Chapter 5 #2
“Charlie,” he said with a hint of laughter but mostly sympathy. “I didn’t read your journals. Well. Apart from the front covers, which all had things like PRIVATE! and KEEP OUT!! and NO!!! written on them. They were very clear.”
“Okay. Phew. Thank god.”
He shifted closer. “What’s in them that’s got you panicking, anyway?”
“The usual desperate nonsense any self-obsessed unhappy insecure kid writes in their journals,” I said. Nothing that you want the man of your dreams to be reading. “It’s silly. Sorry for overreacting. I should have tossed the lot years ago.”
“You didn’t overreact,” he said comfortably. “I only brought the box in because I thought you’d like it.” He touched my chin. “I didn’t know you were that unhappy. If I had known, I’d wouldn’t even have mentioned it.”
To be honest, until recently—until Kevin—I hadn’t known quite how unhappy I was. I’d thought it was my nature. I’d heard it often enough.
Ignore Charlie, he’s having another one of his moods.
Leave Charlie alone, he’s a born grump.
Forget about Charlie, he’ll get over himself.
I had a life before Kevin. As an adult, I’d even managed to build a measure of happiness—especially once I had my house and Phil. That’s what I’d thought, anyway.
I’d recently realised that it was close, but it wasn’t happiness. It was contentment.
Because with Kevin, life was different.
It was brighter. Fuller. Louder. More chaotic. Sometimes frustrating. Sometimes thrilling.
Better.
Life was better with Kevin.
It had taken a long time for me to get here, and right here was where I wanted to stay. Where I wanted to be. I didn’t want or need to look back. All I wanted to focus on was the here and now, and the future.
I wanted to leave things like old photo albums and old journals—old Charlie—behind in the past just as much as I wanted to leave Deirdre Sharpe’s human dolls in the past.
“Although...” Kevin drew the word out as he tapped the front cover of the photo album. “I think there’s a couple of photos in here you might get a kick out of. You didn’t write KEEP OUT or anything on the front of it, and like I said, I’ve already had a quick peek.”
I blanched.
“You were a cute little nerd, by the way,” he said. “I like how you used to tuck your little t-shirts into your jeans. Which it looks like you ironed.”
“Thanks.”
“Adam and Jasper, on the other hand…”
“There are pictures of Adam and Jasper in there?”
He nodded. “And there’s a shoebox full of loads more loose photos.”
I’d known Adam Blake almost my whole life.
He’d gone to school with my sister, Amalie.
If you wanted to be precise about it, I’d known him since he was five years old.
While I’d never paid any attention to Amalie’s gaggle of gremlin friends, as I was a few years older than them, Adam with his attitude and that bright copper-blond hair had always been impossible to miss.
Jasper hadn’t arrived in Chipping Fairford until his parents moved here when he was about thirteen years old, and after a rocky start, he and Adam had been inseparable.
As Amalie’s friends, the pair of them had often been over at our house and the coffee shop, to hang out and be obnoxious.
Adam was now a tall, lean, beautiful architect with a degree from Oxford, a Masters from Cambridge, and a modelling career behind him. The disgusting overachiever.
Jasper was a tall, muscular sweetheart with a thriving business as the most in-demand personal trainer in a hundred-mile radius, who was so happy with Liam Nash that he irradiated people with good cheer, just by standing near them.
But, like me, past-Adam and past-Jasper had been very, very different.
I began to smile.
I’d been a grumpy and earnest loner nerd who ironed his jeans.
The boys had been more…adventurous in their fashion choices.
They were far too young for frosted tips.
But not for emo.
Adam, in particular, had been very fond of eyeliner.
“Show me,” I said, holding out a demanding hand.
“No.”
“What? Kevin?—”
“No.” He pushed the photo album away. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to leave the garage and all your bits and bobs completely to me.”
“If you insist,” I said. Thank you.
“I’m not going to be nosy about it. I’m going to get it all tidy and squared away, and you can go through it in your own time. How’s that sound?”
“Amazing, and like I’m the luckiest man on the planet to have a boyfriend who enjoys the sort of thing most people put off doing for decades.”
Or they never get around to doing it, they die, and unsuspecting house buyers inherit it.
He shrugged. “I like making things better.”
“You make everything better,” I said fervently. “You really do.”
“Good. That’s the plan for later.” He yanked me closer, making me yelp. “Plan for right now is, I’m going to bang that mood clean out of you.”
“What mood?”
Instead of playing along with my mock-outrage, Kevin touched a light fingertip between my brows and stroked. “This one. The one that’s got you frowning. The one that’s got you looking like you used to.” His warm brown eyes held mine. “Don’t like you being sad, Charlie.”
I opened my mouth to argue with him and brush it off, but instead I said quietly, “Yeah.”
Kevin put the photo album back into the dusty box and closed the flap. “Get naked,” he said, and picked up the box. “I’m going to stick this in the garage and wash up. You’ve got five minutes, and you’d better be ready for it.”
Before he could move away, I leaned in. “Leave it,” I said. “I want you right now.” I drew him close for a teasing kiss, compressing the box between us.
Something inside the box slid and hit one of the cardboard walls with a tiny thump.
I went rigid. “Kevin?”
“Yeah.”
“You did say you checked the box for mice. Yes?”
“I did say that. Yes.”
I swallowed. “Right. And I remember asking if you double-checked it.”
“Yeah. I remember that, too.”
“Did you double-check it? Because I don’t actually recall if you answered that question or not.”
“I’m going to be honest, Charlie. No. I did not double-check it.”
“Get it out! Get it out of my kitchen!”
Kevin winced. “You can scream so high. I had no idea.”
I scooted backwards over the table and as soon as I had clearance, I twisted, slid off the other side, and ran.