Chapter 5
. . .
Reuben
I climb out of the Porsche and glare at my best friend as he does the same. “Since when are we competing on the Brands Hatch circuit?”
Jez rolls his eyes. “You’re like an old lady.”
“Is it only old ladies now who object to doing ninety miles an hour on country roads?”
He tosses the Porsche’s keys jauntily and catches them. “Lighten up, for Christ’s sake.”
I look around. “Posh place.” The hotel is situated just outside Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds, and it’s a beautiful sprawl of honey-gold stone and windows twinkling in the bright sunshine.
A wisteria vine hugs the front of the building, the purple petals looking almost psychedelic.
“Just the right environment to meet a long-lost family member.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Aren’t you even a little bit nervous?”
He looks blank. “Why?”
“You’re meeting a son you didn’t know you had, Jez. I think I’d be nervous.”
He shrugs. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Fine? I mouth as I follow him to the boot, where he grabs my bag and hands it to me before bending to get his own. I stare at the top of his blond head. “Are you sure you want me here? It still seems a bit odd.”
He spins around, and I take a step back at the expression on his face. “You said you’d do it,” he snaps. “Are you backing out now?”
“Hey,” I say sharply. “Chill. Of course, I’m not backing out.” He subsides and rubs his eyes. When he takes his hand away, his face is set in its usual genial expression.
I wonder if anyone else sees the wildness lurking beneath his surface.
It’s what has always made him an amazing journalist, but lately it’s escalated, and I don’t mind admitting he concerns me.
I push that thought away quickly. You can’t do my job with fear.
It either makes you dangerous or gets you killed.
“I want you as a buffer,” he says stubbornly.
“I’m not a bollard. It’s just a kid, for fuck’s sake.”
He shrugs. “He’ll probably be really irritating.”
“That’s not bloody nice.” I’m seeing more of his spiteful edge lately. I’ve put it down to his son contacting him a month ago. According to Jez, he’d spent a weekend with the boy’s mother years ago and never knew she’d got pregnant.
“His grandma said he’s very shy.”
“So be nice.” I reach into the boot and grab my suit bag and start to walk towards the Palladium entrance of the hotel, the gravel crunching under my feet. “It’s not hard. Try to show your charming side.”
“As opposed to?”
“Your arsehole tendencies.”
He laughs and throws his arm over my shoulder. “You’re loving this.”
“I’m really not.” I stop and look at him. “Be nice to the boy. It’s not his fault you don’t like commitment.”
“I never wanted children. Why did this have to happen to me?”
I push down my impatience. “He just wants to meet you. That’s not a strange thing.”
“It’ll be okay if you’re there.”
“Well, don’t get used to it. I’ll stick around, but I’m not spending every moment with the two of you.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is your blood. Your son, Jez. Please take it seriously. Be nice to the kid. He might be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“I sincerely doubt it.” He has that sulky edge to his voice that always makes me want to punch him.
“Try.”
“Oh relax, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know what’s the matter with you lately. You need to start taking your own advice.” He waves a hand. “Go and photograph something. That always relaxes you.”
I bite my lip. Photography no longer relaxes me, but I can’t tell him that.
I can’t explain how my hand shakes when I reach for my camera, or how I then have to turn away from it.
The one thing that has always brought me joy has now turned on me.
My camera is now the enemy who is unwilling to help me anymore.
In my more fanciful moments, I wonder if it’s my fault for subjecting it to the images we’ve taken together.
Jez wouldn’t understand anyway. He’s fearless out in the field, and I’ve always matched him step for step, but not lately.
I shove the thought away when I realise he’s staring at me. The ringing of my phone is a welcome distraction. I look down at the screen. “It’s Grey,” I say. He groans and I look at him sternly. “Pack it in.”
“I’m going to check in. I’ll see you in the bar at seven. We’ll take the kid out for dinner, humour him, and then pack him off to bed so we can go out and have some actual fucking fun.”
“Father of the year,” I murmur. He raises his middle finger at me and strides into the hotel.
I click to accept the call. “Grey?” I say to my friend and hookup partner.
“I thought you weren’t going to answer.”
“It was just Jez.”
“When isn’t it?”
I listen to his warm voice and feel a wave of affection. “Please tell me you’re on the way here now? I have a big bed waiting for you.” The silence warns me, and I groan. “No. What’s happened?”
“Edwin called in sick. I’m so sorry, but I can’t make it, babe.”
