of Kelvin, under the hard, bright glitter of his gaze.
“Give me a minute.” I slipped out and made my way to the bathroom along the hall, where I locked the door and sat on the closed lid of the toilet.
“How was the wedding? It looked like you had a good time.”
I smiled as Kit groaned at me down the line.
“It was great. Beautiful church, beautiful venue, beautiful weather, but what wasn’t so beautiful was me. I got very, very drunk. Not used to drinking buckets of champagne.”
“Hmm, that video you sent of you doing something weird with your body on the dance floor says it all.” I couldn’t help smiling when Kit answered with another, longer groan.
“Don’t. And that weird thing you mention was the samba, if you don’t mind,” he said, his voice laced with laughter, making my smile grow bigger and brighter. God, but it was good to hear his voice.
“When are you back?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. He was away for a few more days, wasting his time looking at birds and walking in the middle of nowhere. Those words, I managed to bite back.
“Well, that’s the thing. I’m cutting it short and coming back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. My heart lurched.
“… weather’s turned really bad. Driving rain and freezing. I might be a bird geek, but I’m not risking bloody frost bite.”
“What? Yeah, right.” All I could hear was tomorrow. “We said we’d meet up when you got back.” The words rushed out, and I was powerless to stop them. “There’s a really nice bar in Soho, then we could go for dinner—”
“Erm, no…”
No. He was still talking but I couldn’t hear a word, not over the high pitched static filling my head. No to meeting. No to drinks and dinner. No to me. We were finished before we’d even started. Kelvin was right, Kit didn’t belong in my world, and his no only showed he knew it too.
“Alex? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said clearing my throat.
“What do you reckon? It’s a lovely idea, but I don’t think I’m going to be up for bars and restaurants.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. Light, good natured laughter replaced the crackle of static in my head. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve been saying, have you?
He was right, because the only voice I’d been listening to was my own and the only word I’d heard was no.
“I realise it’s a trek, but why not come to my place? I’ll cook, and we can watch a film. I owe you for your mean cheese omelette after all.” He no longer sounded quite so sure; I imagined his tight hold on his mobile, the frown creasing his forehead as he waited for me to say—
“Sounds like a plan.” I smiled, and the tension in my shoulders eased. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”