Chapter 9
. . .
Reuben
I grab a beer from my hotel room’s fridge and throw myself into a chair with a weary sigh. “Fuck,” I breathe.
Dinner had been interesting. If it had been a social experiment to see just how much Xavier could wind up Jez, it would have been incredibly successful.
My lips tilt. Xavier’s proving to be preternaturally talented in getting under Jez’s skin.
Jez isn’t typically ruled by his temper, but he got on the back foot with Xavier, and Jez is rising like a fish to all of Xavier’s bait.
And Xavier? He just smiles and coos. I retrieve my phone from my pocket and stare at the screen. I’m debating whether to call Grey or open Grindr, when there’s a quiet knock.
It’s so quiet I’m wondering if I’m hearing the people in the next room. But the next muffled sound is definitely on the door to my room.
There’s only person who would try to knock that quietly. A person who knows he shouldn’t be knocking at all.
I set my phone on the table, walk over to the door, and throw it open. “No,” I say harshly. “Absolutely not.”
Xavier pouts. “Well, that’s not a terribly welcoming statement. You should work on your delivery.”
“As you’re not turning around and running for the lift, I’d say that’s not true. What do you want?”
“I need to speak to you.”
I fold my arms over my chest. It’s rather a defensive pose but who could blame me? “So, speak.”
“Well, now I can’t. You’ve given me performance anxiety.”
I sigh. “That is just not even remotely true.”
“So can I come in?”
“You don’t need to be in my room to talk to me.”
He taps his lip, running his finger over the full bottom one. It’s pillowy, and I know it’s as soft as silk. I want to take a bite out of it so desperately that I can feel it in my blood.
“I actually think I do,” he says.
“I’m certain we can have it anywhere.”
“Not if it’s naked.”
“Ah. No.” I wag my finger at him, which seems to amuse him, and I fight the urge to groan. “We are never doing that again.”
“I hate to quote Daddy Dearest—”
“Please don’t call him that.”
“But he was right. You are a complete joy suck.”
My lip twitches, but I need to shut this down before we make a bad situation infinitely worse. “I think you should go back to your room and forget you know the number of mine.”
He hums. “I’m not terribly forgetful. I’m afraid it’s a deep flaw in my character,” he says sadly.
“Xavier,” I warn him.
I’m about to shut the door in his face, but movement catches my eye from along the corridor. Jez’s door starts to open.
“Shit,” I say. And rather than doing a thousand other things, I choose the nuclear option and drag Xavier into the room. I manage to shut the door behind him quickly and, I hope, quietly.
He responds with a combination of a squark and laughter.
“Shut up,” I hiss, pressing him against the door with my body and listening intently.
“Can I just say—?”
“No. Stop talking.”
“Man, your foreplay is excellent. Now call me a bitch and pull my hair.”
“What?” I pull back, abandoning my mission of listening for Jez. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” he says demurely. “Can I give you your present now?”
I step back, and he remains spread out over the door in an exaggerated cartoon fashion that shouldn’t make me want to laugh. Then I remember what he’s just said. “What present?” I ask warily. “It’s not anything sexual, is it?”
“Of course not. I’m not that sort of boy,” he says piously.
“We both know that’s not true. Well, where is it?” I snap.
“You must be such a delight at Christmas.”
I laugh, and he watches me with his eyes twinkling. Then he steps away from the door. “Am I okay to enter the room fully, or are you planning on having a coronary incident before that happens?”
“Does anyone plan that?”
He tuts. “Well?”
I sigh. “Okay.”
He wanders into the room, and I watch as he strolls around picking up things and putting them down.
He lifts a bottle of cologne and sniffs it, takes a sip from my beer and opens the book on my bedside table, rifling through the pages.
He sets it down and then runs his finger along the jacket on my bed.
I repress a shudder. It’s almost as if he’s putting his hand on me.
“Xavier,” I warn him.
“Reuben,” he says in a sing-song voice. He walks over to my camera bag. “May I?”
I try to glare at him. “You haven’t asked permission so far.”
“Ah, but this possession means more to you than anything else here. You’d leave everything else behind and happily watch the world burn, but not this one.”
I stare at him, struck into silence. How does he know that?
“Well?” he prompts.
I wave a hand. “Go ahead.”
He opens the bag and pulls out my camera. It looks battered in his hands, the metal scratched and dinged in places. “It’s not as heavy as I thought,” he says.
“It wouldn’t be much good if I needed a winch every time I took a photo.” I try for a casual shrug, but his keen eyes seem to be picking up on my tension.