Disappointment runs through me. I was banking on him being here. We’ve been friends for years, and I’ve always loved his calm, funny manner. It soothes me, and I’m in definite need of that lately. He was my friend before any benefits started, and he’ll be that when they finish.
“Sorry,” he says again. “I was really looking forward to seeing you.”
I start to walk into the hotel. “And getting your balls emptied.”
“You old charmer, you.”
“That’s me,” I say grimly. “Charming. Hold on a second.”
I need a drink. I spy the entrance to the bar and make my way in, finding myself in a small, wood-panelled room.
I set my bags down and sit myself at the bar on a padded stool, inhaling the scent of wood polish, air freshener, and the faint tang of beer.
It’s a familiar scent—one that can summon England for me when I’m far away in the hot arid landscapes where I work.
The barman strides over and I quickly order a beer before turning back to the phone.
“Okay. I’m back.”
“Lucky me. So, how long are you there for?” Grey asks.
“Three days. We’ve got the funeral next week, but before that, he’s going to meet his son.”
“How very non-lovely for that poor child. Tell me, was Jez’s son evil in a former life?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet.”
“He must have been to land up with Jez as a father. Maybe he was a spree killer who targeted old people. Maybe he decapitated the heads of plants.”
“That’s your idea of wicked? Someone who’s bad at gardening.”
“Tell it to the plants, Reuben. They’re the ones that have to suffer because of Jez’s failings.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you’ll ever make any sense, and then I realise the world doesn’t work that way.”
“Jez is a tosser.”
“He’s not that bad,” I say automatically in his defence.
“Yes, he is. He’s selfish, an egomaniac, and a complete bellend.”
“Have you swallowed a thesaurus?”
“I’ve never understood why you’re so loyal to him.”
“Oh, look. They’re playing your song again.”
“Reuben.”
“You’ve said the same things every day for the last one hundred years.”
The trouble is that Grey doesn’t know Jez the way I do.
I first met him when we were at boarding school together.
I was a quiet, lonely boy who’d just lost his mother and was desperately trying to find some form of solid ground again.
Jez provided that. He was funny, charming, impossibly loyal, and nothing seemed so bad if he was around.
I could never understand what he got out of my company when he could have been friends with anyone.
It’s one of the reasons I stay loyal to him despite that charming boy having largely disappeared over the last few years.
“Hello?” Grey’s voice jerks me back into the present. “Are you still there? Have you been abducted by aliens? Do you want me to warn them about your personality?”
“Sorry. What were you saying?”
“I don’t know why you’re doing Jez this favour. You could have been actually relaxing for a change in the sun and seeing Monique.”
I smile at the thought of my godmother. “I spoke to her this morning, and I’m glad I dodged that particular bullet. She’s got a new psychic.”
“Shit.”
I start to laugh. “Yep. Another person who has an unwarranted interest in my life. It’s like being married to fifty people all at once.”
“You couldn’t manage one, babe. You’d come out in hives.” He pauses. “What did Monique say about the next trip?”
I shrug, smiling as I accept my beer from the barman. “She said she had a bad feeling about me going this time. Ably assisted by the new Mystic Maureen, I suppose.”
There’s a long silence, and I wonder if I’ve lost the connection. There’s a sudden movement to my right, and my unpredictable brain somehow decides it’s a threat. I grip the bar’s edge, rational thought and anxiety battling. Grey’s voice is background noise as I struggle for control.
I’m safe in the Cotswolds, in a cosy bar at a posh hotel. I am not in danger. There is no threat beside me. It’s simply another customer who’d like to order a beer.
Still, my heart hammers in my chest, and icy sweat erupts along my spine. I count my breaths for what seems like an absurd amount of time, willing my heart rate to calm.
I glance to my right. My next breath freezes in my chest. The young man on the barstool next to me is the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. He’s slender with wavy hair that falls to his shoulders. It’s a warm, light-caramel colour shot through with strands of sand and honey.
He looks sideways at me. His eyes are the colour of the sea in the Hebrides when the sun hits it and it turns a washed Caribbean blue, and his gaze is slowly itemising my face and body from my head to my toes.
By the time he tracks back to my eyes, I’m half hard and feeling slightly objectified. Then he drops me a cheeky little wink.
I bite my lip, fighting a smile. Cocky little shit.
Grey speaks, dragging me back to the conversation I’m supposed to be having. “I can’t deny I’m worried too.”
“Worried about what?” I say blankly, still looking at the boy.