He’s quiet as he looks down at the old bag. It’s covered in embroidered patches from countries we’ve visited. He raises his eyebrow, and I wrinkle my nose.
“Jez always buys me a new one whenever we go anywhere. It’s kind of our thing.”
“Ah, you seem to have a lot of those.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” He holds up the camera and points it at me, looking through the viewfinder. “I think it’s broken.”
I clear my throat. “Ah, you sort of need to take off the lens cap.”
He lowers the camera and gives in to a peal of laughter with no trace of embarrassment. “I would never have guessed,” he says, rubbing his eyes.
I stare at him, charmed. Of course, I’ve only known him a short time, but I get the sense Xavier has a core of invincibility, that he takes the kicks life gives him and simply bounces back like a rubber ball.
Some of his confidence is typical nineteen-year-old boldness, but much of his self-knowledge seems uniquely him.
I’ve certainly never met anyone like him.
I reach forward and remove the lens cap, and he smiles his thanks and pans the camera around the room, looking through the viewfinder. “What was the first photo you ever took?” he asks.
I lean back against the wall, trying for more casualness. “It was a picture of an arcade game. In my defence, I was seven.”
He lowers the camera. His eyes are very bright. “Who bought you your first camera?”
I smile at the thought. “My godmother. I spent an entire summer with an old camera of hers, taking pictures of completely random shit, but when I showed her the fifty photos of a ladybird, she acted as if I had become the new David Bailey and bought me my own camera.
His smile is almost wistful. “She sounds wonderful.”
“She is. She’s also wilful, stubborn, and far too emotional for me.”
“Does that mean she smiles every few years and likes to have a conversation once a millennium?” he asks sympathetically.
I laugh, the sound so light and easy it startles me. “Maybe. But she’s my person. She gave me unconditional support and love when no one else was left to do it. I don’t know where I’d be without her.”
“I suppose that’s a bit like my grandparents.” He takes a snap of the yucca plant in the corner of the room and looks at it. “Perfect,” he pronounces in a dreadful French accent, and I can’t help my grin.
“Are you close to them?”
He considers that for a few seconds. “Not as much as I could be, but that’s neither of our faults. We just don’t agree on important stuff.”
“What stuff?”
He shrugs. “They didn’t want me in their lives, and I wholeheartedly disagreed on that one when I was little.”
“Surely that’s not true,” I say softly, my heart clenching. It can’t be true. Who wouldn’t want this lovely boy around?
He smiles at me, and this time it’s one of those rare, real ones that light both his face and eyes. “Thank you, but it is as it is, and that’s fine. My mother was wild, and no matter how hard they’ve tried, my grandparents have never quite managed to get that out of me either.”
I straighten, the alarm flaring. “What do you mean, tried?”
He looks at me, arrested, and the moment elongates. Then he shrugs casually. “Don’t worry. Nothing awful. They’ve always been kind, and I’ve never lacked for anything.”
How about fierce, unconditional love, sunshine? Who gave you that?
He sets the camera down and wanders to look at the pile of books on the nightstand. “Wow. Paper books really do it for you, eh?” he says.
I laugh. “Please don’t say it as if I’ve emerged from the Victorian era.”
“Were you born in that era?”
I raise my middle finger, and he gives a lusty chuckle. “I must admit I do prefer paper,” I say. “I read on my Kindle when I’m on the road, but given a choice, it would always be a paperback. Besides, some of what I read are only available in that format.”
“Is that because they were written before the Norman Conquest?” I laugh again and watch as he traces his finger down the titles. “Afghanistan?” he asks.
I lick my lips. “Yes. That’s where we’re going next.”
“You’ve been before?”
“A couple of times.”
“And how was it?”
I open my mouth to give him the usual sop about what a beautiful place it is, but instead, what comes out is, “Like a nightmare.”
“Why?” he asks steadily, his face unusually inscrutable.
“Beautiful and yet terrible. Filled with the highs of human warmth and yet also the terrible coldness of their behaviour.” I force a smile. “Nought out of ten for an experience. Highly don’t recommend it to you.”
He shrugs. “Ah, I get lost far too easily. If I tried to get there, I’d end up in Skegness. Not to mention catching a plane on time gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
I’m so fascinated with him, it’s ridiculous. “Why do you think that is?”
“Well, my therapist says it’s a desire to fulfil my grandparents’ expectations of manners that wars with my own chaotic nature.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just know I want to be late and don’t manage it very often. I’m always horribly on time. Does that sound weird?”
“Not really. Your therapist might be right.”